When at length he drew near the clearing in the forest, he both trembled and rejoiced, at the thought of soon being able to deliver his message to the woodmen. Coming yet nearer, however, he no longer saw any blue smoke curling up in a thin spiral between the straight stems of the forest trees. Neither did he hear any sound of saws sawing timber, or the men shouting to their horses. The whole place was silent and deserted. When he reached the clearing, nobody was there. Even the huts had gone. He would have thought he had mistaken the place if the dining-shanty had not been there, by the edge of a little trickling stream, just as he remembered it.
Nowhere was there a living soul to be seen. Evidently all the woodmen had gone away deeper into the forest to find fresh timber, for the clearing was much larger and many more trees had been cut down than on Stephen's first visit. The neglected look of the one big wooden hut that remained showed that the men had not used it for many days. Weeks might pass before any of the woodcutters returned.
What was Stephen to do? He had no idea in which direction the woodmen had departed. It was hopeless to think of tracking them further through the lonely forest glades. Had the Voice made a mistake? Could he have misunderstood the command? Was the whole expedition a failure? Must he return home with his message still undelivered? His heart burned within him at the thought, and he said, half aloud, 'No, no, no!'
There was only one way out of the difficulty, the same way that had helped him to learn his Latin lesson years ago when he was a little boy. But it was no tiny mossy track now, it was a broad, well-marked road travelled daily, hourly, through long years,—this Prayer way that led his soul to God. Tying up his horse to the nearest tree, Stephen knelt down on the carpet of red-brown pine-needles, and put up a wordless prayer for guidance and help. Then he began to listen.
Through the windless silence of the forest spaces the Voice came again more clearly than ever, saying: 'GIVE YOUR MESSAGE. IT IS NOT YOURS BUT MINE.' Stephen hesitated no longer. He went straight into the dining-shanty. He strode past the bare empty tables, under which the long grass and flowers were already growing thick and tall. He went straight up to the end of the room, and there, standing on a form, as if the place had been filled with one or two hundred eager listeners, although no single human being was to be seen, he PREACHED, as he had never yet preached in his life. The Love of God, the 'Love that will not let us go,' seemed to him the most real thing in the whole world. All his life he had longed to find an anchor for his soul. Now that he had found it, he must help others to find it too. Why doesn't everyone find it? Ah! there he began to speak of sin; how sin builds up a wall between our hearts and God; how, in Jesus Christ, that wall has been thrown down once for all, and now there is nothing to keep us apart except our own blindness and pride; and how if we will only turn round and open our hearts to Him, He is longing to come in and dwell with us.
As Stephen went on, he pleaded yet more earnestly. He thought of the absent woodcutters. He felt that he loved every single one of those wild, rough men; and if he loved them, he, a stranger, how much more dear must they be to their heavenly Father. 'Grant me to win each single soul for Thee, O Lord,' he pleaded, 'each single soul for Thee.'
Where were they all now, these men to whom he had come to speak? He could not find them. But God could. God was their shepherd. Even if His messenger failed, the Good Shepherd would seek on until He found each single wandering soul that He loved. 'And when the shepherd findeth the lost sheep, after leaving the ninety and nine in the wilderness, how does he bring it home? Does he whip it? Does he threaten it? No such thing! he carries it on his shoulder and deals most tenderly with the poor, weary, wandering one.'
While he was speaking he thought of the absent woodcutters with an evergrowing desire to help them. He thought of the hard lives they were forced to lead, of the temptations they must meet with daily, and of the lack of all outward help towards a better life. As he repeated the words again, 'Grant me, O Lord, to win these lost sheep of Thine back to Thee and to Thy service; help me to win each single soul for Thee,' he felt as if, somehow, his voice, his prayer, must reach the men he sought, even though hundreds of miles of desolate forest lay between. Towards the end of his sermon, the tears ran down his cheeks. At last, utterly exhausted by the strength of his desire he sat down once more, and, throwing his arms on the rough board before him, he hid his face in his hands.
A long time passed; the silence grew ever more intense. At last Stephen lifted his head. He felt as tired as if he had gone a long journey since he entered the wooden building. Yet it was all exactly the same as when he had come in an hour before,—the rows of empty forms and the bare tables, with grass and flowers growing up between them. Stephen's eyes wandered out through the open door. He noticed a thick mug of earthenware lying beside the path outside, evidently left behind by the woodcutters as not worth taking with them. A common earthenware mug it was, of coarse material and ugly shape; and cracked. As Stephen's eyes fell upon it, he felt as if he hated that mug more than he had ever before hated anything in his life. It seemed to have been left behind there, on purpose to mock him. Here he was with only an earthenware mug in sight, he who might have been surrounded by the exquisite and delicate porcelain that he remembered in his father's factory at Limoges. All that beauty and luxury belonged to him by right; they might still have been his, if only he had not listened for years to the Voice. And now the Voice had led him on this fool's errand. Here he was, preaching to nobody, and looking at a cracked mug. Was his whole life a mistake? a delusion? 'Am I a fool after all?' he asked himself bitterly.
He was in the sad, bitter mood that is called 'Reaction.' Strangely enough, it often seizes people just when they have done some particularly difficult piece of work for their Master. Perhaps it comes to keep them from thinking that they can finish anything in their own strength alone.