“I gather from what your brother says of your home-life that your father is not a servant of God.”
“No, my father has never been converted. I long to see him have a change of heart. His influence would be so much better with the children. But he seems to care nothing for the things of God, and it is a vexation to him that I am a Christian.”
“I am sorry that it should be so in your family,” said Mother Hilman, sympathetically, adding, “but of course you will stand true to God; for God makes all such things a help to his children if they will in faith look to him. Read your Bible much, Austin; and pray fervently, both for yourself and for your poor father. If you pray for your father with a loving heart, it will help you to bear more easily the conditions he causes in your home. And I am glad you find such joy in associating with spiritual people; many young men, and young women too for that matter, are led astray by wrong companionships.”
“Mrs. Hilman,” broke in Austin, “I enjoy the association of young people, and the friendship of godly young people is to me sweeter than any other earthly tie. But if the young people are not spiritual, then I find more pleasure in the company of older people who are spiritual, such as I find at the mission we attend. God is very near and dear to me, and so are his children; my only preference for the young people is because of my own youth.”
Mother Hilman noticed the degree of wisdom Austin showed in his conversation. She found him willing to take advice from one older in the Christian way, too, which, as she was wont to say, “means much to new hearts under young heads.”
Thus they talked of the deep personal experiences of grace and peace that are the Christian’s birthright. The things that were said were an uplift to Austin; but it was the sweet influence of love and confidence which helped him most. His heart was sore with contention and strife, and a day in this peaceful home did him good like a medicine.
CHAPTER 21. — LIKE THE TROUBLED SEA
Sometimes the waves of trouble roll over the soul like billows. There is no time for even a breath of quiet between the overflowing waves as they roll high over the soul. Austin had entered into such a season of tempest. He tried to reason out his duty, but could come to no satisfactory conclusion. He had promised God, the children, and his own soul that he would never desert the home again; but now he found himself facing the issue once more. So hard had come the battle between his father and himself that he was at a loss to know whether either duty or wisdom demanded of him to remain. Contention and strife were most distasteful to him. Yet it seemed that for him to maintain any degree of self-respect or to hold to any of his religious duties brought upon him such taunts from his father that the boy was at his wits’ end. And his father’s attitude snowed itself more and more in the children. Besides, he felt the call of youth in his nature, and he longed to get away from it all and fill his life with those things that his heart craved to do.