David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

It might have terribly spoiled the effect, but it did not. It gave poor Mark, who was no orator, and who, with his heart full, did not find the right words ready, a beginning.

“Yes, Tim Cuzner, it is Mark Varney, who hasn’t been seen in these parts for two years, nor for a good while before that, in his right mind—and you are the very man I want to talk to, Tim, you and a few others. I’ve got something to tell you. A few others? Yes, I’ve got something to say to every man in this Grove. I am not going in for a temperance lecture, though it wouldn’t be the first time. I was a living temperance lecture in the streets of Gershom for a long while, as Squire Holt and Jacob and all the folks here know.

“But I want to say a word to every young man here because there isn’t a young man in this Grove, I don’t care who he is, whose feelings as to liquor I don’t know all about. I know, and I remember this minute, just how it feels never to have tasted a drop. I remember how the first temptation to drink came to me, and I know how it feels after the first glass, and the second, and the third. I know just how strong and scornful a young man feels when folks begin to warn him, and how impossible it looks to him that danger should be near. I know every step of the dark way that leads down to the gates of death—to the very gates—for I have been there.

“I don’t know just how far down that road any of you young men may have got by this time, but I know that some of you are on it somewhere. I know where you used to be, Tim Cuzner, and you haven’t been standing still since then. No. Come now, don’t get mad and go away. If my life would help you to set your feet on solid ground in any other road, you should have it and welcome. But it wouldn’t; no, nor ten such lives.

“But I’ll tell you what will help you, and what every young man here who feels the curse of strong drink needs as much as you do, and what we all need to keep us safe from the temptations that are everywhere. There is only one thing in the earth beneath or the heaven above that will touch the spot, and that’s the grace of God!

“That doesn’t seem much, does it? The grace of God! You’ve heard old Mr Hollister tell about it time and again, and you’ve heard Mr Maxwell, and the folks in conference meeting talk of it, and it has got to seem to you just like a word, a name, and that’s all. But I tell you, Tim and boys, it is a power. I know it, for it has dealt with me and broken me to pieces, and made me over new.”

Mark was no orator, though he had the clear, firm, penetrating voice of one; but his words, because of the surprise of his presence, and the change which had been wrought in him, and because of his earnestness and simplicity, had on his audience all the effect of the loftiest eloquence. He had a great deal more to tell them of the darkness and misery and sin through which he was passing, when the minister found him and laid hands on him, and followed him day in and day out, and never got tired of him, nor discouraged about him, but laboured with him, and encouraged him, and gave him the hope that though he could not save himself, God could save him.

He tried to say a word about the night which they two passed together beside his wife’s coffin, but he broke down there, and went on to tell how he went away to give himself a chance, because it had seemed to him then, that if he should stay among his old companions and the daily temptations of his life nothing could save him.

He did not tell his mother, and he did not write to her, because at first he never knew what day his enemy might overcome him, and then she would have had to put away hope and take up her old burden again.

But he had fallen into good hands over yonder in the States, and he had much to tell of the kindness shown him there, and the Lord had stood by him and helped him, as He would help all who came to Him in their need.