David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

To-night there was no call on him. The school-room was well filled, as there was a prospect of the winter roads breaking up early, so that people from a distance could not come for a while. Besides, it was not the usual prayer-meeting, but the preparatory lecture before the communion, and Mr Maxwell had the meeting altogether in his own hands; and perhaps there were others there as well as Jacob, who took the good of the thought that there was no special responsibility resting upon them for the night.

If it had been the regular meeting, it is possible that Jacob might have sat in his corner as usual, supposing himself to be attending to the words of Deacon Scott and old Mr Wainwright, and all the rest of them, and through habit and the associations of time and place, he might have fallen into old trains of thought which did not always exclude a glance over the business of the day, or a glance toward the business of to-morrow; and so the unwonted stir of fears and feeling which had moved him in the afternoon might have been set at rest, and the cloud of care and pain dissolved for the time. But Mr Maxwell had the word, and still moved and troubled, Jacob could not but listen with the rest.

It was not the minister’s usual way to give one of his elaborate written discourses on such an occasion as the present. There might be a difference of opinion among the people now and then, as to whether he gave them something better, or something not so good. But to-night the greater part of them did not remember to make any comparisons of that kind, but found themselves wondering whether anything had happened to the minister, so earnest and solemn was he both in word and manner to-night.

The words he spoke from were these, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” I could not give the discourse, even if it would be wise to do so. It was such an one as his hearers could not but listen to.

As he went on to tell them some of the wondrous things implied in being “risen with Christ,” the Head, crowned and glorious of the Church, “His body,” of which they were “the members,” and to insist on the seeking the “things above” as the result and sole evidence of this life from the dead, none listened more intently than did Jacob. And perhaps because of the unusual experience of the afternoon, he did not listen, as he was rather apt to do on common occasions, for the rest of the congregation, this for Deacon Scott, that for Mr Wainwright, the other for some one else, for whom it seemed a suitable portion; he listened for himself, with his father all the while in his mind. And when it came to the “result and evidence,” he had not, for the moment, a word to say for himself.

As for his father—well, his father had never made a public profession of faith in Christ. He had “kept aloof,” as the village people said, whatever had been his reasons. But it came into Jacob’s mind—moved and stirred out of its usual dull acceptance of things as they seemed—that to eyes looking deeper than the surface, his father’s life might count for more as “evidence” than his own profession could do. And as the minister put it, would even his father’s life count for much as “evidence” of his being “risen with Christ?” Whose life would?

“Mine would amount to just nothing!” was Jacob’s decision as he left the house, when the meeting was over, and having got thus far it might naturally be supposed that he would not rest until he got farther. He had got thus far many a time before, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches had done their part in the past to put the thought away, and they did the same again.

But not so readily this time. For Jacob was unsettled and anxious, longing for the help and counsel which his father could never give more—longing also, but not always, for the help which he knew his younger brother was capable of giving him if he would; and he asked himself often, whether it paid even for this world, to wear one’s self out for the making of money which one might lose, as he had done, and which all must leave, as his father was about to do.

But the day’s work had to be done, and the day’s cares met, and Jacob found himself after a little moving on in the old paths, not altogether satisfied with himself or his life, but pretty well convinced that though it might be well to take higher ground as to some things, both in his business and his religion, now was not the time for the change. And besides, he also believed in “the diversity of gifts,” as they were pleased to term it in Gershom. If he could not lead a meeting, or speak a word in season in private, as some of the brethren could do, he tried to use his influence on the right side in all moral and religious questions; and though he knew that there were several among the brethren who, if they could have seen their way clear, would perhaps have called in question the character of certain business transactions with which his name had got mixed up, he set over against the unpleasant fact the other fact, that no three of these men gave so much to sustain the cause of religion in the place as he did.

It might be considered doubtful whether the church itself would have been built, if he had not taken hold of it as he did. That had helped the coming in of the North Gore people, and that with other things had brought Mr Maxwell to them as their minister. Gershom would have been a different place, as to the state of morality and religion, if it had not been for the Holts—and when Jacob said the Holts in this connection, he meant himself, as far as the last ten years were concerned.