Ethel, sitting beside her, certainly found here something that brought her back Sunday after Sunday, and made her a zealous helper in the church activities. Bigoted and intolerant, unkind and ungenerous as Ethel was, there was something in her devotion to the church that set her a little apart, spoke for something fine in her, that for the moment caused Grace a twinge of envy. In her early youth she had “joined” the West End church that her mother attended; but before she left high school the connection had ceased to interest her. Dr. Ridgley’s congregation was composed largely of the prosperous and well-to-do. Did these people about her really order their lives in keeping with the teachings of Jesus? Was the Christian life a possible thing? Were these women in their smart raiment really capable of living in love and charity with their neighbors, eager to help, to serve, to save? Absorbed in her own thoughts she missed the text; found herself studying the minister, a young man of quiet manner and pleasing voice. Then detached sentences arrested her truant thoughts, and soon she was giving his utterances her complete attention.
... “Leaving God out of the question,” he was saying, “what excuse have we to offer ourselves if we fail to do what we know to be right? We must either confess to a weakness in our own fibre, or lay the burden on some one else. We must be either captain or slave.... We hear much about the changed spirit of the time. It is said that the old barricades no longer shield us from evil; that the checks upon our moral natures are broken down; that many of the old principles of uprightness and decent living have been superseded by something new, which makes it possible for us to do very much as we please without harm to our souls. Let us not be deceived by such reasoning. There’s altogether too much talk about the changes that are going on. There are no new temptations; they merely wear a new guise. The soul and its needs do not change; the God who ever lives and loves does not change.... There’s a limit upon our capacity for self-deception. We may think we are free, but at a certain point we find that after all we are the prisoners of conscience.
“The business of life is a series of transactions between the individual soul and God. We can change that relationship only by our own folly. We can deceive ourselves with excuses; but the test of an excuse is whether it will pass muster with God. God is not mocked; we can’t ‘just get by’ with God. We may be sure that we are pretty close to a realization of the Christian life when we feel that we have an excuse for any sin or failure that we dare breathe into a prayer. There’s hope for all of us as long as our sins are such that we’re not ashamed to carry them to God.... Let us live on good terms with ourselves first of all and with God be the rest. Let us keep in harmony with that power above us and beyond us which in all ages has made for righteousness.”...
The minister was uttering clearly and forcibly the thoughts that had been creeping through her own mind like tired heralds feebly crying warning to a threatened fortress. Captain or slave, that was the question. She had told Trenton that she was afraid of the answers to vexed problems of life and conduct. She saw now the cowardice of this. Her intelligence she knew to be above the average, and her conscience had within twenty-four hours proved itself to be uncomfortably sensitive and vigilant. There might be breaks in the old moral barriers but if this were really true it would be necessary for her to stumble over the debris to gain the inviting freedom of the territory beyond. No; there would be no excuse for her if she failed to fashion something fine and noble of her life.
In the vestibule Ethel introduced her to the minister, who greeted her warmly and praised Ethel; she was one of his standbys he said. While he and Ethel were conferring about some matter connected with the young people’s society Grace was accosted by a lady whom she identified at once as her first customer at Shipley’s.
“Do I know you or not?” demanded Miss Reynolds pleasantly. “Hats make such a difference, but I thought I recognized you. I’ve been away so many years that I look twice at every one I meet. I was caught in England by the war and just stayed on. It gives you a queer feeling to find yourself a stranger in your native town. It was silly of me to stay away so long. Well, how are things going with you?”
“Just fine,” Grace answered, noting that Miss Reynolds wore one of the suits she had sold her, and looked very well in it.
The old lady (the phrase was ridiculous in the case of one so alert and spirited) caught the glance; indeed nothing escaped the bright eyes behind Beulah Reynolds’ spectacles. She bent toward Grace and whispered: “This suit’s very satisfactory!” And then: “Well, we’ve caught each other in a good place. My grandfather was one of the founders of this church, so I dropped in to have a look. Haven’t seen more than a dozen people I used to know. There was a good deal of sense in that sermon; the best I’ve heard in years. They don’t scatter fire and brimstone the way they used to.”
One would have thought from her manner that she was enormously relieved to find that fire and brimstone had been abandoned as a stimulus to the Christian life.
“I’m not a member,” said Grace, “but my sister is. I never heard Dr. Ridgley before. I liked his sermon; I think I needed it.”