There is a way of praying about a soul with whom we are offended—or, at least, we call it praying—which is simply pouring out one's knowledge of that person's shortcomings in an almost vindictive way before the One whom we almost unconsciously feel ought to come to our help and administer rebuke. Claire honestly prayed for Louis Ansted's mother. Her eyes must be opened, but how? Must it be that they were to be opened by the utter ruin of her only son?
That this might not be necessary, Claire prayed, and rose up presently, almost forgetful that she had received deep wounds, and quite ready to shield that mother's shortcomings from her children.
CHAPTER XXIV.
RECOGNITION.
AND now I desire you to imagine the worshipers gathered one morning in the little church at South Plains. The winter over and gone; the time of the singing of birds and of sweet-scented flowers had come. The marvel of the annual resurrection from the grave of winter was being lived over again in nature. But within the sanctuary it seemed more than resurrection, almost creation. Was it the same church at all? What had become of the dusty floors, and the smoky walls, and the rusty stove-pipe, and the smoking stoves, and the square table, and the swaying, faded, red curtains, and the faded and worn ingrain rag which had covered the platform, and the dust, and the rust and the dreariness? What a strange effect that paper of a quiet tint, and yet with a suggestion of sunlight in it, had on those hitherto bare and smoky walls! How high the frescoing made the ceiling look! What an excellent imitation of "real" were the carefully-grained seats! How perfectly the carpet harmonized in pattern and coloring with the paper on the walls! Small wonder, this last, if you had known how many patient hours mamma and Dora had spent in reaching the important decision, "Which shall we send?"
As for the pulpit, it was "real," without any paint about it, and so neat, and pretty, and graceful, that the girls had exhausted all adjectives on it. And really, the stove-pipe, though it wandered about according to some wild freak that was considered necessary in order to "draw," did not look so objectionable now that it was real Russia; and nothing could glow more brilliantly than the stoves, which smoked no more. Engineer Bud had been a success.
Still, I know that I can not make you realize the difference in that church. Unless you were there on that dreary winter morning when Claire Benedict first looked upon it with utter sinking of heart, and then were there again on that spring morning, and caught the breath of the flowers, and saw the shimmer of awakened life over everything within and without, you will never understand it. Unless, indeed, you look up some other man-forsaken sanctuary, and try the delightful experiment of transformation.
There were those in South Plains who knew and felt the difference.
They gathered softly, the worshipers, the men on tiptoe, though they need not have done that, for the heavy carpet gave back no sound of footfall, but it was one of their ways of expressing admiration and reverence. They gave quick, admiring, amazed glances about them, then riveted their eyes, as the workers had meant they should, on the motto which glowed before them, strung from lamp to lamp in some spirit-like fashion which those unacquainted with the management of silver ware cannot comprehend, and which made the triumphant announcement: "The Lord is in his holy temple." And I tell you that, so much has the outward and tangible to do with our spiritual vision, there were those present who grasped this stupendous fact for the first time.