Ruth Erskine's Crosses

by Pansy

CHAPTER VI.
FROM DIFFERENT STANDPOINTS.

ALTHOUGH the First Church prayer meeting had gone several steps onward, gotten beyond the region of distressing pauses, wherein the embarrassed people looked at each other and wished something would happen, it was by no means the free, social, enjoyable gathering that a prayer-meeting ought to be. A life-long education of too rigid propriety—in other words, false propriety—is not to be overcome in an hour. Therefore, after those who were more accustomed to occupying the time had filled their space there came a lull, not long, not distressing. Those Chautauqua girls were all present, and any one of them would have led in a hymn rather than let the pause stretch out. But it was long enough for people to wonder whether the hour was not almost gone, and whether there were any others who would get their lips open that evening; and then they heard a strange voice: clear, steady, well-managed, as one accustomed to the sound of her own voice, even in public places, and it belonged to the stranger sitting beside Judge Erskine—none other than his daughter Susan. The words she uttered were these: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, if it is your fortune to be a regular attendant at a prayer-meeting where a woman’s voice is never heard, you can appreciate the fact that the mere recitation of a Bible verse, by a “sister” in the church, was a startling, almost a bewildering innovation. Only a few months before, I am not sure but some of the good people would have been utterly overwhelmed by such a proceeding. But they had received many shocks of late. The Spirit of God coming into their midst had swept away many of their former ideas, and therefore they bore this better.

But the voice went on, clear, steady, as well sustained as though it belonged to a deacon in the church. “I have been all day,” it said, “dwelling under the shadow of that verse, ‘Peace with God!’ It expresses so much! Peace is greater than joy, or comfort, or rest. I think the words come to perplexed lives with such power. When we do not see the way clearly; when we are beset with difficulties; when disappointments thicken around us, we can still look up to God and say, ‘Up there, where Father is, it is peace.’ He sees the way plainly and He will lead us right through the thickets to the sunlight of His eternal presence. I felt this verse specially one day. Something occurred in which I had to bear a prominent part. For a time I was perplexed—was not sure what was right—and, afterward, my friends thought that I did not make the right decision, and I felt afraid that perhaps I had not, and it troubled me. Then I rested my heart on this word: ‘justified.’ Not because I have done right; not because my judgment is correct; not because of any act of mine in any direction save that one of trusting in my Lord, justified by faith! I am so glad that however much we may disappoint and try our friends, and our own hearts, in the sight of the great and wise and pure God, we are justified through Jesus Christ.”

Simple words were these, simply and quietly spoken. The speaker had spent all her life in one place and all her Christian life in one church. In that church it had been her custom to give her word of testimony. Sometimes it was a verse of a hymn that she recited, sometimes it was a text of Scripture, sometimes it was a touch of her own experience. She had grown up with the custom. She did not realize that there were any who had not. It did not occur to her that to the ears of the First Church people this might be a strange sound. So there had been no flutter or embarrassment, no self-consciousness of any sort; simply out of the fullness of her heart she had spoken. The effect on those about her was obvious and various. Judge Erskine’s hand, that rested on the knob of his gold-headed cane, trembled visibly; Mrs. Senator Seymour, who sat behind him, looked indignant, and felt that Judge Erskine had had enough to endure before this, but this was really too much! Marion Wilbur, who was present, and who did wear her old brown dress, “sticking to it to the very last,” sat erect, with glowing cheeks and eyes that were bright with excitement. To fully understand her excitement I shall have to tell you about a little conversation she had just before starting for church.

“Marion,” Dr. Dennis had said, as he waited in the stuffy parlor for her to draw on her gloves, “I wish you were a very brave young woman, and liked innovations, and were willing to make a startling one to-night.”

“Which you believe I am not, and will not, I conclude,” she had replied, laughing; and stopping before him with a mock bow, added:

“Thank you; I believe you are correct about part of it, at least. I certainly feel very meek and quiet to-night, whatever I may have been in the past. What do you want done?”