It was pathetic to see how much she thought of that diary of Uncle Derrick’s; he would take the greatest possible care never to let her see that it couldn’t by any possibility mean so much to him. It was fine, of course, to have a whole book written solely for one’s self, and if his uncle had known how to write half so well as Aunt Elsie thought he did, there would be interesting things in it about the new country and the pioneer times in which he lived; but as for its being so very wonderful, why, of course—Here he shrugged his shoulders and laughed a little. All the same, trust him for helping Aunt Elsie to think that he considered it the most wonderful book that was ever written.
This, before he had read a line of it. Before he had read half a dozen pages he had begun to realize that at least it was different from any book of which he had ever heard.
[CHAPTER IX]
A DECISION, AND A STORM
IT WAS a book that laid bare a heart; the heart of one who loved him with a love such as he had not imagined a man ever gave to any boy but his very own. “If he had been my father,” Derrick thought, as he read with bated breath, “he could not say more than that!” And the very next sentence seemed to voice his thought.
“You think that is extreme for just an uncle? Ah, but you don’t know, dear boy Dick—I am sure they call you Dick, they did me—that you are my boy, my very own; I have adopted you with my soul; there can not be any stronger tie than that. You see, you are all I have; you take the place to me of father, mother and brother; I have lost them all. There were reasons why I never had wife and children, so, my soul’s son, I have adopted you. I could wish that your name were Timothy, for I know I have the feeling for you that Paul had for his son. You read the Bible, don’t you, my boy? You will find what I mean if you study the love of those two. My boy, I want you to live my life for me, do my work in the world, be myself as I meant to be, and missed. Oh, I meant to do so much for father! I had such glorious plans to enrich his life! I failed him utterly; I made a mistake, but you will not; you will carry out for your father and your mother and your home all that I meant to do for mine, and didn’t; and you will do infinitely more; I feel in my very soul that you will be a better Derrick Forman than I could ever have been; don’t you dare to disappoint me, Dick; it would kill me.”
Derrick, the boy, drew an amazed, almost a frightened, breath. What a strange idea as though he could take another boy’s life and live it for him!
“It’s a lot more than I can do to live my own in the way it ought to be lived!” he muttered; but he read on, like one fascinated. Very soon he came to understand that the life of the man he was asked to represent had been hidden in another life.
“The fact is, Dick,” the record ran, “that I am dead; did you realize it? I have known it in a vague sort of way for a long time, but I don’t believe I ever realized it fully until this morning when I read it in the Book: ‘Ye are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ I stopped and laughed. ‘Why, of course!’ I said. ‘What a dolt I am not to have known that before! It was told me plainly enough, only I didn’t take it in.’ Ever since I was a youngster learning to read out of father’s big Bible at home I have known the verse: ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.’ Well, I am ‘in Christ.’ I am as sure of that as I am that I breathe; I surrendered to him, body, soul and spirit; all I was, all I am, all that I ever will be are his. Then, of course, the old Dick Forman is dead! Good! He wasn’t worth much; I am glad he is gone. I’m ‘a new creature,’ I live, ‘yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ ‘That sounds egotistical,’ do I hear you say? Yes, but I didn’t say it—that’s Bible, a blessed fact guaranteed by Christ himself. Now, you see, if you are to live my life for me the part that I missed must have this same experience; you must be a ‘new creature,’ Dick; the old one isn’t worth shucks! I don’t want to live his life; don’t you be persuaded into trying it; hide your life, hide it ‘with Christ in God’; only then will you begin to live. Oh, Dick Forman, my boy, my very self, given another chance! You will do this for me, won’t you?”
Derrick closed the book with a bang and laid it as far away from him as he could; was strangely moved, he was half awed, half indignant. “The man was insane!” he muttered. Yet he knew better. He had been a good Bible scholar in Sabbath school; those quoted verses were familiar to him; intellectually, at least, he understood something of their meaning but he had never thought of such a thing as applying them to himself. After a little he opened the book again; he re-read those same pages; he put the book from him several times, declaring that he would read no more; the most of it was simply the ravings of a lunatic. After a while he said he would wait until he was older; boys like him could not be expected to be interested in such queer notions; his Uncle Derrick lived so much alone that evidently his ideas had become misty, unreal, unintelligible. There were days together when the boy did not open the book, but passed it hurriedly, with a wish that he could forget it; there were hours when he hid it, and told himself that he would never touch it again, and always he went back to it and read again the very portions that had disturbed him. At times he was genuinely angry over the appeals in that uncanny book. He said that Uncle Derrick had no right to die and leave such a book to him; it was like trying to steal a fellow’s individuality. “A new creature,” quoted his memory, and he sneered; he didn’t want to be a new creature; he was well enough satisfied as he was. “Ye must be born again,” said a voice to his inner consciousness; said it plainly, solemnly. He looked about him, startled; there had been no real voice, he knew that; but it had seemed very real; and those were not the words of his dead uncle, it was Jesus who said that!
There came an evening when Derrick Forman, in the privacy of his locked room, got to his knees, with the written book spread open before him, and solemnly gave himself, body, soul, and spirit, to his uncle’s God for time and for eternity. It had been a hard struggle, unusually hard, for one so young and so well taught. Yet, perhaps, it was on account of the teaching that he was so slow in reaching a decision. Already temptations had assailed him which he knew must be overcome if he was to become the kind of man that his uncle’s Commander called for.