XXV
A SELECT CONGREGATION
Grandfather was right. The Good Shepherd had brought Gordon back. I am quite at a loss to tell just how the change came about, or what its actual evidences were—but the great ministry in accomplishing it was the ministry of sorrow. Sorrow and love—that ever undivided pair—seemed to have conspired for their perfect work. It began, I think, with the crushing weight that fell upon our hearts in the loss of Harold and in all the shame and anguish connected with it. That was God's way, I have always thought, of teaching Gordon how much a father's heart can suffer—and the inevitable outcome of that is the Cross itself if God our Father be. How could His love escape love's inevitable pain, any more than ours? Then, besides, grandfather's home-going had been a second ordination for Gordon, and the ministry that followed was new and beautiful. So was mine, if I may designate my poor service by such a lofty word; for now I knew beyond a peradventure that God hears and answers prayer. I verily believe grandfather and I prayed him back between us.
The very day after Gordon's father entered into rest I was sitting in the gloaming, thinking of the life that had gone from us; one never knows how dear is an aged life, till the silver-haired presence is withdrawn. And I heard something that started my heart singing heavenward with gratitude.
Gordon and Dorothy were at the piano, on which our daughter now loved to show her new-found skill. And softly on the evening air there floated out to me the strains of the hymn he had asked her to play. Surely there is no music, this side of heaven, so sweet as that which a man's strong voice and a girl's fluttering note combine to make.
"We'll sing it again," I heard Gordon saying; "every word is golden, Dorothy. Come now:
'Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin
Let His little child come in'"
and then followed some words of Gordon's which I could hardly catch. But I heard enough to know that he was teaching our little girl the great and blessed doctrine which he himself had learned by his mother's knee. How I gloried in this new theology, asserting once again its holy spell upon my husband's heart, no human tongue can tell.
The months went by. And if ever a man was happy in his work, that man was Gordon Laird. In his work, I say—for our home lay still under the shadow of its great and bitter sorrow. After one or two unsatisfactory letters, followed by a final one of despairing note, no word had come from Harold. This was what Gordon had feared. Those months stand out before me now, each one almost separate in its pain, like sombre mountain peaks robed in cloud. I know all about the anguish of those who roam some desert waste searching for a spring, or with parched lips upturned to the unsoftening skies. The slowly dying hope, the burning fever whenever I heard the postman's knock, the sickening disappointment, all surge again like a turgid flood about me when I allow my mind to dwell on those days of silence.
Yet if I suffered I believe Gordon, in a deep, silent way, suffered even more. My heart ached more for him than for myself. I almost came to change my mind as to which of the children had first place in Gordon's heart—it seemed to cry out now for Harold as for nothing else on earth. Although, and I write it gladly for the comfort of some like stricken soul, all this worked its gracious ministry upon his troubled life. Embattled long as his spirit had been with inward misgiving and silent doubt, this last dark mystery would have wrought sore havoc, I cannot but believe, had it not been so terrible. Its very fierceness of attack drove him in upon the Lord whom he had found afresh; and his soul found its comfort in simplicity of faith and childlike urgency of prayer. The songs we shall sing in the Yonderland shall give their chiefest praise for the burdens that were too heavy to be borne alone.
I have spoken of Gordon's urgency of prayer. It was he, not I, who suggested that we should have a set time, every morning, when we should pray for nothing else but this—that Harold might be brought back to us. And it was Gordon, not I, who led Dorothy to include in her evening prayer the plea that God would bring her brother home.