A Gamble with Life

by Silas K. Hocking

The fog was no longer an empty void. The silence was now and then broken by a sound of words, though the language was strange to his ears. There appeared to be a moral order which answered to his own need, and a moral order implied the existence of what he had so long denied.

His visit to his grandparents quickened his thoughts in the direction they had been travelling. Everything tended to serious reflection. The awful mystery and solemnity of life were forced upon him at all points. The old people walked and talked "as seeing Him who is invisible."

He was quietly amused when he returned from his long walk on Christmas day to find his grandfather and the young minister engaged in a heated argument on the barren and thorny subject of verbal inspiration. He would have stopped the discussion if he could, for he discovered that his grandfather was getting much the worst of the argument, and was losing his temper in consequence. But the old man refused to be silenced. Getting his chance of reply he poured out a torrent of words that swept everything before it, and to which there seemed to be no end.

Fortunately, tea was announced just as the young minister was about to reply, and over the tea-table conversation drifted into an entirely different channel. After tea the Rev. Reuben retired to his study accompanied by his wife, and Rufus and Mr. Brook were left in possession of the sitting-room.

As there was no evening service on Christmas Day the young minister felt free to relax himself. Conversation tripped lightly from point to point, from general to particular, from gay to grave, from serious to solemn.

They talked till supper time, and after supper Rufus walked with the young minister to his lodgings, and remained with him till long after midnight. The conversation was a revelation to Rufus in many ways. Marshall Brook was a scholar as well as a thinker. He was as familiar with the German writers as with the English. He was alive to all modern questions, conversant with all the work of the higher critics, alive to all that was fundamental in the creeds of the Churches, contemptuous of the narrowness and bigotry that brought religion into contempt, tolerant of all fresh light, patient and even sympathetic with every form of human doubt, and large-hearted and clear-eyed enough to see that there was good in everything.

Marshall Brook had often heard of his predecessor's sceptical grandson, and was glad of the opportunity of meeting him, and was charmed with him when they did meet. It was easy to discover where the shoe pinched, easy to see how and when the revolt began, easy to trace the successive steps from doubt to denial, from unbelief to blank negation.

Rufus talked freely and well. He knew that the young minister regarded him as an infidel, and he thought he might as well live up to the description. Marshall Brook led him on by easy and almost imperceptible steps. His first business was to diagnose the case, and if possible to find out the cause. For the first hour he allowed all Rufus's arguments to go by default.

But when they got to close grips Rufus felt helpless. This young scholar could state his case better than he could state it himself. He had traversed all the barren and thorny waste, and much more carefully than Rufus had ever done. He knew the whole case by heart; knew every argument and every objection. He tore the flimsy fabric of Rufus's philosophy to shreds and left him with scarcely a rag to cover himself with.