“Then, Thomas,” said the other earnestly, “you may be pleased to know that it was your hand that gave the first blows to the nail, though, it was my dear wife that was the means of driving it home. I often thought I could easily knock down your arguments, and, though I knew you had the best of it—for you had honesty and truth on your side—yet when I went home after one of our talks, I’ve vexed myself many a time by thinking, ‘Well, now, if I’d only thought of this or that thing, I might have floored him.’ But there was one thing that always floored me, and that was ‘the logic of the life;’ I couldn’t find an answer to that. And not only so, but, as I said a little while ago, I saw that the religion of Jesus Christ made you truly happy, and I knew that my free-thinking never did that for me nor for any of my like-minded companions; so that deep down in my heart a voice was constantly saying, ‘Tommy Tracks is right.’ And now I’m sure that he is so. Thomas, I now ask your friendship and your help, as I have already asked your forgiveness.”
Bradly wrung the other’s hand with a hearty grip, and then said, “You shall have them, William. I know you’ll be all the better for an earthly friend or two, for there’ll want a deal of backing up just at first. But oh, I’m so truly thankful that you and your missus have got the best Friend of all on your side, who will never leave you nor forsake you. Yes, come what will, you can go to One now who will keep peace in your conscience, peace in your heart and peace and love in your home.”
By Foster’s request, before they parted, Thomas Bradly knelt with them and offered a prayer. Ah, what a sight! Glorious even for angels to look down upon! Those three uniting in prayer—the old disciple; the blasphemer, persecutor, and injurious; and the till late Christless wife—all now one in Jesus, bowed at his footstool, while the humble servant of the Lord poured out his heart in simple, fervent supplication and praise, as all bent head and knee in the felt presence of the unseen God.
Next Sunday Foster was at church in the morning, and was there with his wife in the evening, Mrs Bradly having undertaken to look after the baby. As for Bradly himself, his face was a sight worth seeing on that Sunday. It was always brighter than usual on the Lord’s-day; but on this particular Sabbath every line of his features shone with a glow of gladness, as though, like Moses, he had just come down from the mount. It need hardly be said that the vicar’s heart also deeply rejoiced. As for the inhabitants of Crossbourne generally, some were glad, with a spice of caution in their gladness; some shook their heads and smiled, meaning thereby to let all men know that, in case Foster should not persevere in his new career, they, at any rate, had never been over-sanguine as to the genuineness of his reformation; some simply looked grave; while the profligate and the profane gnashed their teeth with envy hatred, and malice, and exchanged vehement asseverations of “how they’d pay off the sneaking humbug of a deserter, and no mistake.”
Chapter Eleven.
A Blighted Life.
Spring had come, but the cloud still rested on poor Jane Bradly. True, her heart was lighter, for she now believed with her brother that there was deliverance at hand for her, and that the mists were beginning to melt away. She was firmly persuaded that her character would be entirely cleared. But when? How soon would the waiting-time come to an end? And what good could come out of such a trouble? Here was the trial of her faith; but she bore it patiently, and the chastening was producing in her, even now, “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” She began to improve in health and strength, and had lost much of the look of abiding care; for the habitual peace of a mind stayed on God, and the consciousness of innocence as regarded the wrong-doing of which she had been suspected, kept her calm in the blessedness of a childlike trust.
But there was one who lived not far from her, a sister in affliction, about whose sad heart the clouds were gathering thicker and thicker. Spring, with its opening buds and rejoicing birds, brought no gladness to the spirit of Clara Maltby. She was gradually wasting away. Change of air and scene had been recommended, but she would not hear of leaving home, and clung with a distressing tenacity to her round of daily studies, shortening her brief time of exercise, and seeming anxious to goad herself into the attainment of the utmost amount of knowledge which it was possible for her to acquire, grudging every minute as lost and wasted time that was not given to study. To shine had become with her the one absorbing object; to shine, not, alas! for Christ, but for self, for the world, that she might gain the prize of human applause. So she was using the gifts with which God had endowed her, not to his glory, by laying them at the foot of the cross, and employing them as talents with which she was to occupy till the Master came, but as means whereby she might win for herself distinction, and outstrip others in the race for earthly fame. But such a strain on mind and body could not last; the overtaxed faculties would assert their claim for the much-needed rest; and so, in the early spring-time, Clara Maltby was suddenly stricken down and lay for days in a state of half-unconsciousness.