He had never been in a church nor heard one word in the Bible, and yet, with a far-away light in his eyes, he used to talk of immortality and infinite love. "Love is everlasting life," he would say, "love is eternal."
His poor old mother did not understand him, and she was often troubled on his behalf. She used to plead with him to stay with her more and not to give up his life so completely to others.
"Why," she would argue plaintively, "even the great clergymen who preach in the grand churches, and who are said to be the best of men, do not risk their lives and love others as you do. They seldom come here where everybody is so poor." Once he asked her to tell him what the clergymen taught, and when she tried to explain the creeds of the different denominations, he shook his head and turned pale with perplexity and pain.
"I cannot understand," he said sorrowfully. "It all makes my heart ache. It seems to me that the church-members, too, are in the dark. Love is food for the soul and they are starving. People everywhere are dying in crime and pain and no one offers to help them."
One day, after he had been laboring for a week without sufficient food and sleep among the fever-stricken poor, he fell ill, and his mother thought he was about to die. She ran, her gray locks streaming in the wind, to the parsonage of a little church near by and inquired for the minister, but was told by his wife that he had been gone for several weeks to a watering place in the mountains. The old woman ran on further, till she came to a great church whose majestic spire seemed to touch the clouds. A stately rectory was near. Soft music, mingled with merry voices, came out to her through the open doors. Awkwardly and tremblingly she went up the polished marble steps and rang. A servant in livery told her gruffly that his master was dining with his bishop and other distinguished personages, and that she would have to wait.
She replied with a groan that she feared her son was dying. The man went to his master and came back saying, "He cannot see you now."
She sat down in the great hall and tried to pray. Before her hung a costly painting representing Jesus with a child in his arms, a lamb at his side. She smelt the fragrance of flowers, and heard the clinking of wine-glasses, the tinkling of silver and rare china, short speeches and laughter.
"The dean, it seems," she heard the bishop say, "was reproving one of the young clergymen for becoming intoxicated. The young scamp's reply quite took the dean off his feet. 'If I mistake not, sir,' said the young priest, 'the liquor I drank came from your celebrated art-gallery and bar-room.'"
This story was greeted by hearty laughter, and then the old woman heard the bishop giving a description of a new yacht which he had just bought. By and by the rector came out. His cheeks were slightly flushed, his manner betrayed impatience."