Part 30 (2/2)

Mrs. Grier had followed them, and heard Helen say in a low voice, ”I would rather not go to church this afternoon, dearest. May I wait for you here?”

”Well,” she broke in, ”I shouldn't suppose you would care to go, so long as it's just about the ways and means of sending the gospel to the heathen, and you think they're all going right to heaven, any way.”

”I do not know where they are going, Mrs. Grier,” Helen said wearily; ”for all I know, there is no heaven, either. I only know that G.o.d--if there is a G.o.d who has any personal care for us--could not be so wicked and cruel as to punish people for what they could not help.”

”Good land!” cried Mrs. Grier, really frightened at such words, and looking about as though she expected a judgment as immediate as the bears which devoured the scoffing children.

”If you would rather not go,” John answered, ”if you are tired, wait for me here. I am sure Mrs. Grier will let you lie down and rest until it is time to start for home?”

”Oh, of course,” responded Mrs. Grier, foreseeing a chance for further investigation, for she, too, was to be at home.

But Helen did not invite her to come into the spare room, when she went to lie down, after John's departure for church. She wanted to be alone.

She had much to think of, much to reconcile and explain, to protect herself from the unhappiness which John's sermon might have caused her.

She had had an unmistakable shock of pain and distress as she realized her husband's belief, and to feel even that seemed unloving and disloyal.

To Helen's mind, if she disapproved of her husband's opinions on what to her was an unimportant subject, her first duty was to banish the thought, and forget that she had ever had it. She sat now by the open window, looking out over the bright garden to the distant peaceful hills, and by degrees the pain of it began to fade from her mind, in thoughts of John himself, his goodness, and their love. Yes, they loved one another,--that was enough.

”What does it matter what his belief is?” she said. ”I love him!”

So, by and by, the content of mere existence unfolded in her heart, and John's belief was no more to her than a dress of the mind; his character was unchanged. There was a momentary pang that the characters of others might be hurt by this teaching of the expediency of virtue, but she forced the thought back. John, whose whole life was a lesson in the beauty of holiness--John could not injure any one. The possibility that he might be right in his creed simply never presented itself to her.

Helen's face had relaxed into a happy smile; again the day was fair and the wind sweet. The garden below her was fragrant with growing things and the smell of damp earth; and while she sat, drinking in its sweetness, a sudden burst of children's voices reached her ear, and Ellen and the two little boys came around the corner of the house, and settled down under the window. A group of lilacs, with feathery purple blossoms, made a deep, cool shade, where the children sat; and near them was an old grindstone, streaked with rust, and worn by many summers of sharpening scythes; a tin dipper hung on the wooden frame, nearly full of last night's rain, and with some lilac stars floating in the water.

This was evidently a favorite playground with the children, for under the frame of the grindstone were some corn-cob houses, and a little row of broken bits of china, which their simple imagination transformed into ”dishes.” But to-day the corn-cob houses and the dishes were untouched.

”Now, children,” Ellen said, ”you sit right down, and I'll hear your catechism.”

”Who'll hear yours?” Bobby asked discontentedly. ”When we play school, you're always teacher, and it's no fun.”

”This isn't playing school,” Ellen answered, skillfully evading the first question. ”Don't you know it's wicked to play on the Sabbath? Now sit right down.”

There was a good deal of her mother's sharpness in the way she said this, and plucked Bobby by the strings of his pinafore, until he took an uncomfortable seat upon an inverted flower-pot.

Ellen opened a little yellow-covered book, and began.

”Now answer, Jim! How many kinds of sin are there?”

”Two,” responded little Jim.

”What are these two kinds, Bob?”

”Original and actual,” Bob answered.

”What is original sin?” asked Ellen, raising one little forefinger to keep Bobby quiet. This was too hard a question for Jim, and with some stumbling Bobby succeeded in saying,--

”It is that sin in which I was conceived and born.”

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