Part 56 (1/2)
and in the hour when I daringly grasped the prerogative of G.o.d, His curse smote me! Mr. Hammond, friend of my happy youth, guide of my innocent boyhood! if you could know all the depths of my abas.e.m.e.nt, you would pity me indeed! My miserable heart is like the crater of some extinct volcano: the flames of sin have burned out, and left it rugged, rent, blackened. I do not think that--”
”St. Elmo, do not upbraid yourself so bitterly--”
”Sir, your words are kind and n.o.ble and full of Christian charity; they are well meant, and I thank you; but they cannot comfort me. My desolation, my utter wretchedness isolate me from the sympathy of my race, whom I have despised and trampled so relentlessly. Yesterday I read a pa.s.sage which depicts so accurately my dreary isolation, that I have been unable to expel it; I find it creeping even now to my lips:
”'O misery and mourning! I have felt--Yes, I have felt like some deserted world That G.o.d hath done with, and had cast aside To rock and stagger through the gulfs of s.p.a.ce, He never looking on it any more; Unfilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired, Nor lighted on by angels in their flight From heaven to happier planets; and the race That once hath dwelt on it withdrawn or dead. Could such a world have hope that some blest day G.o.d would remember her, and fas.h.i.+on her Anew?'”
”Yes, my dear St. Elmo, so surely as G.o.d reigns above us, He will refas.h.i.+on it, and make the light of His pardoning love and the refres.h.i.+ng dew of his grace fall upon it! And the waste places shall bloom as Sharon, and the purpling vineyards shame Engedi, and the lilies of peace shall lift up their stately heads, and the 'voice of the turtle shall be heard in the land!' Have faith, grapple yourself by prayer to the feet of G.o.d, and he will gird, and lift up, and guide you.”
Mr. Murray shook his head mournfully, and the moonlight s.h.i.+ning on his face showed it colorless, haggard, hopeless.
The pastor rose, put on his hat, and took St. Elmo's arm.
”Come home with me. This spot is fraught with painful a.s.sociations that open afresh all your wounds.”
They walked on together until they reached the parsonage gate, and as the minister raised the latch, his companion gently disengaged the arm clasped to the old man's side.
”Not to-night. After a few days I will try to come.”
”St. Elmo, to-morrow is Sunday, and--”
He paused, and did not speak the request that looked out from his eyes.
It cost Mr. Murray a severe struggle, and he did not answer immediately. When he spoke his voice was unsteady.
”Yes, I know what you wish. Once I swore I would tear the church down, scatter its dust to the winds, leave not a stone to mark the site! But I will come and hear you preach for the first time since that sunny Sabbath, twenty years dead, when your text was, 'Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.'
Sodden, and bitter, and worthless from the long tossing in the great deep of sin, it drifts back at last to your feet; and instead of stooping tenderly to gather up the useless fragments, I wonder that you do not spurn the stranded ruin from you. Yes, I will come.”
”Thank G.o.d! Oh! what a weight you have lifted from my heart! St.
Elmo, my son!”
There was a long, lingering clasp of hands, and the pastor went into his home with tears of joy on his furrowed face, while his smiling lips whispered to his grateful soul:
”In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.”
Mr. Murray watched the stooping form until it disappeared, and then went slowly back to the silent burying ground, and sat down on the steps of the church.
Hour after hour pa.s.sed and still he sat there, almost as motionless as one of the monuments, while his eyes dwelt as if spellbound, on the dark, dull stain where Annie Hammond had rested, in days long, long past; and Remorse, more powerful than Erictho, evoked from the charnel house the sweet girlish features and fairy figure of the early dead.
His pale face was propped on his hand, and there in the silent watches of the moon-lighted midnight, he held communion with G.o.d and his own darkened spirit.
”What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, For G.o.d and man, From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth, To life's mid-span?”
His almost Satanic pride was laid low as the dead in their mouldering shrouds, and all the giant strength of his perverted nature was gathered up and hurled in a new direction. The Dead Sea Past moaned and swelled, and bitter waves surged and broke over his heart, but he silently buffeted them; and the moon rode in mid- heaven when he rose, went around the church, and knelt and prayed, with his forehead pressed to the marble that covered Murray Hammond's last resting-place.
”Oh! that the mist which veileth my To Come Would so dissolve and yield unto mine eyes A worthy path! I'd count not wearisome Long toil nor enterprise, But strain to reach it; ay, with wrestlings stout Is there such a path already made to fit The measure of my foot? It shall atone For much, if I at length may light on it And know it for mine own.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.