Part 57 (1/2)
”'The reference to agencies for the uplifting of the drink-victim would be sadly incomplete without a very definite acknowledgment of the incalculable a.s.sistance which the wise worker and unprejudiced physician may obtain by bringing to bear upon the whole life of the patient that Power, the majesty and mystery, the consolation and inspiration of which it is the mission of religion to reveal.'”
”Then even the doctors are coming round?” Mary said. ”And it means exactly, you would say--?”
”I would tell you what has been proved without possibility of dispute a thousand times. I would tell you that when all therapeutic agencies have failed, the Holy Spirit has succeeded. The Power which is above every other power can do this. No loving heart need despair. However black the night _that_ influence can enlighten it. Ask those who work among the desolate and oppressed; the outcast and forlorn, the drink-victims and criminals. Ask, here in England, old General Booth or Prebendary Carlile. Ask the clergy of the Church in the London Docks, ask the Nonconformist ministers, ask the Priests of the Italian Mission who work in the slums.
”They will tell you of daily miracles of conversion and transformations as marvellous and mystical as ever Jesus wrought when He was visible on earth. Mary! It goes on to-day, it _does_ go on. There is the only cure, the only salvation. Jesus.”
There was a pa.s.sionate fervour in her voice, a divine light upon her face. She also prophesied, and the Spirit of G.o.d was upon her as upon the holy women of old.
And Mary caught that holy fire also. Her lips were parted, her eyes shone. She re-echoed the sacred Name.
”I would give my life to save Gilbert,” she said.
”I have no dear one to save, now,” the other answered. ”But I would give a thousand lives if I had them to save America from Alcohol. I love my land! There is much about my country that the ordinary English man or woman has no glimmering of. Your papers are full of the extravagances and divorces of wealthy vulgarians--champagne corks floating on cess-pools. You read of trusts and political corruption.
These are the things that are given prominence by the English newspapers. But of the deep true heart of America little is known here.
We are not really a race of money-grubbers and cheap humourists. We are great, we shall be greater. The lamps of freedom burn clearly in the hearts of millions of people of whom Europe never hears. G.o.d is with us still! The Holy Spirit broods yet over the forests and the prairies, the mountains and the rivers of my land. Read the 'Choir Invisible' by James Lane Allen and learn of us who are America.”
”I will, dear Mrs. Daly. How you have comforted me to-night! G.o.d sent you to me. I feel quite happy now about my darling sister. I feel much happier about my husband. Whatever this life has in store, there is always the hereafter. It seems very close to-night, the veil wears thin.”
”We will rest, Mary, while these good thoughts and hopes remain within us. But before we go to bed, listen to this.”
Julia Daly felt in her dressing bag and withdrew a small volume bound in vermilion morocco.
”It's your best English novel,” she said, ”far and away the greatest--Charles Reade's 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' I mean. I'm reading it for the fifth time. For five years now I have done so each year.”
”For ever?” she began in her beautiful voice, that voice which had brought hope to so many weary hearts in the great Republic of the West.
”'For ever? Christians live ”for ever,” and love ”for ever” but they never part ”for ever.” They part, as part the earth and sun, only to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of time, one drop in the ocean of ”For ever.” Adieu--for the little moment called ”a life!” We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace; we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is purity and love divine; where no ill pa.s.sions are, but Christ is, and His Saints around Him clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-gla.s.s, in the breaking of a bubble, in the pa.s.sing of a cloud, she, and thou, and I shall meet again; and sit at the feet of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of G.o.d upon His throne, for ever--and ever--and ever.'”
The two women undressed and said their prayers, making humble supplication at the Throne of Grace for themselves, those they loved and for all those from whom G.o.d was hidden.
And as the train bore them through Nimes and Arles, Avignon and the old Roman cities of southern France, they slept as simple children sleep.
CHAPTER VI
GILBERT LOTHIAN'S DIARY
”It comes very glibly off the tongue to say, 'Put yourself in his position,'--'What would you have done under the circ.u.mstances?' but if self-a.n.a.lysis is difficult, how much more so is it to appreciate the 'Ego' of another, to penetrate within the veil of the maimed and debased inner temple of the debauched inebriate?”--”_The Psychology of the Alcoholic_,” by T. Claye Shawe, M.D., F.R.C.P., Lecturer on psychological medicine. St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
”Like one, that on a lonesome road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.”
--_Coleridge._
When Mary Lothian returned home to Mortland Royal she was very unwell.
The strain of watching over Lady Davidson, and the wrench of a parting which in this world was to be a final one, proved more than she was able to endure.
She had been out of doors, imprudently, during that dangerous hour on the Riviera between sunset and nine o'clock. Symptoms of that curious light fever, with its sharp nervous pains, which is easily contracted at such times along the Cote d'Azur, began to show themselves.
Dr. Morton Sims was away in Paris for a few weeks upon a scientific engagement he was unable to refuse, and Mary was attended by Dr.