It has often seemed very strange to me, that in moments of great anxiety or trouble, when our minds and our hearts are stretched to the uttermost, we notice with the keenest perception every little object around us. Every moving leaf, each nodding flower, catches our attention, and, years afterwards, we can remember, as distinctly as if it were yesterday, how everything looked in those sorrowful moments, when our minds were filled with thoughts of things and people far away.
There is one day in my life, which stands out from amongst the past as a day above all others to be remembered by me. And, as I look back to it, I see myself a girl of nineteen, sitting at my bedroom window, lost in thought and perplexity! I can see the garden just as it looked as I gazed out into it that afternoon—our quaint, old-fashioned garden, with its hedge of laurel bushes, and the large elm trees at the end of it, with the flickering light and shade underneath. I can see the rabbits from the plantations round, nibbling the grass on the lawn; and I can hear the trickling of the stream, which ran by the side of the house, in which Claude, and Maggie, and I used to float our boats, in the happy days when we were children. And now the old home must be left forever, for Maggie and I had not a penny in the world!
Our father had been the doctor in the village. It was a very poor place, and the people had never any money to spare. My father was too kind-hearted to press for payment, when he saw how hard it was for them to live; and so the years went by, and although his practice was large, he saved very little money. But even this small amount never came to us, for just before his death the bank in which it was placed suddenly failed, and so, when he was gone, Maggie and I were penniless!
Maggie was much younger than I was; she was my half-sister, and her mother died three weeks after she was born. She committed her little baby to me, when she knew that she must leave it; and from that day I became, as far as I was able, a mother to Maggie. I was a very little mother, for I was only seven years old; but a feeling of great responsibility and trust came over me, as I left the room where my stepmother was dying. I crept up to the nursery, and stroked the baby’s face very gently, and felt as if she belonged to me from that moment.
And now, Maggie and I were left without a penny in the world. For Maggie it was not of so much consequence. A letter had come from her old maiden aunts, her mother’s sisters, to insist upon her going at once to live with them in the old Manor House at Branston. Maggie would be happy, and cared for there; that was a great relief to my mind. Poverty and hardship would not cross the path of my little sister, and I was more than content that it should be so. But there was no such home in prospect for me. Maggie’s aunts were, of course, not related to me, and my mother had been a friendless orphan, so I had no one to take compassion on me. Separated from the old home, separated from Maggie, life looked very cheerless to me in prospect.
My mind was full of trouble and of perplexity, for on the table before me lay two letters, which must be answered before evening, and upon the answer to these letters would hang all my future life.
I sat at my bedroom window, not knowing what to do. The clock ticked on, the hands were moving round, and my letters were still unanswered.
It was then, that, as I gazed into the garden, every tiny object was imprinted on my mind. And I can remember that, as I was sitting there, the sun went behind a bank of heavy clouds, and all was gloomy and dismal in a moment. The rabbits ran back to their holes, the sunbeams fled from the lawn, the wind whistled drearily in the chimneys of the old house, and flapped the branches of the climbing rose-tree against my bedroom window. It seemed to me then very like the cloud which had come across my hitherto happy life. And now, what was before me? Joy or sorrow?
It appeared to be left with me to decide. The two letters must be answered. The first of these was from an old governess of ours, a kind, good woman. I had written to tell her of my difficulties, and she wrote to advise me to apply for a situation as companion to a young lady of fortune, in answer to an advertisement which had just appeared in the Times newspaper. A fair salary was promised, and all expenses of traveling would be defrayed.
That was one of the letters which I had to answer. That was one path of life which lay before me. It did not seem very bright in prospect. The position of a poor companion in a large household was certainly not one which I should have chosen for myself.
I had said “Oh no!” instinctively, when I had first read the advertisement which Miss Morley enclosed. And yet, the more I thought of it, the more I felt that perhaps I ought to apply for the situation. It was clear that I must work for my living, in some way; I disliked teaching, so I felt that I was not fit to be a governess; perhaps, after all, this would be the very place for me.
And yet, and yet, my heart shrank back from what might be the path of duty.
For there was another letter on the table; another, and a very different letter. And this letter must be answered before I could at all decide about Miss Morley’s proposal. I had read it so often during the day, that I knew every word of it. And now I must take up my pen and answer it. It opened out to me another path of life, a very different path from the former—a path which seemed as bright as the other was shady.
And yet, ought I to take it? Was it right for me to choose this path? Should I indeed be happy if I decided upon it? Would it be really bright, really peaceful? What course should I take? What answer should I give?
The letter was from Claude Ellis, my old playfellow and friend. He was the son of the clergyman of the village, his only child. Claude had no companions at home, and therefore when we were children we went, day by day, to the Parsonage, or Claude came to us, and we played together between the hours for lessons. Maggie was too small to join in our games, but she would sit on the grass near us, gathering daisies, and watching us as we floated our boats, in the little stream, or ran races on the lawn. And then we grew older, and Claude was sent to school, but always in the holidays our old friendship was renewed, and we walked together, read together, and played together as before.
But soon school days passed by, and Claude went to Oxford. I remember so well the day on which he came to say “Good-bye” to us before leaving home. He looked very handsome, and was full of spirits, and was so much looking forward to his college life.
Maggie and I walked to the garden gate with him when he went away. And we talked of the time when he would come home again, and we should spend our days together as we had always done in the holidays. Then he went out, and the gate closed after him, and Maggie and I watched him down the road, and she waved her handkerchief to him till he was out of sight. And then we went back to the house, and I counted how many weeks must pass before the term would be ended, and Claude would be with us again.
But a very short time after, Mr. Ellis, Claude’s father, was taken ill, and the doctor ordered him to go abroad for the winter. So Claude spent his Christmas vacations at Mentone instead of at home. And then we looked forward to Midsummer.
But Claude did not return home until the greater part of the long vacation was over. He was in Cornwall with a reading party, and did not come to the Parsonage until about three weeks before his return to Oxford. And so it came to pass, that Claude Ellis and I had not met for nearly a year.
“Claude is at home,” said my father, one morning at breakfast.
“Oh, is he?” said little Maggie, “how nice!” And I was very pleased also. I expected to see exactly the same Claude as I had parted from at the garden gate, a year ago; and I thought that all would go on just as it had done when he was a boy at school, and came home for the holidays.
So when I saw him coming up the road, I ran into the garden to meet him.
“Oh, Claude, I am glad to see you!” I cried, as soon as he opened the gate. And then, in a moment, I stopped short, and went up to him quite quietly, and giving him my hand, said in a very different voice: “How do you do, Claude; when did you come home?”
For in a moment it flashed across me that Claude Ellis and I were not the same as we were when we had parted at that very gate a year ago. We were both older than we were then; our childhood was a thing of the past. Claude and I had grown out of the boy and girl into the young man and woman since we had last met. All this flashed across me in a moment, as I noticed the difference in Claude’s dress, manners, and appearance, as he came in at the gate. And a chill came over me as I noticed it, and I wished that I had not run to meet him quite so eagerly.
And yet, when he began to talk, I felt that he was in many ways the same Claude still, the same, but changed.
Was he changed for the better? In many ways he was. He was more manly, and more gentleman-like, and had much to tell us of his college friends, and college life, which made him a more amusing and pleasant companion than before.
And yet, there was another change in Claude, which I could not help noticing, in spite of my efforts not to do so. Claude Ellis was more of a man, more of a gentleman; but he was, yes, he certainly was, though I tried to persuade myself to the contrary, less of a Christian.
Before Claude went to college we had often talked together of the Bible, and he had explained to me many things which I did not understand. We used sometimes to sit on the garden seat on Sunday afternoons, and read a chapter together; and Claude used to talk so nicely about it, and I thought he loved the Lord Jesus, and wished to serve Him He often spoke of the time when he would be old enough to be ordained, and when I should come to his church and hear him preach; and he told me what his first text would be, and how he had already written some pages of his first sermon.
But after Claude’s return, I noticed a change in him. At first, he always avoided any mention of religious subjects, and when, either in his own home or ours, any allusion was made to them, he quickly turned the conversation to some other topic.
I tried, for some days, to fancy that it was not because Claude had ceased to care for what he had loved before, but rather, that his feelings had grown so much deeper and truer, that he felt things divine too sacred to be talked about. But before the vacation was over, I was obliged to admit to myself, however unwilling I was to believe it, that Claude’s views and opinions were quite changed about religious matters; that he had begun to doubt what he had before received with child-like faith; that he had begun to despise and hold in contempt that which from his mother’s knee he had learned to love and reverence.
“Oh, you have never been to Oxford, May,” he said, rather contemptuously one day, when I was trying to prove something to him from the Bible. “You should read some books, which were lent to me by a man on my staircase. We are behind the times in this little out-of-the-way place; the world is growing very clever and learned, and there are many things which we have always taken for granted about which there is really great doubt and uncertainty.”
“What things, Claude?” I said; “you do not surely mean—”
“I mean parts of the Bible, May, and doctrines, which are supposed to be proved from the Bible. But what is the use of talking about it to you? I don’t want to unsettle your mind. If you like to believe it, and if it makes you happy, go on believing it, and be glad that you haven’t read the books I have read.”
“But you, Claude?” I said, sorrowfully.
“Oh, never mind about me, May, I am all right; I am a little wiser than you, that is all!”
“Are you happier, Claude?” I ventured to ask.
“Oh, I don’t know, May; I don’t think happiness, which is based on a delusion, is much worth having.”
“Oh, Claude,” I said, “it makes me wretched to hear you talk like that.”
“Then talk about something else, May,” he said gaily; “you began the subject, not I.”
“But, Claude—”
“Now, that will do, May!” he said impatiently; “we don’t think alike about these subjects, simply because I know a great deal more about them than I did before I went away, or than you do now; so let the matter drop.”
I was very unhappy after this conversation with Claude. He gave me no opportunity of renewing it; but though he had not explained to me any of his doubts, he had left an uneasy, troubled feeling on my mind, a feeling which I could not shake off.
When I went upstairs to bed that night, I sat down to think over what Claude had said What if, after all, I was resting upon a delusion, building my happiness upon an unreality? What if, after all, my faith was in vain, my hope unfounded?
Horrible doubts, such as I had never known before, came crowding into my mind. “Are these things so?” was the oft-repeated question of my heart. It was a sad awakening from the trust and implicit confidence of childhood; an awakening which, perhaps, comes to every thoughtful mind, when its faith is brought into contact, for the first time, with the intellect of this world; an awakening which leads us either into the terrible region of doubt and uncertainty, or into faith, far firmer than ever before, because based, not on mere childish impressions, but on the words and the being of the eternal God.
In this state of perplexity I went to my bedroom window and looked out. It was a bright, starlight night, so I put out my candle, and sat by the window, gazing into the sky at the countless multitude of stars.
Who had made all these mighty worlds? Who was keeping them all in their places, and making them fulfill the object for which they were created?
I knew who it was; my faith in the existence of an Almighty God remained unshaken. I could never look around me on God’s universe and doubt that God was.
And then, as I looked at the stars, other thoughts came—thoughts of the majesty and wisdom and power of the God who had made all these; thoughts, too, of the smallness and insignificance of our own little world—in comparison with the rest of God’s great universe a mere speck in space.
And I—what was I?
Only one of the beings which inhabited this tiny world; one of the smallest and least wise of all in God’s universe! Who was I, that I should say to God, “Why doest Thou this?” Who was I, that I should presume to sit in judgment on anything in God’s revelation?
“His wisdom is unsearchable, His ways past finding out,” was the language of my heart. I am but a little child,—how can I understand God’s plans? I know so little, I understand so little, I see such a little way, either before me or behind me. How can I, then, expect to understand that which is understood fully only by God Himself?
A feeling of my utter nothingness and insignificance in God’s sight came over me so powerfully that I was almost crushed by it. Who was I—what was I, that I should dare to doubt what God had in wonderful condescension revealed to me, because of the vast amount of knowledge which was too wonderful for me; so high that I could not attain unto it?
“O Lord,” I said, as I looked up into the sky, “I will be content to be a little child, receiving Thy Word with childlike faith, and what my mind is too weak and small to understand fully, I will yet believe, because Thou hast told me, and because Thy Word must be true.”
And even as I said the words, this verse came into my mind: “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Then the day was coming when, in another world, my mind would be strengthened to understand these difficult matters which were now perplexing me—these things which I only knew in part, and which, for this very reason, just because I only knew a part of them, seemed to me so perplexing and mysterious.
And then there was another thought which comforted me perhaps more than anything else, and it was this: I had proved the Bible to be true myself. I knew it was the Word of the God of truth by my own experience. I had prayed, and had received many an answer to my prayers. I had pleaded the promises, and had found them more than fulfilled to me in every hour of need. I had fallen back upon the grand old truths of the Bible in many a time of trouble, and had never found them fail me.
A hundred books, written by the cleverest men on earth, could not convince me that the Bible was a mere human production; for I had found in it what I had found in no other book—peace for a troubled conscience, comfort in sorrow, victory over sin.
I lay down to sleep that night reassured and comforted, and with my doubts entirely removed, and I do not remember that they ever returned to me.
But Claude, what could I do for him? I could do nothing but pray for him, for he never gave me an opportunity of speaking to him again about what had so troubled me.
His college days passed by, and every vacation that he was at home he came frequently to see us, and each time he came I felt more persuaded that his new views had not improved his character. He had occasionally an imperious and dictatorial manner, such as he had never had before, and he looked restless and dissatisfied, as if something was preying on his mind.
And yet Claude was very kind to us, to Maggie and to me. He never came home without bringing us some little present, and he never seemed tired of our company.