He had always been a “progressive.” That had been his boast, and whenever he had not agreed with any old-fashioned view he had disposed of it by labeling it “reactionary.” Now he had become alarmed, and with every month his alarm deepened.
His position had always been this that the Divine Spirit Himself would teach and guard, that the Scriptures are the supreme achievement of the human mind acting reverently in the sphere of religion, and that while it is folly to pretend they are unerring, we must expect the Spirit of God to tell us what is true and important and what is untrue and therefore to be set aside. Therefore he had always welcomed “the advance of human thought,” freely admitted errors in the Scriptures, made light of fears and scoffed at what he called “bibliolatry.”
Now he trembled at the knowledge of what human thought had actually advanced to. Openly and without rebuke a popular Official Writer for the young had admitted that the actual Resurrection of our Lord had not happened according to many religious teachers of today, but they held that the “spiritual idea.” of the bodily Resurrection was most helpful. He begged the young people still to regard such men as teachers sent from God. Another great dignitary of another Church had declared that the only sense in which we could still regard our Lord as Divine was the sense in which we could regard all other men as in some degree divine also. Likewise many were not hesitating to say that our Lord was born in the ordinary way of human generation, and therefore, all things considered, it could not surprise anyone that many were denying that there was any need for atonement, or that this man, of such base parentage, could offer atonement for sins, even if such were needed. These things, which he had thought to be the rock on which they firmly stood, were slipping away before his eyes. The foundations were going. Man’s shifting ideas were replacing the basic certainties of the Faith. Speculations were replacing convictions. The Holy Spirit had not guided and guarded! Christianity was being lost to sight in the shifting mists of the world’s evening.
And his own attitude had helped all this. He had held every office that a layman could hold, and had cast all his influence on the side of “progressive thought.” A longing crept into his soul to have the chances over once again. He remembered one or two incidents. Doctor L. once came to preach and declared that if the Scriptures were in error as some affirmed, then there was no possibility of being certain of the revelation of God, and had begged of them to make a pause, a pause as long as life, before admitting that the Scriptures were rightly charged with error. In the vestry afterward he had openly and lightly scoffed at that contention. Then later, when some wished again to hear Dr. L. he had strongly objected, and at his instance Dr. B. had come instead, and had delighted many by his statement that often “Thus saith the Lord” was only the voice of the Hebrew conscience in an elementary stage of advance. He had always been “a young people’s man,” and had cultivated the social at the expense of the Prayer Meeting and the Mission Band, as being more suitable for the young. Their Biblical difficulties he had always solved in his own progressive way, and now he realized that the Church had neither conviction nor enthusiasm for the things of God.
Yes: he would indeed fain have the chances of life over again. He never dreamed that “progressive thinking” would lead to this position. Some lines of Christina Rosetti’s came floating into his mind: ―
O once, once more, to tread the old-time track!
The flowers we cast away once more to wear!
But the time to come offered him some chances. He would do his utmost to undo the evil. He would warn everyone who came under his, influence to hold firmly to the one real basis of the truth, an unerring Bible. Yes, the years to come! Then in the mirror opposite he caught sight of his reflection. This gray hair, almost gray enough to be called white! and the lines came beating, beating, into his brain: ―
Though we repent, can any God give back
The dear lost days which might have been so fair?
Turn false to true, and carelessness to care,
And make us find again what now we lack?
His one chance was the years to come! What a debt he owed! What a debt! “Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay Thee all,” he cried. “Have patience with me Give me time!”
But just one week later they demanded his soul of him; and it was not with any expectation that he could ever pay that debt but just as the expression of his penitence that he bade them carve upon his tombstone: “Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay Thee all.”
H. C. M.