to learn the blessed truths of the faith, including redemption and salvation first of all. The Lord knows I have labored to make
it so.'
'Pardon me, Father,' Jack said. 'I'll go find Glory. She'll tell me how to make myself useful. You always said that was the best way to keep out of trouble.'
'No, stay,' your mother said. And he did.
There was an uneasy silence, so I remarked that he might find Karl Barth a help, just for the sake of conversation. He said, 'Is that what you do when some tormented soul arrives on your doorstep at midnight? Recommend Karl Barth?'
I said, 'It depends on the case,' which it does. I have found Barth's work to be full of comfort, as I believe I have told you elsewhere. But in fact, I don't recall ever recommending him to any tormented soul except my own. That is what I mean about being put in a false position.
Your mother said, 'A person can change. Everything can change.' Still never looking at him.
He said, 'Thanks. That's all I wanted to know.'
So that was the end of the conversation. We went home to supper.
I was left wondering what he was referring to when he mentioned tent meetings. And I have thought a lot about that word
'cagey.' I have always dreaded having to talk theology with 153
people who have no sympathy for it. I've been evasive from time to time, that's true. I see the error of assuming a person is not speaking with you in good faith. It's not respectful, I know that, and I don't do it often. Nor do I have much occasion to around here, where it seems as if I've baptized half the people I pass on the street and taught them all the theology they will ever know.
But it is hard for me to see good faith in John Ames Boughton, and that's a terrible problem. As we were walking home, your mother said, 'He was only asking a question,'
which was almost a rebuke, coming from her. Then, after we'd walked a little farther, she said, 'Maybe some people aren't so comfortable with themselves.' Now, that was a rebuke. And she was quite right. What need had an old soldier like me to defend himself even from mockery, if that was what he was up to? There was no question of need, there was only habit.
I believe I have tried never to say anything Edward would have found callow or naive.
That constraint has been useful to me, in my opinion. It may be a form of defensiveness, but I hope it has at least been useful on balance. There is a tendency among some religious people even to invite ridicule and to bring down on themselves an intellectual contempt which
seems to me in some cases justified. Nevertheless, I would advise you against defensiveness on principle. It precludes the
best eventualities along with the worst. At the most basic level, it expresses a lack of faith. As I have said, the worst eventualities can have great value as experience. And often enough,
when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer. I know this, I have seen the truth of it with my own eyes, though I have not myself always managed to live by it, the Good Lord knows. I truly doubt I would know how to live by it for even a day, or an hour. That is a remarkable thing to consider.
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I believe it will put my mind at ease to tell you straightforwardly what is at issue here.
Sleep has become a great problem,
elusive, and then pretty grueling when it comes. Prayer has not been equal to quieting these perturbations. If I feel that what I tell you is untrue in some way, or that I simply ought not to tell it, I can just destroy these pages. The)^ certainly won't be the first I've destroyed. Back when I had a woodstove, it was a satisfyingly easy thing to do. There was a Tightness to seeing nonsense and frustration fall into the
flames. I'm thinking we should have somebody build us a barbecue, like the Muellers did.
Let me say first of all that the grace of God is sufficient to any transgression, and that to judge is wrong, the origin and essence of much error and cruelty. I am aware of these things, as I hope you are also.
Let me say, too, that there are bonds which oblige me to special tolerance and kindness toward this young man, John Ames Boughton. He is the beloved child of my oldest and dearest friend, who gave him to me, so to speak, to compensate for my own childlessness. I baptized him in Boughton's congregation. I remember the moment very clearly, Boughton and
Mrs. Boughton and all the little ones there at the font, watching to see my joyful surprise, which I hope they did see, because my feelings at the time were a little more complex than
I'd have wished. I had not been warned.
All this being the case, it offends my conscience to bear witness against him.
Nevertheless, there is a very real sense in
which people are fairly and appropriately associated with their histories, for human purposes. To say a thief is a brother man 155
and beloved of God is true. To say therefore a thief is not a thief is an error. I don't wish to imply that young Boughton ever, to the best of my knowledge, stole anything of significance in any conventional sense of the word 'stole.' It is only to explain why I feel I may speak to you of his past, or at least of what little I know of it and what is to the point.
As I said before, the basic circumstances themselves are so commonplace that they can be dealt with in a very few words. About twenty years ago, while he was still in college at any rate, he became involved with a young girl, and the involvement produced a child.
This sort of thing happens, and it is
