Under his eager, earnest words, Christine’s eyes also lighted up with hope, but after a moment her face became very sad, and she said, wearily, “Mystery! mystery! you are speaking a language that I do not understand.”
“Can you not understand this: ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’? and that the Bible tells us that His Son did, in very truth, die that we might live?”
“Yes, yes, I know that the Bible seems to teach all that, but there must be some mistake about it. Why should an all-powerful God take such a costly, indirect way of accomplishing His purpose when a word would suffice?”
“We will not discuss God’s reasons; I think they are beyond us. But imagining the Bible story to be true, even though you do not believe it, is not the love of God revealed to us through His son, Jesus Christ?”
“Yes, it is the very extravagance of disinterested love, So much so that my reason revolts at it. It is contrary to all my ideas of Deity and power.”
“Pardon me, Miss Ludolph, for saying it, but I think your ideas of Deity are borrowed more from mythology and human greatness than from the Bible. Let your reason stand aside a moment; this is not contrary to it, but beyond it. Imagining the Bible story true, can you not wish it true? If the man who died on Calvary out of love for you I and for us all is also God, would you fear to trust yourself to Him? Could you distrust One who loved you well enough to die for you?”
“No! no, indeed! if I only could believe it, no! But how can I ever be sure it is true? I am sure of nothing. I am not sure there is a God. I am not sure the Bible is more than human in its character. I feel as if my feet stood out upon those shifting waves, and as if there were nothing certain or stable.”
“But in part you know the truth, Miss Ludolph, though you do not believe it, and I believe that the God of whom we have spoken can directly reveal Himself to you and make His truth as real to you as it is to me.”
“Mr. Fleet,” cried Christine, “if I could believe as you do, I should be the happiest of the happy, for I should feel that, however much I suffered in this brief life, in the existence beyond I should be more than compensated;” and covering her tearful face with her hands she moaned, as if it were wrung from her, “I have suffered so much, and there seemed no remedy!”
Dennis’s feelings were also deeply touched, and the dew of sympathy gathered in his own eyes. In the gentlest accents be said, “Oh, that you could trust that merciful, mighty One who invites all the heavy laden to come to Him for rest!”
She looked up and saw his sympathy, and was greatly moved. In faltering tones she said: “You feel for me, Mr. Fleet. You do not condemn me in my blindness and unbelief. I cannot trust Him, because I am not sure He exists. If there was such a God I would gladly devote my whole being to Him; but I trust you, and will do anything you say.”
“Will you kneel on these sands with me in prayer to Him?” he asked, earnestly.
She hesitated, trembled, but at last said, “Yes.”
He took her hand as if they were brother and sister, and they kneeled together on the desolate beach. The glow of sunset was lost in the redder glow of the fire that smouldered all over the ruins, and still raged in the northwest, and the smoke and gathering gloom involved them in obscurity.
Though the weary, apathetic fugitives regarded them not, we believe that angelic forms gathered round, and that the heart of the Divine Father yearned toward His children.
When they rose, after a simple prayer from Dennis, in which he pleaded almost as a child might with an earthly father, Christine trembled like a leaf, and was very pale, but her face grew tearless, quiet, and very sad. Dennis still held her hand in the warm, strong grasp of sympathy. Gently she withdrew it, and said, in a low, despairing tone: “It is all in vain. There is no answer. Your voice has been lost in the winds and waves.”
“Wait the King’s time,” said he, reverently.
“You addressed him as Father. Would a good father keep his child waiting?”
“Yes, sometimes He does; He is also King.”
After a moment she turned to him the saddest face he ever looked upon, and said, gently, again giving him her hand, “Mr. Fleet, you have done your best for me, and I thank you all the same.”
He was obliged to turn away to hide his feelings. Silently they again sat down on the beach together. Weariness and something like despair began to tell on Christine, and Dennis trembled when he thought of the long night of exposure before her. He bent his face into his hands and prayed as he had never prayed before. She looked at him wistfully, and knew he was pleading for her; but she now believed it was all in vain. The feeling grew upon her that belief or unbelief was a matter of education and temperament, and that the feelings
