In His Steps - New Abridged Editon Page 11

  All this, with a voice that rang and trembled and broke in sobs of anguish for the result, did Henry Maxwell pour out upon his people that Sunday morning. And men and women wept as he spoke. Donald Marsh sat there, his usual self-confident bearing gone; his head bowed; the great tears rolling down his cheeks, unmindful of the fact that never before had he shown outward emotion in a public service.

  Edward Norman, near by, sat with his face erect, clutched the end of the pew with a feeling of emotion that struck deep into his knowledge of the truth as Maxwell spoke it. No man had given or suffered more to influence public opinion that last week than Norman with his paper. The thought that the Christian conscience had been aroused too late or too feebly lay with a weight of accusation upon his heart. What if he had begun to do with the News as Jesus would long ago? Who could tell what might have been accomplished by this time?

  Up in the choir, Rachel Winslow, with her face bowed on the railing of the oak screen, gave way to a feeling she had not yet allowed to master her. When Henry Maxwell finished, and she tried to sing the closing solo after the prayer, her voice broke, and for the first time in her life she was obliged to sit down sobbing and unable to go on.

  Over the church, in the silence that followed this strange scene, sobs and the noise of weeping arose. When had the First Church yielded to such a baptism of tears? What had become of its regular, precise, cold, conventional order of service, undisturbed by any emotion, and unmoved by any foolish excitement? But the people had lately had their deepest convictions touched. They had been living so long on their surface feelings that they had almost forgotten the deeper wells of life. Now that they had broken to the surface, the people were convicted of the meaning of their discipleship.

  Henry Maxwell did not ask this morning for volunteers to join those who had already pledged to do as Jesus would. But when the congregation had finally gone, and he had entered the lecture room, it needed but a glance to show him that the original company of followers had been greatly increased. The meeting was tender, it glowed with the Holy Spirit's presence.

  Since the first Sunday, when the first company of volunteers had pledged themselves to do as Jesus would do, the different meetings had been characterized by distinct impulses or impressions. Today, it was a meeting full of broken prayers, of contrition, confession, of strong yearning for a new and better city life.

  But if the First Church was deeply stirred by the events of the week gone, the Rectangle also felt moved strongly in its own way. The death of Loreen was not in itself so remarkable a fact. It was her recent acquaintance with the people from the city that lifted her into special prominence, and surrounded her death with more than ordinary importance. Everyone in the Rectangle knew that Loreen was at this moment lying in the Page mansion up on the avenue. Exaggerated reports of the magnificence of the casket had already furnished material for eager gossip.

  The Rectangle was excited to know the details of the funeral. "Would it be public?" "What did Miss Page intend to do?" The Rectangle had never before mingled with the aristocracy on the boulevard. The opportunities for doing so were not frequent.

  The Rev. John Gray and his wife were besieged by inquiries wanting to know what Loreen's friends and acquaintances were expected to do in paying their last respects to her. Her acquaintance was large, and many of the recent converts were among her friends. John Gray had gone to see Virginia, and after talking it over with her and Henry Maxwell, the arrangements had been made.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  MONDAY AFTERNOON at the tent, the funeral service of Loreen was held before an immense audience that choked the tent and overflowed beyond all previous bounds.

  "I am and always have been opposed to large public funerals," said Gray, "but the cry of the poor creatures who knew Loreen is so earnest that I do not know how to refuse their desire to see her and pay her poor body some last little honor. What do you think, Mr. Maxwell? I will be guided by your judgment in the matter. I am sure that whatever you and Miss Page think is best will be right."

  "I feel as you do," replied Henry Maxwell. "Under most circumstances I have a great distaste for what seems like display at such times. But this seems different. The people at the Rectangle will not want to come to my church to a service. I think the most Christian thing will be to let them have the service at the tent. Do you think so, Virginia?"

  "Yes," said Virginia sadly. "Poor soul, I do not know but that some time I shall know she gave her life for mine. Let her friends be allowed the gratification of their wishes. I see no harm in it."

  So the arrangements were made for the service at the tent. Virginia, with her uncle and Rollin, accompanied by Henry Maxwell, Rachel, and President Marsh, and the quartette from the First Church, went down and witnessed one of the strange scenes of their lives.

  It happened that that afternoon a noted newspaper correspondent was passing through Raymond on his way to an editorial convention in a neighboring city. He heard of the service at the tent, and was present that afternoon. His description of it was written in a graphic style that caught the attention of many readers the next day. A fragment of his account belongs to this part of the history of Raymond.

  * * *

  There was a very unique and unusual funeral service held here this afternoon at the tent of an evangelist, Rev. John Gray, down in the slum district known as the Rectangle. The occasion was caused by the killing of a woman during an election riot last Saturday night. It seems she had been recently converted during the evangelist's meetings, and was killed while returning from one of the meetings in company with other converts and some of her friends. She was a common street drunkard, and yet the services at the tent were as impressive as any I ever witnessed in a metropolitan church over the most distinguished citizen.

  In the first place, a most exquisite anthem was sung by a trained choir. It struck me, of course, being a stranger to the place, with considerable astonishment, to hear voices like those one naturally expects to hear only in great churches or concerts. But the most remarkable part of the music was a solo sung by a strikingly beautiful young woman, a Miss Winslow, who, if I remember rightly, is the young singer who was sought for by Crandall, the manager of National Opera, and who for some reason refused to accept his offer to go on the stage. She had a most wonderful manner in singing, and everybody was weeping before she had sung a dozen words.

  That, of course, is not so strange an effect to be produced at a funeral service, but the voice itself was one of ten thousand. I understand Miss Winslow sings in the First Church, and could probably command almost any salary as a public singer. She will probably be heard from soon. Such a voice could win its way anywhere.

  The evangelist, a man of apparently very simple, unassuming style, spoke a few words, and he was followed by the Rev. Henry Maxwell, pastor of the First Church of Raymond. Mr. Maxwell spoke of the fact that the dead woman had been fully prepared to go, but he spoke in a peculiarly sensitive manner of the effect of the liquor business on the lives of men and women like this one. Raymond, of course, being a railroad town, and the centre of the great packing interests for this region, is full of saloons. I caught from the minister's remarks that he had only recently changed his views in regard to license. He certainly made a very striking, and yet it was in no sense an inappropriate, address for a funeral.

  Then followed what was perhaps the strange part of this service. The women in the tent, at least a large part of them up near the coffin, began to sing in a soft, tearful way, "I was a wandering sheep."

  While the singing was going on, one row of women stood up and walked slowly past the casket, and as they went by each one placed a flower of some kind on it. Then they sat down and another row filed past, leaving their flowers. The singing continued softly like rain on a tent cover when the wind is gentle.

  It was one of the simplest and at the same time one of the most impressive sights I ever witnessed. The sides of the tent were up, and hundreds of people who could not get in
stood outside, all as still as death, with wonderful sadness and solemnity for such rough-looking people. There must have been a hundred of these women, and I was told many of them had been converted at the meetings just recently. I cannot describe the effect of that singing. Not a man sang a note. All women's voices, and so soft and yet so distinct that the effect was startling.

  The service closed with another solo by Miss Winslow, who sang "There were ninety and nine." And then the evangelist asked them all to bow their heads while he prayed. I was obliged, in order to catch my train, to leave during the prayer, and the last view I caught of the scene as the train went by the railroad machine shops was a sight of the great crowd pouring out of the tent and forming in open ranks while the coffin was borne out by six of the women. It is a long time since I have seen such a picture in this unpoetical Republic.

  * * *

  If Loreen's funeral impressed a passing stranger like this, it is not difficult to imagine the profound feelings of those who had been so intimately connected with Loreen's life and death. Nothing had ever entered the Rectangle that had moved it so deeply as Loreen's body in that coffin. And the Holy Spirit swept more than a score of lost souls, mostly women, into the fold of the Good Shepherd.

  The saloon, from whose window Loreen had been killed, was formally closed Monday and Tuesday while the authorities made arrests of the proprietor charged with the murder. But nothing could be proved against anyone, and before Saturday of that week the saloon was running as regularly as ever. No one on the earth was ever punished by earthly courts for the murder of Loreen.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  NO ONE in all Raymond, including the Rectangle, felt Loreen's death more keenly than Virginia. It came like a distinct personal loss to her. That short week while Loreen had been in her home had opened Virginia's heart to a new life. She was talking it over with Rachel the day after the funeral, sitting in the hall of the Page mansion.

  Virginia looked over to the end of the hall where, the day before, Loreen's body had lain. "I am going to do something with my money to help these women to a better life. I have decided on a good plan, as it seems to me. I have talked it over with Rollin. He will devote a large part of his money also to the same plan."

  "How much money have you, Virginia, to give in this way?" asked Rachel. Once she would never have asked such a personal question. Now it seemed as natural to talk frankly about money as about anything else that belonged to God.

  "I still have available for use at least four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Rollin has as much more. It is one of his bitter regrets now that his extravagant habits of life before his conversion practically threw away half that father left him. We are both eager to make all the reparation in our power. 'What would Jesus do with this money?' We want to answer that question honestly and wisely. The money I shall put into the News is, I am confident, in line with Jesus' probable action. It is as necessary that we have a daily Christian paper in Raymond, especially now that we have the saloon influence to meet, as it is to have a church or a college. So I am satisfied that the five hundred thousand dollars, that Mr. Norman will know how to use so well, will be a powerful factor in Raymond to do as Jesus would do.

  "About my other plan, Rachel, I want you to work with me. Rollin and I are going to buy up a large part of the property in the Rectangle. The field where the tent now is has been in litigation for years. We mean to secure the entire tract as soon as the courts have settled the title. My money -- I mean God's, which He wants me to use -- can build wholesome lodging houses, refuges for poor women, asylums [asylums -- secure places offering shelter and individual support] for shop girls, safety for many and many a lost girl like Loreen.

  "I do not want to be simply a dispenser of this money. God help me! I do want to put myself into the problem. But do you know, Rachel, I have a feeling that all that limitless money and limitless personal sacrifice can possibly do, will not really lessen very much the awful conditions at the Rectangle as long as the saloon trade is legally established there. I think that is true of any Christian work now being carried on in any great city. The saloon furnishes material to be saved faster than the Settlement or Rescue Mission work can save it."

  Virginia suddenly rose and paced the hall. Rachel answered with a note of hope in her voice. "It is true. But, Virginia, what a wonderful amount of happiness and power can come out of this money. And the saloons cannot always remain here. The time must come when the Christian force in the city will triumph."

  Virginia paused near Rachel, and her face lighted up. "I believe that too. The number of those who have promised to do as Jesus would is increasing. If we have, say, five hundred such disciples in Raymond, the saloon is doomed. But now, I want you to look at your part in this plan for capturing and saving the Rectangle. Your voice is a power. I have had many ideas lately. Here is one of them. You could organize among the girls a Musical Institute. Give them the benefit of your training. There are some splendid voices in the rough there. Did anyone ever hear such singing as that yesterday by those women? Rachel, what a beautiful opportunity. Think what can be done with music to win souls there."

  Before Virginia had ceased speaking, Rachel's face was transfigured with the thought of her life-work. It flowed into her heart and mind like a flood, and the torrent of her feeling overflowed in tears that could not be restrained. It was what she had dreamed of doing herself. It represented to her something that she felt was in keeping with a right use of her own talent.

  She rose and put her arms about Virginia, while both girls in the excitement of their enthusiasm paced the hall. "Yes, I will gladly put my life into that kind of service. I do believe that Jesus would have me use my life in this way, Virginia. What miracles can we not accomplish if we have such a lever as consecrated money to move things with!"

  "Add to it consecrated personal enthusiasm like yours, and it certainly can accomplish great things," said Virginia, smiling.

  Before Rachel could reply, Rollin came in. He hesitated a moment, and was passing out of the hall into the library, when Virginia called him and asked some questions about his work.

  Rollin came back and sat down, and together the three discussed their future plans. Rollin was apparently entirely free from embarrassment in Rachel's presence while Virginia was with them. The past seemed to be entirely absorbed in his wonderful conversion. He seemed to be completely caught up in the purpose of this new life.

  After a while, Rollin was called away, and Rachel and Virginia began to talk of other things.

  "By the way, what has become of Jasper Chase?" Virginia asked the question innocently enough, but Rachel blushed, and Virginia added with a smile, "I suppose he is writing another book. Is he going to put you into this one, Rachel? You know I always suspected Jasper Chase of doing that very thing in his first story."

  "Virginia," Rachel spoke with the frankness that had always existed between the two friends, "Jasper Chase has told me that he ... in fact ... he proposed to me ... or he would, if..."

  Rachel stopped, and sat with her hands clasped on her lap, and there were tears in her eyes. "Virginia, I thought a little while ago that I loved him, as he said he loved me. But when he spoke, my heart felt repelled. I told him no. I have not seen him since. That was the night of the first conversions at the Rectangle."

  "I am glad for you," said Virginia quietly.

  "Why?" asked Rachel, a little startled.

  "Because I have never really liked Jasper Chase. He is too cold, and -- I do not like to judge him, but I have always distrusted his sincerity in taking the pledge at the church with the rest."

  Rachel looked at Virginia thoughtfully. "I have never given my heart to him, I am sure. He touched my emotions, and I admired his skill as a writer. I have thought at times that I cared a good deal for him. I think, perhaps, if he had spoken to me at any other time than the one he chose, I could easily have persuaded myself that I loved him. But not now."

  Again Rachel paused, and when
she looked up at Virginia again, there were tears on her face. Virginia came to her and put her arm about her.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  WHEN RACHEL had left the house, Virginia sat in the hall thinking over the confidence her friend had just shown her. There was something still to be told, Virginia felt sure from Rachel's manner, but she did not feel hurt that Rachel had kept back something. She was simply conscious of more on Rachel's mind than she had revealed.

  Very soon Rollin came back, and he and Virginia, arm in arm, as they had lately been in the habit of doing, walked up and down the long hall.

  It was easy for their talk to settle finally upon Rachel, because of the place she was to occupy in the plans which were being made for the purchase of the property at the Rectangle.

  "Did you ever know a girl of such really gifted powers in vocal music who was willing to give her whole life to the people as Rachel is going to do?" asked Virginia. "She is going to give music lessons in the city, have private pupils to make her living, and then give the people in the Rectangle the benefit of her voice."

  "It is certainly a very good example of self-sacrifice," replied Rollin, a little stiffly.

  Virginia looked at him sharply. "But don't you think it is a very unusual example?" Virginia named half a dozen famous opera singers. "Can you imagine them doing anything of this sort? "

  "No, I can't," Rollin answered briefly. He spoke the name of the girl with the red parasol who had begged Virginia to take the girls to the Rectangle, "Neither can I imagine her doing what you are doing, Virginia."

  Virginia mentioned the name of a young society leader. "Anymore than I can imagine him going about to the clubs doing your work, Rollin."

  The two walked on in silence for the length of the hall.

  "Coming back to Rachel," began Virginia; "Rollin, why do you treat her with such a distant manner? I think, pardon me if I hurt you, that she is annoyed by it. You used to be on easy terms. I don't think Rachel likes this change."