Mary Hitchcock

“ He almost rose from his seat as though to emphasize his sober thought, but an impression restrained him.
"And so I lose My witnesses!" he imagined his Lord saying with grief. "They are walking by sight and not by faith, and the seen, tangible things hold them. Who will stretch out his hands to lay hold upon the things of eternal life?"
Hubert sank in rebuked silence under the spell of the afternoon's disclosure. It was reality, if he were a Christian. It must be faced. But how the seen things wrestled with the heavenly vision! ”

“ But the spark of life, dull and smoldering, answered to the breath of Hubert's good news of salvation, and he was unfeignedly glad.
They started together for the dining-room when the bell rang, but met Winifred in the hall. She had just come in from the garden, clad in rain-coat and cap, roses glowing in her cheeks from the keen, damp air, and a big bouquet of flame-colored flowers in her hands.
"We shall have sunshine without the sun," she cried to Hubert. "These flowers have caught his color." ”

“ Before Adèle's mind there came the vision of a vain, empty, earthward life. But clearer still she saw the Lamb bearing away all offenses and her hopeless coming short, and the High Priest who with perfect acceptance presented the offering of His blood for her. Why had she never seen it before?
Oh, what grace! Oh, what a lightened soul!—to be free as a child unborn of any guilt of sins! She caught her breath with a little convulsive sob and sank back in her seat, grasping Winifred's hand with a tight, expressive grip. ”

“ Hubert was at a loss to know how to proceed with his project, but he and Winifred gave themselves to diligent prayer. As to the latter, sharp as was her grief at the thought of parting with her brother, her love for God was stronger, and she did not hesitate for a moment in her consent that he should go.
"I do not know any other answer to give to God," she said. "Surely I have nothing too precious for Him, when He has given all to me. And you know," she said with a radiant smile, "Hubert and I can never lose each other! We cannot lose what is in Christ!" ”

“ Winifred shuddered as she thought of the august Presence that inhabited the Holiest of All that the minister spoke of, and wondered if she would dare approach it. To stand in naked spirit before eyes of flame and to be read through and through, daring to speak no unmeant word, but only that which the heart designed, in absolute sincerity! Was worship in spirit such a real thing as that? Was she a true worshiper? ”

“ If true, it was the most wonderful fact in the world. If untrue—oh, what darkness lay in the shadow of so great light's negation! He read the twelfth verse, and the thirteenth, and pondered them in the light of the foregoing statement. If they were true, then He who was "with God," who "was God"—he paused to consider the mysterious relationship; mysterious, yet not thereby incredible; he would not repeat the folly of the gardener by too ready unbelief! If true, then God, that eternal Word, came down to man, and "as many as received Him," to them it was granted to become the sons of God! ”

“ But, given a hungry soul, he shall be filled with good things. And the Spirit waits to charge with electric certainty the teaching of God's truth to the man who in meekness adjusts himself to it.
Cold and colorless glows the transparent prism in the shadow. But let the sun shine through it, and lo! it is alive with all the colors of glory and beauty. So the sunlight shone in the laboratory of Hubert Gray that night and lit up with many rays of refracted glory the doctrine of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Clear, pure and true, the sweet voice floated through the church. With dramatic sympathy it yielded to the spirit of the melody and the pathos of the words. It touched hearts with a sense of undefined sorrow and longing. Madame Chapeau, the French milliner, who rented a sitting in the church of her patrons, sat with eyes filled with tears that threatened to plough pale furrows through the roses of her cheeks.
"In the wilderness build me a nest,"
suggested the sweet voice. ”

“ So that was the way Winifred found Him. Was that the way to "believe"? But Winifred had none of his doubts about God. She believed that He was, and the mental assent led to the heart surrender. But if he should do her act of faith—? If a man with doubts should give himself up would he be received? With such reflections Hubert went out into his day's work.
Again he accomplished the day's business with faithfulness to all details, but with the consciousness every hour of a perplexity unsolved—a burden unlifted. ”

“ Sometimes when the passion for his Lord's will swept his soul, and he beheld in contrast the idle hands of the church, paralyzed by pleasure or filled with self-interests, in secret he cast himself upon his face and wept as only a strong man, unused to tears, can weep.
The heart of Robert Gray turned with increasing fondness to his daughter who still saw her place to be at his side. A great comfort was she to him in these days of trial. For herself, Winifred was finding out afresh "the sweetness of an accepted sorrow." The joy of the Lord was inexpressible. ”

“ Had she any clearer ideas as to what Winifred Gray might mean? She surely did not wish the wings of a dove, literally, nor to fly away into the wilderness. She loved her home and many friends and had no desire to escape from them or her surroundings. If it meant to fly away to heaven—? Surely she did not wish that! The world and "the things that are in the world" were very attractive to the young soprano. She had no wish for heaven save as an alternative from hell. ”

“ Some men are sick and die for pure folly's sake, or for business. They are to be pitied. But if it were given a man to be spent for Christ's sake—to know some faint shadow of suffering for the same cause for which He suffered as we never may—that man is happy, I think."
"He is," said Hubert earnestly, "he is."
Mr. Carew was struck by the sincerity of Hubert's tones. He looked at him with a searching, yearning expression; somewhat, it may be, as the Lord Jesus looked on the rich young man and "loved him." ”

“ Hubert pondered the text, no longer in keen agony of mind, for his distress had lightened as he saw even on the painful way the light of God's will shining. Anything could be borne, if the face of the Lord still shone upon it!
"What does it mean?" he queried in deep meditation.
Slowly a meaning, not the full one, doubtless, but suited to his need, dawned upon him. Let the spiritually dead attend to the affairs of death. Let them follow the conventional, natural round, and answer always to the cries of human love and longing. Let them keep to earthly ties and earthly work. ”

“ He saw other faces not so typical, and found himself seated amongst them, and abhorred the fraternity cemented by a common unbelief—a cold negation. He was unhappy. He found no territory on which to stand. He hated the cant and formalism that chilled him in the fashionable church. He hated the insolent creed of the deist, and the ignorance of the agnostic. He seemed to be hating almost all things with himself included. If he had been sure there was a God who heard mortals pray, he would have cried to Him to deliver him from so wretched a position. ”

“ God had a supreme gift to bestow; the world had a supreme need; and to bring the need and the gift together was his absorbing, constraining zeal. Would God it were ours also! Friends, my plea for China is not for its temporal needs; it is not that its women's feet are bound, that its men are opium-stupefied, or that it needs our Western ideas, as it is waking from its Eastern way. It is this: God has an unspeakable gift for its people, and we must bear it to them."
His tall figure was leaning forward and his burning eyes chanced to rest fully upon Hubert. ”

“ It is this: 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' This lets us farther into God's attitude and purpose concerning 'the world.' Loving all His creatures, He still saw that they were involved in ruin brought on by sin. If He brought them to Himself—the only event that could satisfy love—it must be by a great and costly Redemption. One emanating from Himself must be projected into the ruin and death of the world and come back to Him, spotless and unsullied, bringing with Him 'many sons' unto the glory. But He must purge their sins. ”

“ Winifred was firm, and a certain womanly dignity hid the grief that she felt, lest its display should afterward bring humiliating regret. She told him as clearly as she could the reason why she could not become his wife, and to his unspiritual judgment it seemed a petty cause. He was accustomed to seeing a type of religion that could exist in harmony with the world, and he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had become uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her being the best of wives to a worldly man like himself. They need not quarrel about it. ”

“ CHAPTER IV ADELE Winifred awoke Tuesday morning with melody in her heart. She moved about her room with the exhilaration of a fresh joy in living. She took her Bible, which still wore the genteel, unsullied dress of a stranger, and turned to the place she wished to read. She had not got beyond the text of Sunday:
"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshiper shall worship the
Father in spirit and in truth."
She pondered the text. "Shall worship the Father," she mused. "Oh, how sweet! That august One whom I feared is 'the Father.' He loves me!" ”

“ The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.' It is the bearing of a specific good to those who have not received it. It is not, per se, the bettering of temporal conditions. It is the securing to those who believe its message the best eternal conditions. It is not a matter of 'elevation'—it is a matter of translation. Not into a bettered life, but into a new life with an eternal outlook—into a new realm altogether, and that divine—the Gospel we carry ushers its believers! ”

“ Presently the grace of the journeying shall give way to the eternal glory—to the homecoming! Look, sister, do you see that impulse of the dawn, as though the darkness pulsated with premonition of its coming?"
"Yes," said Winifred, with deep gladness in her voice. "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh." ”

“ A few young people still lingered about the door, loath to go in from the summer twilight. Within the newness rivaled that without. The pew backs shone with varnish, and the aisles glowed with fresh, red carpet. The simple pulpit was carefully polished and a bright bookmark hung from the gilt-edged leaves of the Bible. The choir occupied a platform at the right of the minister, facing the congregation, and each member held the visitors in view as they were shown to a seat. The evening congregation was scattering, so their advent was the more noticeable. ”

“ Carew's experience of earnest pleadings for missionaries to be sent to various places and his absolute inability to answer the cry. But broader than the fact of the wish of some stood the need of all! Populous cities without one witness to the grace of God! Wide regions untraversed by the feet of His messengers! Hubert had thought New Laodicea a place of desperate need; and so it was in the matter of vital, fruit-bearing piety. But as he thought of the inky darkness in which China's millions dwelt this seemed a place of light. ”

“ I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine."
"Do you think that means, Hubert," said Winifred, "that He does not pray for the world? It seems very exclusive. But we know that God loves the world?"
"I think," said Hubert, "that the discrimination is not against the world, but rather for those given Him out of it. He must care specially for them. Perhaps if we read on we shall see the special character of this prayer for us." ”

“ In Hubert's room a painful heart process was going on. Sunk in a deep, capacious chair, with head resting upon his hand, he set in order before himself the axiomatic truths he had heard.
"God's supreme work is salvation," he meditated. "The field for this work is the world—the whole world. Salvation is wrought—as to man's part—through faith in a message preached. The message requires a messenger. In vast proportions of the field the messengers are wanting. ”