165
April 1931
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
God in nature, and so forth. But her mother had-a New Testament with Psalms! This Beatrice secured, as a young girl in her teens; and just because it Was not favored by her family, she devoured it, at. odd times; se cretly. It won her. She loved the Saviour it held up to her. She knew that the rest of the Bible told much more, but she was content with what she had, until her parents were taken away. It was while her father’s estate was in process of litigation that she found she must go somewhere and do something. For the first time in her life, she faced necessity. In this trial, she turned instinc tively to her little New Testament. Then the wish came to go among those who believed it. Poor child! With no one to advise her, and with practically no experience, she fell among those who speak of Christ, but who do not represent Him. The disillusionment was terrible. Pic ture to yourself this young mountain girl, half Valkyr and half Neapolitan; child of nature and of pagan culture; down she comes, with only her own dreams to guide her! She has, as yet, no spiritual discernment and no real Bible knowledge. The deep things of God are unknown to her. She hardly realizes what prayer means.” The Personage paused and looked off for a moment -—-from the high place where they stood—over the roofs, so various, and so typical of Jerusalem. “What did she find to disillusion her?” asked Con stance finally. “In the first place, she was not received warmly. All her charm was counted against her. It alarmed and an noyed many of the women. Her culture was held as. a sign of extreme worldliness. By contrast,, the uneducated were exalted. Then, as her fine personality began to con vince a few of her genuineness, a real persecution of her arose. Who was she? Who had ever heard of her be fore? Thus they began it. Who was this young woman who had suddenly appeared among them, and. why and from whence had she come? Some of the hearts of the younger women and men had been won. But the battle raged finally so furiously that they were accused of being under her hypnotic power.” “Not really!” breathed Althea. ' “Absolutely! Poor Beatrice was invested with ‘it.’ She was made the object of furtive investigations; and—” “Why did she stay on?” “By this time she was thoroughly aroused and filled with indignation. She needed the work and the com parative security until the settlement of the litigation over her father’s small fortune. She told me she kept saying to herself: ‘Perhaps dear Daddy was right. Surely if these people here are samples, I ’d rather be with him!’ So the girl stayed on, thinking she would be convinced of her own mistake in trying to find the Lord, and that she would at last be free to go to Italy and live as an artist and mu sician among the intelligentsia there. How little she realized the marvelous power of Christ! We know it, you and I ! But she thought she could get away from Him of whom the psalmist cried: ‘Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there . . . thy right hand shall hold me.’ One day, a long legal enve lope arrived. The case was settled. She had won. She was free. She went away, but she could not. get away from God. For a few months, she tried conversing with disembodied spirits—and nearly lost her small, fortune. But God was merciful. She did it in ignorance. She found a fearful abyss open at her very feet, that gave her
fair young Beatrice had sung an old Italian song of Scarlatti’s that carried them back to a romantic Italy of nightingales and jasmine flowers, they had all but forgot ten the effect her singing had had upon them. They were absorbed in a comic duet sung by two college boys. Not so Althea! “I must know her,” she whispered to Connie, who nodded sympathetically. Althea was used to being liked. She was accustomed to having her advances met joyously by what she called “distinctly flattered females.” But something in this girl baffled her. Yet she slipped down the aisle and found her. “I came to tell you what your songs meant to me,” she said charmingly'. “A h !” replied Beatrice Guicciardi, with polite un concern. She had thrown around her a wrap of black lace over white satin. “She looked exactly like ‘Matilda’ in ‘Lucille.’ You remember her? Dear romantic thing!” Althea told Con nie. “And I did extract from her that she had never been out of Del Norte County to speak of after her parents came there when she was twelve; that her father and mother had educated her—my deaf, she speaks English with the purest London intonation—regular Mayfair! Her father was Italian and her mother Scandinavian. Did you ever hear of such a combination ? They met in Rome—-both artists. Her father had a complex against machinery of all kinds; deplored a mechanical, age. Wherever he went, it found him out at last. Beatrice’s childhood was spent in various spots in Italy and Switzer land. But always the telephone and other devices would come in. Finally, her father came to California. His last stand was in Del Norte-where the country is so steep that up to ten years ago there were school children who had never seen a wagon or even watched ‘the wheels go round.’ Pack mules brought all their supplies. He taught her the old songs and the love of old customs. And her mother, who was brought up very well in Lon don, educated her. 'She’s an orphan now, and for some reason of her own she’s going to Jerusalem. Wouldn’t it be wonderful—” and there Connie and Althea gripped each other’s hands delightedly, for they themselves were to be in that city for the Easter season. * * * “The poor little one!” The Personage was speaking to his two young friends, Constance and Althea. They had walked to his favorite hill overlooking Jerusalem. “She told you her story, then?” Althea asked. “Yes.” “I knew you could and would reach her and help h e r!” exclaimed Constance. The Personage smiled in his most fatherly way into the gray eyes of the young woman he had met on shipboard the preceding year—Constance, whose baby hand had given him the lily of the valley one Easter morning long ago, and had finally led him up to God. “There is much that Beatrice told me,” he said. “I am sure you will use discretion. She very much needs help—spiritual help. You must be sympathetic and un derstanding and uncritical. Her soul has been vexed and grieved in an unusual way. Her father, artist to the core, taught her to love the beautiful in nature, to hate ugliness, including manufacturing and machinery, since they bring with them a certain ugliness, in spite of all they do for us. He had a Pantheistic philosophy—
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