83
February 1930
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
friends of her grandfather. Althea is returning to you next week. When are you coming East?, etc.” It was Althea’s last night in Boston, and she had come to spend it with Aunt Elinor and Constance. Before the fire, after dinner, she had gone over her experiences minutely with them, dwelling more especially on her real ization of her own desperate condition when she had wantonly offended and turned away all her Christian friends, young and old, and had so nearly fatally injured the dear uncle whose life and work were the inspiration o f the group. “ But Uncle Alan forgave me— in fact, he never blamed me—he never thought of himself,” she said with the tears not far away, “and I found that God had for given me for Christ’s sake, after I surrendered to Him as my Lord and my God.” Silence had fallen upon her aunt and cousin, and soon afterward they had parted for the night. But Althea stole back to the old room a quarter o f an hour later. It was lighted only by the flickering gleams o f the dying fire. She picked up the scarf she had come to get and as she did so the fitful firelight showed her the faces of her ancestors on the opposite wall. She stood beneath the great-great-grandfather, and loqked up into his severe and righteous face. “ Weren’t you a little bit of a Pharisee, dear old man?” she said aloud, clasping her hands and resting her chin upon them. “ Did you ever hear that the Lord said, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ ? And I am so glad I know I am a sinner—and a saved one! Oh, great-great-grandfather! If only you could have known that He is King of kings and Lord of lords!” And with the great “ Messiah” strain running through her head, Althea went to bed. She did not know till long months later that after she left the old drawing-room, her cousin Constance slipped out of the deep armchair she had been hidden in, and stood as Althea had stood, be neath the picture, and clasped her hands beneath her chin as Althea had clasped them. “ Great-great-grandfather,” she said to the old face that looked stonily ahead, impervious, “ you were a Uni tarian, but I’m not going to be one. I’m going the other way—the way Althea is going. This very night I have decided it ! And may my very name ‘Constance’ be the sign of my fidelity to the One I have learned to love through Althea, who gave His life for me, whose blood alone can wash away our sins.” The Sacrament of Suffering Suffering is not always penalty. It may mean dis cipline for service, or even service itself. There is a sacred chalice pressed to the lips of love that selfishness can never know, and which makes suffering, at times, a very sacrament. However Satan may transform himself into an angel of light to tempt men, he has never appeared to them on the cross. The nails and the crown of thorns have no attraction to antichrist. It is only the Good Shepherd that lays down His life for the sheep. The power to suffer is measured by the power to love. It is found at its best in God Himself. Incapacity to suf fer means an abnormal, an undeveloped nature. It needed a Being perfect in pity, in compassion, in forbearance, in love to so love the world as to give His only begot ten Son to save sinners.— Bishop E. R. Hendrix.
with me, that you are very much astray. Christ did not mean to have His sayings interpreted so literally. And you know, he is certain there is no personal force or Deity at the center of the universe. Why can you not take advantage of all the new thought of this wonderful age? Right here in Boston you could be in touch with leaders— some of them fee! sure that we have many lives behind us and shall have many more to live before we are perfected.. Some are sure that they have communi cated with dear ones gone before who tell them all about the other world. There are even people who study the stars and give you remarkable horoscopes.” “ Dear! Now hear me!” cried Althea when they had entered Cousin Elizabeth’s enclosed car and had the robe respectfully tucked around them for the trip to Cam bridge. “ You precio.us people here think this is all new— but it is not! Daniel said to King Nebuchadnezzar, ‘ The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.’ You see they were all there, even back in those ancient days. And God forbids His children to have deal ings with ‘wizards that peep, and that mutter.’ And that just describes certain ‘mediums.’ He also forbids us to intrude our fleshly, minds into these hidden things. Don’t you remember how Saul was punished for going to the Witch of Endor, who was nothing less than a medium?” No! Cousin Elizabeth had no such recollection, “Well, read it in 1 Samuel 28! And as for our going from one life to another—Paul says, ‘Absent from the body . . . present with the Lord.’ And when God has so wonderfully provided a perfect salvation in Christ, don’t you see that there is no need of this painful process of reincarnation ? It is an old philosophy of despair, worked out by people who have drifted away from God.” Cousin Elizabeth sighed. Althea patted her encourag ingly and continued: “ As for no personal Deity, and so on, hear what Aristotle said—the master of logic, the great reasoner: ‘God’s life is like that of which we catch a transient glimpse when our life is at its best. . . . His very self activity is bliss. . . . . We “say (or affirm) that God is liv ing, eternal, perfect; and continuous and everlasting life is God’s, for God is eternal life.’ He also credits God with ‘pure, self-activity of reason, and freedom from change and passion.’ So this great master of logic believed in a personal God.” After a few moments Althea said softly: “ Dear Cousin Elizabeth, you have all been so good, so kind to me! But it isn’t any use. I’ve found H im ! And, just like Paul, who came of an old family himself, I count all these things but ‘refuse’ that I may win Christ and be found in Him.” Althea’s quotation of this last Scripture, and her look of exaltation as she quoted it, enlightened her Cousin Elizabeth more than hours of argumentation. She sat back in her luxurious, protected corner with an almost aggrieved feeling at her heart. What was it that she, Elizabeth Pepper, was missing in life, that this little off shoot of the old family tree possessed ? There was a rich ness of fulfillment of the uttermost that life can give in this young cousin’s experience, and with all her exquisite ness of perception Elizabeth Pepper was aware of this. “ . . . And now, my dear,” Aunt Elinor wrote Althea’s mother, “ I am sorry to tell you that Elizabeth Pepper and I feel that it is all to no purpose for us to labor any fur ther with Althea. We can only regret exceedingly that she has been exposed to the extreme influences of the old
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