A Desert Drama Part 20

"'Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They went astray in the wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in.

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. So they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city where they dwelt. Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of men.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: He delivered them from their distress p273]

"It sounds as if it were composed for us, and yet it was written two thousand years ago," said the clergyman, as he closed the book. "In every age man has been forced to acknowledge the guiding hand which leads him. For my part I don't believe that inspiration stopped two thousand years ago. When Tennyson wrote with such fervour and conviction,--

'Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill.'

he was repeating the message which had been given to him, just as Micah or Ezekiel when the world was younger repeated some cruder and more elementary lesson."

"That is all very well, Mr. Stuart," said the Frenchman; "you ask me to praise G.o.d for taking me out of danger and pain, but what I want to know is why, since He has arranged all things, He ever put me into that pain and danger. I have in my opinion more occasion to blame than to praise.

You would not thank me for pulling you out of that river if it was also I who pushed you in. The most which you can claim for your Providence is that it has healed the wound which its own hand inflicted."

"I don't deny the difficulty," said the clergyman, slowly; "no one who is not self-deceived _can_ deny the difficulty. Look how boldly Tennyson faced it in that same poem, the grandest and deepest and most obviously inspired in our language. Remember the effect which it had upon him.

'I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar stairs, Which slope through darkness up to G.o.d,

'I stretch lame hands of faith and grope And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.'

It is the central mystery of mysteries--the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of G.o.d with man. But take our own case as an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of our experience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of my duties than ever I had before. It has taught me to be less remiss in saying what I think to be true, less indolent in doing what I feel to be rightful."

"And I," cried Sadie. "It has taught me more than all my life put together. I have learned so much and unlearned so much. I am a different girl."

"I never understood my own nature before," said Stephens. "I can hardly say that I had a nature to understand. I lived for what was unimportant, and I neglected what was vital."

"Oh, a good shake-up does n.o.body any harm," the Colonel remarked. "Too much of the feather-bed-and-four-meals-a-day life is not good for man or woman."

"It is my firm belief," said Mrs. Belmont, gravely, "that there was not one of us who did not rise to a greater height during those days in the desert than ever before or since. When our sins come to be weighed, much may be forgiven us for the sake of those unselfish days."

They all sat in thoughtful silence for a little while the scarlet streaks turned to carmine, and the grey shadows deepened, and the wild-fowl flew past in dark straggling V's over the dull metallic surface of the great smooth-flowing Nile. A cold wind had sprung up from the eastward, and some of the party rose to leave the deck. Stephens leaned forward to Sadie.

"Do you remember what you promised when you were in the desert?" he whispered.

"What was that?"

"You said that if you escaped you would try in future to make some one else happy."

"Then I must do so."

"You have," said he, and their hands met under the shadow of the table.

THE END.