The Angel Part 35

The tears were rolling down the weak, young face. The flaccid mouth quivered; the neck was bowed.

"All this, sir," said the young man--"all this is true."

"A broken and contrite heart," the Teacher answered, "are not despised of G.o.d. By his great mercy I have been sent to you to save you. Restore the money you have stolen, but do far more. Turn from darkness; seek light. Come to Jesus Christ. Boy, you have heard of what is known as the 'Great Refusal'; you know how the young man with great possessions could not, and would not, give them up to follow the Son of G.o.d? But you deny Jesus for a pot of beer! You give up your hope of eternal life to come and the peace of G.o.d in this wicked world for nothing--nothing at all?

Now come with me to my house in Bloomsbury, my house of G.o.dly men. There you shall pray and repent, and from there you shall go home cleansed and purged of your sin, filled with the Holy Spirit, ready and anxious to lead a new life, walking from henceforth in Christ Jesus."

They went out of the place together. The boy never cast a backward glance at his inamorata of a few minutes ago. He followed the Teacher in blind obedience. He was as one stunned. They came into the big old-fas.h.i.+oned square where was the house which Sir Thomas Ducaine had given to Joseph and his brethren. The windows were all lighted up, and there was a small crowd lingering in front of the door.

"They are all praying within," Joseph said. "To-morrow we are to go down into the worst places of the East End. A party of great people are coming with us. We have persuaded them to come, in order that they may see for themselves what these parts of London really are like."

He spoke quietly, and in a purely conversational tone, as if to an equal. He knew well what the poor lad who walked so humbly by his side was suffering. He knew of the remorse and shame, but also of the hope, which were pouring into the young man's heart. And he knew also that all this was but a preparation for what was to come--that there must, indeed, be a final agony of surrender, an absolute and utter "giving-in"

to Jesus.

So, as they walked across the square, he tried to calm his captive's nerves by a quiet recital of the great and hopeful things that they were to do on the morrow.

Yet even to Joseph it was not then given to know what things the morrow would bring forth.

CHAPTER XX

MURDER AND SUDDEN DEATH

The big house was very plainly furnished. What was absolutely necessary had been put into it, but that was all. Sir Thomas Ducaine had been astounded at the simplicity of the arrangements. The wealthy young man, accustomed as he was to every luxury and amenity of life that riches bring, was most anxious to make the place more comfortable.

"My dear fellow," he said to Joseph, "you can't possibly live like this.

Why, it's barer than a work-house! You must really let me send you some things in."

But the baronet had not in the least succeeded in altering the Teacher's determination.

"The Lord's work is to be done," Joseph had answered. "We are here to do it, and our thoughts are set on other matters. We have no need of these things."

"But you don't think comfort or luxury, I suppose you would call it, wrong?"

"Certainly not, if a man has earned it, is robbing n.o.body in acquiring it, and finds personal enjoyment in it. Christ sat at the rich man's feast. He took the gift of the precious ointment. But for us such things are unnecessary."

So the house, now more famous than perhaps any house in London, was a veritable hermit's cell in its appointments. There, however, the resemblance ceased entirely. The place hummed with varied activities. It was the centre of the many organizations that were springing into being under Joseph's direction; activities made possible by Sir Thomas Ducaine's magnificent gifts and the stream of outside donations that had followed in their wake.

Joseph and his young companion pa.s.sed through the little crowd of loiterers and curious people that nearly always stood before the door of the mysterious house where the Teacher was now known to reside. There was a stir and movement as he came among them, nudgings of elbows, a universal pressure forward, whispers and remarks below the voice: "That's him!" "There's Joseph himself!"

Joseph pa.s.sed through the crowd without taking any notice of it. On the doorstep he paused and turned as if to speak. The people--there may have been thirty or forty of them--pressed forward in a circle of eager faces. On the outskirts of the group there was a woman, dressed in black and past the middle-age. She seemed to hang back, as if reluctant, or too timid, to approach.

Joseph's eye fell upon her. Then he took a latchkey from his pocket and gave it to the young man.

"Open the door," he said, "and go into the house. Go into the room on the right-hand side of the hall, and I will meet you there."

The young man did as he was bidden, and disappeared.

Then Joseph spoke.

"Among you all," he said, "there is but one here that needs me. You have come to see a show, not to seek G.o.d and help to lead you to Him. Get you gone from this place, for there is no health in you!"

The voice rang out in stern command--a command which it seemed impossible to disobey. Without a word, the people turned and slunk away, melting like ghosts into the darkness of the square.

Only the woman in black remained, and she now came timidly up to the Teacher.

"Sir," she said, in a thin but clear and educated voice--"sir, I should like to speak with you, if I may."

"My friend," he answered. "I was waiting for you. Come within the house."

He led the woman into a small room on the left-hand side of the hall--an uncarpeted room, with nothing but a few chairs, a big table covered with papers, and a purring gas-stove upon the hearth.

At the Teacher's invitation the woman sat down, and revealed a thin, anxious face and eyes that seemed perpetually trembling upon the brink of tears.

"It is very kind of you to see me, sir," she said, "I never expected that I should have such good fortune. But I have read about you in the papers--that you go about doing good, just as our dear Lord did, and something within me moved me to seek you out, even if it were only just to look at you. For I am very unhappy, sir, and I have no one to confide in, no one whom I can ask about my trouble or obtain advice from."

"Tell me all about it," Joseph said gently. "When I stood at the door and looked at the people I felt in my heart that they were there out of idle curiosity. G.o.d in His wisdom has given me power to know these things. But something came straight from you to me that made me aware that you needed me. Tell me everything."

"It's about my son, sir," the woman said, not noticing the slight start that Joseph gave and the new light that came into his eyes. "I am a widow with one son. He is just twenty, and is employed as a clerk in a City House. But he is going wrong, sir. I can read the signs easily. He stays out late at night, he seems to be losing his love for me, and is impatient of anything I say to him. And more than once he has come home intoxicated lately. And in his room I have found programmes of the performances at music-halls and such places.

"I do not pry about, sir, nor am I foolishly severe and hard. Young men must have their amus.e.m.e.nts, and they must have their secrets, I suppose.

I do not expect Charlie to tell me everything. And he only earns thirty s.h.i.+llings a week, part of which he gives to me for his board and lodging. He cannot possibly afford these amus.e.m.e.nts.

"I have a terrible fear that never leaves me that he has not been honest, that he must have been taking other people's money, and that he will be ruined. I have prayed and prayed, sir, but it really seems as if prayer is of no use, though, of course, I keep on."

"Don't say that," Joseph answered. "Prayer is still the greatest force in the world, however despondent we may become at times. But your prayers have been answered. Charlie is saved!"

The weeping mother gave a sudden cry, half of joy, half of incredulity.

"But, sir," she stammered, "how can you know that? Oh, if only it could be true!"

"It is true, my dear sister," he answered. "The Lord led me to a place where I found your son, not an hour ago. The Holy Ghost told my mind that there was a widow's son whom I could save. All you have been conjecturing is only too true. Charlie has done the things you say. He has taken money from his employers, but I have given him the sum that he may return it to them. He is here, in this house now, and I know that the leaven of repentance is working within him, and that he feels that he is rescued from both material and spiritual ruin. We are going to pray together. Come with me, and add your prayers to ours."

But when they crossed the hall and entered the room opposite, they found that the young man was already on his knees.

Day by day some such episode as this occurred. Joseph's power seemed more and more sure and wonderful. When he had sent away the widow and her son, tearful and happy, with something in the face of the young man that had never been there before, the Teacher went up the wide Georgian stairs to a large room on the first floor.

No one was there but old David Owen. All the other friends and companions of Joseph were out upon various efforts of compa.s.sion and salvation; only the old man remained, for he had a cold, and could not face the night air. A grey, knitted comforter was round his neck, and he was slowly eating his supper--a bowl of bread-and-milk. Before him, on the table, was a large Bible, and he was reading eagerly as he ate, reading with the avidity and concentrated interest that more ordinary people give to an engrossing romance.

He looked up as Joseph entered, and smiled at him.

"It's wonderful, Master!" he said. "It grows more and more wonderful every time I opens it. I've spent my life reading in the Holy Book, and I'm an old man now. But ten lives would be all too short!"

He pointed to the volume with gnarled, wrinkled fingers that trembled with emotion.

"Ah! 'Twas a bitter nailing!" he went on. "A bitter, bitter torture He bore for us. And remember, Joseph, He bore the sins of the whole world, too. I'm no scholar, and I can't see things like you can. All the time I'm reading an' yet I know I can only see a little bit of it. But even that's rending and tearing, Master. It's dreadful what He suffered for us! I can't understand why every one doesn't love Him. It's easy to understand folk doing wrong things. The flesh is very strong--man is full of wickedness. Satan, he goes about tempting the heart, with his dreadful cunning. But, whatever a man does, and is sorry for afterwards, I can't understand his not loving Jesus. And so few folk love Jesus in this wicked town!"