Robert Hardy's Seven Days Part 12

George had sense enough to offer to relieve his parents of the burden of watching through the night, and during the exchange of watchers along toward morning, as Mrs. Hardy slipped into the room to relieve the boy, she found him kneeling down at a couch with his face buried in the cus.h.i.+ons. She raised her face in thanksgiving to G.o.d and went softly out.

The morning dawned gray with snow which still whirled in wreaths about the sorrowing homes of Barton; but Robert Hardy thought of the merciful covering it would make for the ghastly piles of ruin down under the bridge and along the banks of the river. He said to himself, "This is my fourth day; how can I best spend it? What shall I do?" He kneeled and prayed, and rose somewhat refreshed.

The forenoon went rapidly by, and before he knew it noon was near. The time had pa.s.sed in watching Clara, visiting with Bess and Will; and doing some necessary work for the company in his little office downstairs. He did not feel like saying anything to George yet. James Caxton had been in, and the first thing he had mentioned had been his own act in the meeting the night before. Mr. Hardy thanked G.o.d for it, and a prayer went out of his heart for his own son, that the Spirit might touch him in his sin, and bring him into the light of Christ.

A little after noon the storm cleared up, and Robert prepared to go down to the shops. Clara had not yet come out of her stupor. The doctor had called and done what he could. There was nothing in particular that Mr. Hardy could do in the case, so he went out about one o'clock and entered his office, hoping as he went in that he would have no trouble with the men.

Mr. Burns reported everything quiet, and the manager, with a sigh of relief, proceeded with the routine duties of the business. Nothing of any special interest occurred through the afternoon. The storm had ceased entirely, and the sun had come out clear and warm. People were clearing off the walks, and the ringing of sleigh bells was distinct in the office, even over the incessant hum of the big engine.

Toward three o'clock one of Mr. Hardy's old friends, an officer of the road, came in and said there was a general movement on foot throughout Barton to hold a monster ma.s.s meeting in the Town Hall for the benefit of the sufferers, both in the railroad accident and in the explosion of the Sunday before in the shops. It was true the company would settle for damages, but in many cases the adjustment of claims would not be made until much suffering and hards.h.i.+p had been endured. There was a feeling on the part of the townspeople that a meeting for public conference would result in much good, and there was also, as has been the case in other large horrors, a craving to relieve the strain of feeling by public gathering and consultation.

"Can you come out to the meeting, Hardy?" asked his friend.

Mr. Hardy thought a minute and replied, "Yes; I think I can." Already an idea had taken shape in his mind which he could not help feeling was inspired by G.o.d.

"It might be a good thing if you could come prepared to make some remarks. I find there is a disposition on the part of the public to charge the road with carelessness and mismanagement."

"I'll say a word or two," replied Mr. Hardy; and after a brief talk on business matters his friend went out.

Robert immediately sat down to his desk, and for an hour, interrupted only by an occasional item of business brought to him by his secretary, he jotted down copious notes. The thought which had come to him when his friend suggested the meeting was this: he would go and utter a message that burned within him, a message which the events of the past few days made imperative should be uttered. He went home absorbed in the great idea. He had once in his younger days been famous for his skill in debate, so he had no fear of his power to deliver a message of life at the present crisis in his own. He at once spoke of the meeting to his wife.

"Mary, what do you say? I know every minute is precious. I owe to you and these dear ones at home a very sacred duty; but no less, it seems to me, is my duty to the society where I have lived all these years, doing literally nothing for its uplift toward G.o.d who gave us all life and power. I feel that He will put a message into my mouth that may prove a blessing to this community. It seems to me this special opportunity is providential."

"Robert," replied his wife, smiling at him through happy tears, "it is the will of G.o.d. Do your duty as He makes it clear to you."

It had been an agitating week to the wife. She antic.i.p.ated its close with a feeling akin to terror. What would the end be? She was compelled to say to herself that her husband was not insane; but the thought that he was really to be called out of the world in some mysterious manner at the end of the rapidly approaching Sunday, had several times come over her with a power that threatened her own reason. Nevertheless the week, so far, in spite of its terror and agitation, had a sweet joy for her. Her husband had come back to her, the lover as he once had been, only with the added tenderness of all the years of their companions.h.i.+p. She thanked the Father for it, and when the hour came for Robert to go down to the meeting, she blessed him and prayed heaven to make his words to the people like the words of G.o.d.

"Father, what do you want me to do? Shall I stay here?" asked George, who had not stirred out of the house all day. He had watched by Clara faithfully. She was still in that mysterious condition of unconsciousness which made her case so puzzling to the doctor.

Mr. Hardy hesitated a moment, then said: "No, George; I would like to have you go with me. Alice can do all that is necessary. But let us all pray together now before we go out. The Lord is leading us mysteriously, but we shall some time know the reason why."

So in the room where Clara lay they all kneeled down, except Will, who lay upon a lounge near his unconscious sister. Mr. Hardy, as he clasped his wife's hand in his own, poured out his soul in this pet.i.tion:

"Dear Lord, we know Thou dost love us, even though we cannot always know why Thou dost allow suffering and trouble; and we would thank Thee for the things that cannot be destroyed, for the loves that cannot suffer death, for the wonderful promises of the life to come. Only we have been so careless of the things that belong to Thy kingdom! We have been so selfish and forgetful of the great needs and sufferings and sins of earth. Pardon us, gracious Redeemer! Pardon me, for I am the chief offender! Yea, Lord, even as the robber on the cross was welcomed into Paradise, welcome Thou me. But we pray for our dear ones. May they recover! Make this beloved one who now lies unknowing among us to come back into the universe of sense and sound, to know us and smile upon us again. We say, 'Thy will be done.' Grant wisdom, for Thou knowest best; only our hearts will cry out for help, and Thou knowest our hearts better than anyone else. Bless me this night as I stand before the people. This is no selfish prayer, dear Lord. I desire only Thy glory; I pray only for Thy kingdom. But Thou hast appointed my days to live. Thou hast sent me the message, and I cannot help feeling the solemn burden and joy of it. I will say to the people that Thou art most important of all in this habitation of the flesh.

And now bless us all. Give us new hearts. Make us to feel the true meaning of existence here. Reveal to us Thy splendour. Forgive all the past, and make impossible in the children the mistakes of the parent. Deliver us from evil, and Thine shall be the glory for ever.

Amen."

When Mr. Hardy and George reached the town hall they found a large crowd gathering, and they had some difficulty in gaining entrance. Mr.

Hardy at once pa.s.sed up to the platform, where the chairman of the meeting greeted him and said he would expect him to make some remarks during the evening. Robert sat down at one end of the platform and watched the hall fill with people, nearly all well known to him. There was an unusually large crowd of boys and young men, many of his own employes from the shops, and a great number of citizens and business men--a representative audience for the place, brought together under the influence of the disaster and feeling somewhat the breaking down of artificial social distinctions in the presence of the grim leveller Death, who had come so near to them the last few days.

There were the usual opening exercises common to such public gatherings. Several well-known business men and two or three of the ministers, including Mr. Jones, made appropriate addresses. The attention of the great audience was not laboured for, the occasion itself being enough to throw over the people the spell of subdued quiet. When the chairman announced that "Mr. Robert Hardy, our well-known railroad manager, will now address us," there was a movement of curiosity and some surprise, and many a man leaned forward and wondered in his heart what the wealthy railroad man would have to say on such an occasion. He had never appeared as a speaker in public, and he pa.s.sed generally in Barton for the cold, selfish, haughty man he had always been.

Mr. Hardy began in a low, clear tone:

"Men and women of Barton: To-night I am not the man you have known these twenty-five years that I have been among you. I am, by the grace of G.o.d, a new creature. As I stand here I have no greater desire in my heart than to say what may prove to be a blessing to all my old townspeople and to my employes and to these strong young men and boys.

Within a few short days G.o.d has shown me the selfishness of a human being's heart. That heart was my own; and it is with feelings none of you can ever know that I look into your faces and say these words."

Robert paused a moment as if gathering himself up for the effort that followed, and the audience, startled with an unexpected emotion by the strange beginning, thrilled with excitement, as, lifting his arm and raising his voice, the once cold and proud man, his face and form glowing with the transfiguration of a new manhood, exclaimed:

"There is but one supreme law in this world, and it is this: Love G.o.d and your neighbour with heart, mind, soul, strength. There are but two things worth living for: the glory of G.o.d and the salvation of man.

To-night I, who look into eternity in a sense which I will not stop to explain, feel the bitterness which comes from the knowledge that I have broken that law and have not lived for those things which alone are worth living for. But G.o.d has sent me here to-night with a message to the people which my heart must deliver. It is a duty even more sacred in some ways than what I owe to my own kindred. I am aware that the hearts of the people are shocked into numbness by the recent horror. I know that more than one bleeding heart is in this house, and the shadow of the last enemy, has fallen over many thresholds in our town. What!

did I not enter into the valley of the shadow of death myself as I stumbled over the ghastly ruins of that wreck, my soul torn in twain for the love of three of my own dear children? Do I not sympathise in full with all those who bitterly weep and lament and sit in blackness of horror this night? Yea; but, men of Barton, why is it that we are so moved, so stirred, so shocked by the event of death, when the far more awful event of life does not disturb us in the least? We shudder with terror, we lose our accustomed pride or indifference, we speak in whispers, and we tread softly in the presence of the visitor who smites but once and then smites the body only: but in the awful presence of the living image of G.o.d we go our ways careless, indifferent, cold, pa.s.sionless, selfish.

"I know whereof I speak, for I have walked through the world like that myself. But death cannot be compared for one moment with life for majesty, for solemnity, for meaning, for power. There were seventy-five persons killed in the accident. But in the papers this morning I read in the column next to that in which the accident was paraded, in small type and in the briefest of paragraphs, the statement that a certain young man in this very town of ours had been arrested for forging his father's name on a cheque, and was a fugitive from the law. Every day in this town and in every town all over the world events like that, and worse than that, occur. Nay, in this very town of ours more than seventy-five souls are, at this very moment, going down into a far blacker h.e.l.l of destruction than the one under that fated bridge, and the community is not horrified over it. How many ma.s.s meetings have been held in this town within the last twenty-five years over the losses of character, the death of purity, the destruction of honesty? Yet they have outnumbered the victims of this late physical disaster a thousandfold. And what does mere death do?

It releases the spirit from its house of earth. Aside from that, death does nothing to the person. But what does life do? Life does everything. It prepares for heaven or for h.e.l.l. It starts impulses, moulds character, fixes character. Death has no kingdom without end.

Death is only the last enemy of the many enemies that life knows.

Death is a second; life is an eternity. O men, brothers, if, as I solemnly and truly believe, this is the last opportunity I shall have to speak to you in such large numbers, I desire you to remember, when I have vanished from your sight, that I spent nearly my last breath in an appeal to you to make the most of daily life, to glorify G.o.d and save men!

"The greatest enemy of man is not death; it is selfishness. It sits on the throne of the entire world. This very disaster which has filled the town with sorrow was due to selfishness. Let us see if that is not so. It has been proved by investigation already made that the drunkenness of a track inspector was the cause of the accident. What was the cause of that drunkenness? The drinking habits of that inspector. How did he acquire them? In a saloon which we taxpayers allow to run on payment of a certain sum of money into our town treasury. So, then, it was the greed or selfishness of the men of this town which lies at the bottom of this dreadful disaster. Who was to blame for the disaster? The track inspector? No. The saloon keeper who sold him the liquor? No. Who, then? We ourselves, my brothers; we who licensed the selling of the stuff which turned a man's brain into liquid fire, and smote his judgment and reason with a brand from out the burning pit. If I had stumbled upon the three corpses of my own children night before last, I could have exclaimed in justice before the face of G.o.d: 'I have murdered my own children,' for I was one of the men of Barton to vote for the license which made possible the drunkenness of the man in whose care were placed hundreds of lives.

"For what is the history of this case? Who was this wretched track inspector? A man who, to my own knowledge, trembled before temptation; who, on the testimony of the foreman at the shops, was, and always had been, a sober man up to the time when we as a munic.i.p.ality voted to replace the system of no license with the saloon, for the sake of what we thought was a necessary revenue. This man had no great temptation to drink while the saloon was out of the way. Its very absence was his salvation. But its public open return confronted his appet.i.te once more, and he yielded and fell. Who says he was to blame? Who are the real criminals in the case? We ourselves, citizens; we who, for the greed of gain, for the saving of that which has destroyed more souls in h.e.l.l than any other one thing, made possible the causes, which led to the grief and trouble of this hour. Would we not shrink in terror from the thought of lying in wait to kill a man? Would we not repel with holy horror the idea of murdering and maiming seventy-five people? We would say 'Impossible!' Yet, when I am ushered at last into the majestic presence of Almighty G.o.d, I feel convinced I shall see in His righteous countenance the sentence of our condemnation just as certainly as if we had gone out in a body and by wicked craft had torn out the supporting timbers of that bridge just before the train thundered upon it. For did we not sanction by law a business which we know tempts men to break all the laws; which fills our jails and poorhouses, our reformatories and asylums; which breaks women's hearts and beggars blessed homes and sends innocent children to tread the paths of shame and vagrancy; which brings pallor into the face of the wife and tosses with the devil's own glee a thousand victims into perdition with every revolution of this great planet!

"Men of Barton, say what we will, we are the authors of this dreadful disaster. If we sorrow as a community, we sorrow in reality for our own selfish act. And oh, the selfishness of it! That clamouring greed for money! That burning thirst for more, and more, and more, at the expense of every G.o.dlike quality, at the ruin of all that our mothers once prayed might belong to us as men and women! What is it, ye merchants, ye business men, here to-night, that ye struggle most over?

The one great aim of your lives is to buy for as little as possible and sell for as much as possible. What care have ye for the poor who work at worse than starvation wages, so long as ye can buy cheap and sell at large profits? What is the highest aim of us railroad men in the great whirl of commercial compet.i.tion which seethes and boils and surges about this earth like another atmosphere, plainly visible to the devils of other worlds? What is our aim, but to make money our G.o.d and power our throne? How much care or love is there for flesh and blood when there is danger of losing dollars? But oh, mighty Saviour! it was not for this that we were made! We know it was not.

"To whom am I speaking? To myself. G.o.d forbid that I should stand here to condemn you, being myself the chief of sinners for these twenty-five years. What have I done to bless this community? How much have I cared for the men in my employ? What difference did it make to me that my example drove men away from the Church of Christ, and caused anguish to those few souls who were trying to redeem humanity? To my just shame I make answer that no one thing has driven the engine of my existence over the track of its destiny except self. And oh, for that Church of Christ that I professed to believe in! How much have I done for that? How much, O fellow members--and I see many of you here to-night--how much have we done in the best cause ever known and the greatest organisation ever founded? We go to church after reading the Sunday morning paper, saturated through and through with the same things we have had poured into us every day of the week, as if we begrudged the whole of one day out of seven. We criticise prayer and hymn and sermon, drop into the contribution box half the amount we paid during the week for a theatre or concert ticket, and think we have done our duty as Christians. Then when anything goes wrong in the community, or our children fall into vice, we score the church for weakness and the preacher for lack of ability. Shame on us, men of Barton, members of the Church of Christ, that we have so neglected our own church prayer meeting, that but of a resident members.h.i.+p of more than four hundred, living in easy distance of the church, only sixty have attended regularly and over two hundred have been to that service only occasionally. Yet we call ourselves disciples of Christ! We say we believe in His blessed teachings; we say we believe in prayer; but in the face of all these professions we turn our backs with indifference on the very means of spiritual growth and power which the Church places within our reach. If Christ were to come to the earth to-day, He would say unto us: 'Woe unto you, church members, hypocrites!' He would say unto us: 'Woe unto you, young disciples in name, who have promised to love and serve Me, and then, ashamed of testifying before men, have broken promise and prayer, and ridiculed those who have kept their vows sacredly!' He would say to us men who have made money and kept it to ourselves: 'Woe unto you, ye rich men, who dress softly and dine luxuriously and live in palaces, while the poor cry aloud for judgment and the labourer sweats for the luxury of the idle! Woe unto you who speculate in flesh and blood, and call no man brother unless he lives in as fine a house and has as much money in the bank! Therefore ye shall receive the greater condemnation!'

"O Self! G.o.d of the earth yet! With two thousand years of the Son of G.o.d written into the world's history, still goes up the cry of those who perish with hunger, who break into the sanctuary of their souls, because they cannot get work to do, and are weary of the struggle of existence. Self! thou art king; not Jesus Christ! But oh, the shame of it! the shame of it! Were it not for my belief in the mighty forgiveness of sins, I would stand here to-night with no hope of ever seeing the paradise of G.o.d. But resting in that hope I wish to say to you who have beheld the example of my selfish life, I repudiate it all.

In the world I have pa.s.sed as a moral citizen and a good business man; in society there has been no objection to my presence, on account of my wealth and position; in the church I have been tolerated because I gave it financial support; but in the sight of that perfect Crucified Lamb of G.o.d I have broken the two greatest laws which He ever announced. I have been a sinner of the deepest dye; I have been everything except a disciple of Jesus Christ. I have prayed for mercy. I believe my prayer has been answered.

"I am conscious that some here present may think that what I have said has been in poor taste; that it has been an affront to the object of the meeting or an insult to the feelings of those who have called the audience together. In order that the people may know that I am sincere in all I have said, I will say that I have placed in the bank the sum of 10,000 dollars, to be used as the committee may deem wisest and best for the education of children in bereaved homes, or for any other help to those who need it. This money is G.o.d's. I have robbed Him and my brother man all these years. Whatever rest.i.tution I can make in the next few days I desire to make.

"But the great question with us all, my friends, is not this particular disaster. That will in time take its place as one event out of thousands in the daily life of this world. The great event of existence is not death, it is life. The great question of the world is not the tariff or the silver question, or the labour question, or temperance, or this or that or the other. The great question of the whole world is selfishness in the heart of man. The great command is, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d.' If we had done that in this town, I believe such a physical disaster as the one we lament would never have happened. That is our great need.

"If we go home from this meeting resolved to rebuke our selfishness in whatever form it is displeasing to G.o.d, and if we begin to-morrow to act out that resolution in word and deed, we shall revolutionise this town in its business, its politics, its church, its schools, its homes.

If we simply allow our emotions to be stirred, our sympathies to be excited to the giving of a little money on this occasion, it will do us and the community little permanent good. G.o.d wants a complete transformation in the people of this nation. Nothing less than a complete regeneration can save us from destruction. Unconsecrated, selfish money and selfish education, selfish political power and selfish genius in art, letters, and diplomacy will sink us as a people into a gulf of annihilation. There is no salvation for us except in Jesus Christ. Let us believe in Him and live in Him.

"I have said my message. I trust you have understood it. I would not say otherwise if I knew that I should step off this platform now and stand before the judgment seat of Christ. G.o.d help us all to do our duty! Time is short, eternity is long. Death is nothing; life is everything."

Five years after this speech of Robert Hardy to the people of Barton in the town hall, one who was present in the audience described the sensation that pa.s.sed through it when the speaker sat down to be like a distinct electric shock which pa.s.sed from seat to seat, and held the people fixed and breathless as if they had been smitten into images of stone. The effect on the chairman of the meeting was the same. He sat motionless. Then a wave of emotion gradually stirred the audience, and without a word of dismission they poured out of the building and scattered to their homes.

Robert found George waiting for him. The father was almost faint with the re-action from his address. George gave his arm, and the two walked home in silence.

Thus ended Robert Hardy's fourth day.

FRIDAY--THE FIFTH DAY.

We must pa.s.s hastily over the events of the next day in Robert Hardy's life. The whole town was talking about his surprising address of the night before. Some thought he was crazy. Others regarded him as sincere, but after the first effect of his speech had worn off, they criticised him severely for presuming to "preach" on such an occasion.

Still others were puzzled to account for the change in the man, for that a change had taken place could not be denied. How slow men are to acknowledge the power of G.o.d in the human heart! Mr. Hardy went about his business, very little moved by all this discussion. He realised that only two days more remained.

He spent the afternoon and evening at home, but was interrupted by several calls. After tea the entire family gathered in the room where Clara lay. She was living, but was still unconscious. As Mrs. Hardy was saying something to her husband about his dream and the events of the day before, Clara suddenly opened her eyes, and distinctly called out the words:

"Father! what day is it?"

It was like a voice out of the long-dead past. Mr. Hardy, sitting by the side of the bed, replied quietly, while his heart beat quickly: