第62章 Answered or Unanswered?(1)

"Glory to God to God!" he saith, "Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death." E.B.Browning "Mr.Raeburn is curiously like the celebrated dog of nursery lore, who appertained to the ancient and far-famed Mother Hubbard.All the doctors gave him up, all the secularists prepared mourning garments, the printers were meditating black borders for the 'Idol-Breaker,' the relative merits of burial and cremation were already in discussion, when the dog we beg pardon the leader of atheism, came to life again.

"'She went to the joiners to buy him a coffin, But when she came back the dog was laughing.'

"History," as a great man was fond of remarking, 'repeats itself.'"Raeburn laughed heartily over the accounts of his recovery in the comic papers.No one better appreciated the very clever representation of himself as a huge bull-dog starting up into life while Britannia in widow's weeds brought in a parish coffin.Erica would hardly look at the thing; she had suffered too much to be able to endure any jokes on the subject, and she felt hurt and angry that what had given her such anguish should be turned into a foolish jest.

At length, after many weeks of weary anxiety, she was able to breathe freely once more, for her father steadily regained his strength.The devotion of her whole time and strength and thought to another had done wonders for her, her character had strangely deepened and mellowed.But no sooner was she free to begin her ordinary life than new perplexities beset her on every side.

During her own long illness she had of course been debarred from attending any lectures or meetings whatever.In the years following, before she had quite regained her strength, she had generally gone to hear her father, but had never become again a regular attendant at the lecture hall.Now that she was quite well, however, there was nothing to prevent her attending as many lectures as she pleased, and naturally, her position as Luke Raeburn's daughter made her presence desirable.So it came to pass one Sunday evening in July that she happened to be present at a lecture given by a Mr.Masterman.

He was a man whom they knew intimately.Erica liked him sufficiently well in private life, and he had been remarkably kind and helpful at the time of her father's illness.It was some years, however, since she had heard him lecture, and this evening, by the virulence of his attack on the character of Christ, he revealed to her how much her ground had shifted since she had last heard him.It was not that he was an opponent of existing Christianity her father was that, she herself was that, and felt bound to be as long as she considered it a lie but Mr.Masterman's attack seemed to her grossly unfair, almost willfully inaccurate, and, in addition, his sarcasm and pleasantries seemed to her odiously vulgar.He was answered by a most miserable representative of Christianity, who made a foolish, weak, blustering speech, and tried to pay the atheist back in his own coin.Erica felt wretched.She longed to get up and speak herself, longing flatly to contradict the champion of her own cause; then grew frightened at the strength of her feelings.Could this be mere love of fair play and justice? Was her feeling merely that of a barrister who would argue as well on one side as the other? And yet her displeasure in itself proved little or nothing.

Would not Charles Osmond be displeased and indignant if he heard her father unjustly spoken of? Yes, but then Luke Raeburn was a living man, and Christ was she even sure that he had ever lived?

Well, yes, sure of that, but of how much more?

When the assembly broke up, her mind was in a miserable chaos of doubt.

It was one of those delicious summer evenings when even in East London the skies are mellow and the air sweet and cool.

"Oh, Tom, let us walk home!" she exclaimed, longing for change of scene and exercise.

"All right," he replied, "I'll take you a short cut, if you don't mind a few back slums to begin with."Now Erica was familiar enough with the sight of poverty and squalor; she had not lived at the West End, where you may entirely forget the existence of the poor.The knowledge of evil had come to her of necessity much earlier than to most girls, and tonight, as Tom took her through a succession of narrow streets and dirty courts, misery, and vice, and hopeless degradation met her on every side.Swarms of filthy little children wrangled and fought in the gutters, drunken women shouted foul language at one another everywhere was wickedness everywhere want.Her heart felt as if it would break.What was to reach these poor, miserable fellow creatures of hers? Who was to raise them out of their horrible plight? The coarse distortion and the narrow contraction of Christ's teaching which she had just heard, offered no remedy for this evil.Nor could she think that secularism would reach these.

To understand secularism you meed a fair share of intellect what intellect would these poor creatures have? Why, you might talk forever of the "good of humanity," and "the duty of promoting the general good," and they would not so much as grasp the idea of what "good" was they would sink back to their animal-like state.

Instinctively her thoughts turned to the Radical Reformer who, eighteen hundred years ago, had lived among people just as wicked, just as wretched.How had He worked? What had He done? All through His words and actions had sounded the one key-note, "Your Father." Always He had led them to look up to a perfect Being who loved them, who was present with them.

Was it possible that if Christians had indeed followed their Leader and not obscured His teaching with hideous secretions of doctrine which He had assuredly never taught was it possible that the Christ-gospel in its original simplicity would indeed be the remedy for all evil?