第67章 At The Museum (2)

The great domed library of the British Museum had become very home-like to Erica, it was her ideal of comfort; she went there whenever she wanted quiet, for in the small and crowded lodgings she could never be secure from interruptions, and interruptions resulted in bad work.There was something, too, in the atmosphere of the museum which seemed to help her.She liked the perfect stillness, she liked the presence of all the books.Above all, too, she liked the consciousness of possession.There was no narrow exclusiveness about this place, no one could look askance at her here.The place belonged to the people, and therefore belonged to her; she heretic and atheist as she was had as much share in the ownership as the highest in the land.She had her own peculiar nook over by the encyclopedias, and, being always an early comer, seldom failed to secure her own particular chair and desk.

On this morning she took her place, as she had done hundreds of times before, and was soon hard at work.She was finishing her last paper on Livingstone when a book she had ordered was deposited on her desk by one of the noiseless attendants.She wanted it to verify one or two dates, and she half thought she would try to hunt up Charles Osmond's anecdote.In order to write her series of papers, she had been obliged to study the character of the great explorer pretty thoroughly.She had always been able to see the nobility even of those differing most widely from herself in point of creed, and the great beauty of Livingstone's character had impressed her very much.Today she happened to open on an entry in his journal which seemed particularly characteristic of the man.

He was in great danger from the hostile tribes at the union of the Zambesi and Loangwa, and there was something about his spontaneous utterance which appealed very strongly to Erica.

"Felt much turmoil of spirit in view of having all my plans for the welfare of this great region and teeming population knocked on the head by savages tomorrow.But I read that Jesus came and said:

'All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth.Go ye therefore and teach all nations, and lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' It is the word of a gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honor, and there's an end on't.I will not cross furtively by night as I intended...Nay, verily, Ishall take observations for latitude and longitude tonight, though they may be the last."The courage, the daring, the perseverance, the intense faith of the man shone out in these sentences.Was it indeed a delusion, such practical faith as that?

Blackness of darkness seemed to hem her in.She struggled through it once more by the one gleam of certainty which had come to her in the past year.Truth must be self-revealing.Sooner or later, if she were honest, if she did not shut her mind deliberately up with the assurance "You have thought out these matters fully and fairly;enough! Let us now rest content" and if she were indeed a true "Freethinker," she MUST know.And even as that conviction returned to her the words half quaint, half pathetic, came to her mind: "It is the word of a gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honor, and there's an end on't."Yes, there would "be an end on't," if she could feel sure that he, too, was not deluded.

She turned over the pages of the book, and toward the end found a copy of the inscription on Livingstone's tomb.Her eye fell on the words: "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice."Somehow the mention of the lost sheep brought to her mind the little lost child on the beach at Codrington Dolly, who had "putted on" her own hat, who had wanted to be independent and to dig by herself.She had run away from home, and could not find the way back.What a steep climb they had had up the beach how the little thing's tiny feet had slipped and stumbled over the stones, and just when they were most perplexed, the father had found them.

Exactly how it all came to her Erica never knew, nor could she ever put into words the story of the next few moments.When "God's great sunrise" finds us out we have need of something higher than human speech there ARE no words for it.At the utmost she could only say that it was like coming out of the twilight, that it seemed as if she were immersed in a great wave of all pervading light.

All in a moment the Christ who had been to her merely a noble character of ancient history seemed to become to her the most real and living of all living realities.Even her own existence seemed to fade into a vague and misty shadow in comparison with the intensity of this new consciousness this conviction of His being which surrounded her which she knew, indeed, to be "way, and truth, and life." They shall hear My voice." In the silence of waiting, in the faithfulness of honest searching, Erica for the first time in her life heard it.Yes, she had been right truth was self-revealing.A few minutes ago those words had been to her an unfulfilled, a vain promise the speaker, broad-hearted and loving as he was, had doubtless been deluded.But now the voice spoke to her, called her by name, told her what she wanted.

"Dolly," became to her a parable of life.She had been like that little child; for years and years she had been toiling up over rough stones and slippery pebbles, but at last she had heard the voice.Was this the coming to the Father?