All He Knew(@@) by John Habberton (ebooks online reader TXT) 📕

Do you know what I've honestly believed for years about a lot of religious men in this town, you among the number? I've believed that Jesus was so good that you've all been making hypocritical excuses, through your theology, to get away from this!"

"Get away from my Saviour!" gasped the deacon.

"Oh, no; you wanted enough of Him to be saved by,--enough to die by; but when it comes to living by him--well, you know perfectly well that you don't."

"Awful!" again groaned the deacon.

"When I heard of that wretched convict taking his Saviour as an exemplar of daily life and conduct, it seemed ridiculous. If better men couldn't do it, how could he? I had no doubt that while he was under lock and key, with no temptations about him, and nothing to resist, he had succeeded; but that he could do it in the face of all his old influences I did not for an instant believe. I began to study him, as I would any other criminal, and when he did not break down as soon as I had expected, I was mean enough--God forgive me!--to try to shake his faith. The honest truth is, I did not want to be a Christian myself, and had resisted all the arguments I had heard; but I was helpless when dear friends told me that nothing was impossible to me that was being accomplished by a common fellow like Sam Kimper."

"Nothing is impossible to him that believes," said the deacon, finding his tongue for a moment.

"Oh, I believe; there was no trouble about that: 'the devils also believe,'--you remember that passage, I suppose? Finally, I began to watch Sam closely, to see if perhaps he wasn't as much of a hypocrite, on the sly, as some other people I know. He can't make much money on the terms he has with Larry, no matter how much work reaches the shop. I've passed his shop scores of times, early and late, and found him always at work, except once or twice when I've seen him on his knees. I've hung about his wretched home nights, to see if he did not sneak out on thieving expeditions; I've asked store-keepers what he bought, and have found that his family lived on the plainest food. That man is a Christian, deacon. When I heard that he was to make an exhortation at the meeting, I went there to listen--only for that purpose.

But as he talked I could not help recalling his mean, little, insignificant face as I'd seen it again and again when I was a younger man, dropping into justices' courts for a chance to get practice at pleading, and he was up for fighting or stealing. It was the same face: nothing can ever make his forehead any higher or broader, or put a chin where nature left one off. But the expression of countenance was so different--so honest, so good--that I got from it my first clear idea of what was possible to the man who took our Saviour for a model of daily life. It took such hold of me that when the pastor asked those who wanted the prayers of God's people to rise, I was on my feet in an instant; I couldn't keep my seat."

"Then you do admit that there are some God's people besides Sam Kimper?" sneered the deacon.

"I never doubted it," replied the lawyer.

"Oh, well," said the deacon, "if you'll go on, now you've begun, you'll see you've only made a beginning. By the way, have you got that Bittles mortgage ready yet?"

"No," said the lawyer, "and I won't have it ready, either. To draw a mortgage in that way, so the property will fall into your hands quickly and Bittles will lose everything, is simple rascality, and I'll have nothing to do with it."

"It's all right if he's willing to sign it, isn't it?" asked the deacon, with an ugly frown. "His signature is put on by his own free will, isn't it?"

"You know perfectly well, Deacon Quickset," said the lawyer, "that fellows like Bittles will sign anything without looking at it, if they can get a little money to put into some new notion. A man's home should be the most jealously guarded bit of property in the world: I'm not going to deceive any man into losing it."

"I didn't suppose," said the deacon, "that getting religious would take away your respect for the law, and make you above the law."

"It doesn't: it makes me resolve that the law shan't be used for purposes of the devil."

"Do you mean to call me the devil?" screamed the deacon.

"I'm not calling you anything: I'm speaking of the unrighteous act you want done. I won't do it for you; and, further, I'll put Bittles on his guard against any one else who may try it."

"Mr. Bartram," said the deacon, rising, "I guess I'll have to take all my law-business to somebody else. Good-morning."

"I didn't suppose I should have to suffer for my principles so soon," said the lawyer, as the deacon started; "but when you want to be converted, come see me and you'll learn I bear you no grudge. Indeed, you'll be obliged to come to me, as you'll learn after you think over all your affairs a little while."

The deacon stopped: the two men stood face to face a moment, and then parted in silence.

When Eleanor Prency heard that her lover had not only been converted but was taking an active part in the special religious meetings, she found herself in what the old women of the vicinity called a "state of mind." She did not object to young men becoming very good; that is, she did object to any young man of whom she happened to be very fond becoming very bad. But it seemed to her that there was a place where the line should be drawn, and that Reynolds Bartram had overstepped it. That he might sometime join the church was a possibility to which she had previously looked forward with some pleasurable sense of anticipation. She belonged to the church herself, so did her father and mother, and she had long been of the opinion that a little religion was a very good thing for a young man who was in business and subject to temptation. But, as she regarded the events of the past few evenings as reported by people who had been to the meetings, she became more than ever of the opinion that a little religion would go a long way, and that Reynolds Bartram had more than was necessary.

To add to her annoyance, some of her intimate acquaintances who knew that if the two young people were not engaged they certainly were very fond of each other, and who regarded the match as a matter of course in the near future, began to twit her on the possibility of her lover becoming a minister should he go on in his present earnest course of trying to save lost souls. The more they talked about her, in her presence, as a minister's wife, the less she enjoyed the prospect. Minister's wives in Bruceton were sometimes pretty, but they never dressed very well, and Miss Eleanor was sure, from what she saw of their lives, that they never had any good times.

Fuel was added to the fire of her discontent when her mother announced one morning that Jane Kimper had arrived and would assist the couple at their sewing. To Eleanor, Jane represented the Kimper family, the head of which was the cause of Reynolds Bartram's extraordinary course. Eleanor blamed Sam for all the discomfort to which she had been subjected on account of Bartram's religious aspirations, and she was inclined to visit upon the new seamstress the blame for all the annoyances from which she had suffered.

Like a great many other girls who are quite affectionate daughters, she neglected to make a confidante of her mother; and Mrs. Prency was therefore very much surprised, on entering the room after a short shopping-tour, to discover the two young women in utter silence, Eleanor looking greatly vexed and the new sewing-woman very much distressed about something. The older lady endeavored to engage the couple in conversation. After waiting a little while for the situation to make itself manifest, but getting only very short replies, she left the room and made an excuse to call her daughter after her.

"My dear child, what is the matter? Doesn't Jane know how to sew?"

"Yes," said Eleanor, "I suppose so; but she knows how to talk, too, and she has done it so industriously and made me feel so uncomfortable that I have not had any opportunity to examine her sewing."

"My daughter, what can she have said to annoy you so much?"

"Oh," exclaimed Eleanor, savagely snatching to pieces a bit of delicate silk she held in her hand, "what every one else