Surgeon Paul Faber by George MacDonald (e book free reading txt) 📕

but my heart was so full of the money, it lay like a stuffed bag. But I dared not go even to my study till I had prayed. I tramped up and down this little room, thinking more about paying my butcher's bill than any thing else. I would give him a silver snuff-box; but as to God and His goodness my heart felt like a stone; I could not lift it up. All at once I saw how it was: He had heard my prayers in anger! Mr. Wingfold, the Lord has sent me this money as He sent the quails to the Israelites: while it was yet, as it were, between my teeth, He smote me with hardness of heart. O my God! how shall I live in the world with a hundred thousand pounds instead of my Father in heaven! If it were only that He had hidden His face, I should be able to pray somehow! He has given me over to the Mammon I was worshiping! Hypocrite that I am! how often have I not pointed out to my people, while yet I dwelt in the land of Goshen, that to fear poverty was the same thing as to love money, for that both came of lack of faith in the living God! Therefore has He taken from me the light of His countenance, which yet, Mr. Wingfold, with all my sins and shortcomings, yea, and my hypocrisy, is the all in all to me!"

He looked the curate in the face with such wild eyes as convinced him that, even if perfectly sane at present, he was in no small danger of losing his reason.

"Then you would willingly give up this large fortune," he said, "and return to your former condition?"

"Rather than not be able to pray-I would! I would!" he cried; then paused and added, "-if only He would give me enough to pay my debts and not have to beg of other people."

Then, with a tone suddenly changed to one of agonized effort, with clenched hands, and eyes shut tight, he cried vehemently, as if in the face of a lingering unwillingness to encounter again the miseries through which he had been passing.

"No, no, Lord! Forgive me. I will not think of conditions. Thy will be done! Take the money and let me be a debtor and a beggar if Thou wilt, only let me pray to Thee; and do Thou make it up to my creditors."

Wingfold's spirit was greatly moved. Here was victory! Whether the fortune was a fact or fancy, made no feature of difference. He thanked God and took courage. The same instant the door opened, and Dorothy came in hesitating, and looking strangely anxious. He threw her a face-question. She gently bowed her head, and gave him a letter with a broad black border which she held in her hand.

He read it. No room for rational doubt was left. He folded it softly, gave it back to her, and rising, kneeled down by the bedside, near the foot, and said-

"Father, whose is the fullness of the earth, I thank Thee that Thou hast set my brother's heel on the neck of his enemy. But the suddenness of Thy relief from holy poverty and evil care, has so shaken his heart and brain, or rather, perhaps, has made him think so keenly of his lack of faith in his Father in heaven, that he fears Thou hast thrown him the gift in disdain, as to a dog under the table, though never didst Thou disdain a dog, and not given it as to a child, from Thy hand into his. Father, let Thy spirit come with the gift, or take it again, and make him poor and able to pray."-Here came an amen , groaned out as from the bottom of a dungeon.-"Pardon him, Father," the curate prayed on, "all his past discontent and the smallness of his faith. Thou art our Father, and Thou knowest us tenfold better than we know ourselves; we pray Thee not only to pardon us, but to make all righteous excuse for us, when we dare not make any for ourselves, for Thou art the truth. We will try to be better children. We will go on climbing the mount of God through all the cloudy darkness that swaths it, yea, even in the face of the worst terrors-that when we reach the top, we shall find no one there."-Here Dorothy burst into sobs.-"Father!" thus the curate ended his prayer, "take pity on Thy children. Thou wilt not give them a piece of bread, in place of a stone-to poison them! The egg Thou givest will not be a serpent's. We are Thine, and Thou art ours: in us be Thy will done! Amen."

As he rose from his knees, he saw that the minister had turned his face to the wall, and lay perfectly still. Rightly judging that he was renewing the vain effort to rouse, by force of the will, feelings which had been stunned by the strange shock, he ventured to try a more authoritative mode of address.

"And now, Mr. Drake, you have got to spend this money," he said, "and the sooner you set about it the better. Whatever may be your ideas about the principal, you are bound to spend at least every penny of the income."

The sad-hearted man stared at the curate.

"How is a man to do any thing whom God has forsaken?" he said.

"If He had forsaken you, for as dreary work as it would be, you would have to try to do your duty notwithstanding. But He has not forsaken you. He has given you a very sharp lesson, I grant, and as such you must take it, but that is the very opposite of forsaking you. He has let you know what it is not to trust in Him, and what it would be to have money that did not come from His hand. You did not conquer in the fight with Mammon when you were poor, and God has given you another chance: He expects you to get the better of him now you are rich. If God had forsaken you, I should have found you strutting about and glorying over imagined enemies."

"Do you really think that is the mind of God toward me?" cried the poor man, starting half up in bed. " Do you think so?" he repeated, staring at the curate almost as wildly as at first, but with a different expression.

"I do," said Wingfold; "and it will be a bad job indeed if you fail in both trials. But that I am sure you will not. It is your business now to get this money into your hands as soon as possible, and proceed to spend it."

"Would there be any harm in ordering a few things from the tradespeople?" asked Dorothy.

"How should there be?" returned Wingfold.

"Because, you see," answered Dorothy, "we can't be sure of a bird in the bush."

"Can you be sure of it in your hands? It may spread its wings when you least expect it. But Helen will be delighted to take the risk-up to a few hundreds," he added laughing.

"Somebody may dispute the will: they do sometimes," said Dorothy.

"They do very often," answered Wingfold. "It does not look likely in the present case; but our trust must be neither in the will nor in the fortune, but in the living God. You have to get all the good out of this money you can. If you will walk over to the rectory with me now, while your father gets up, we will carry the good news to my wife, and she will lend you what money you like, so that you need order nothing without paying for it."

"Please ask her not to tell any body," said Mr. Drake. "I shouldn't like it talked about before I understand it myself."

"You are quite right. If I were you I would tell nobody yet but Mr. Drew. He is a right man, and will help you to bear your good fortune. I have always found good fortune harder to bear than bad."

Dorothy ran to put her bonnet on. The curate went back to the bedside. Mr. Drake had again turned his face to the wall.

"Sixty years of age!" he was murmuring to himself.

"Mr. Drake," said Wingfold, "so long as you bury yourself with the centipedes in your own cellar, instead of going out into God's world, you are tempting Satan and Mammon together to come and tempt you. Worship the God who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the mines of iron and gold, by doing His will in the heart of them. Don't worship the poor picture of Him you have got hanging up in your closet;-worship the living power beyond your ken. Be strong in Him whose is your strength, and all strength. Help Him in His work with His own. Give life to His gold. Rub the canker off it, by sending it from hand to hand. You must rise and bestir yourself. I will come and see you again to-morrow. Good-by for the present."

He turned away and walked from the room. But his hand had scarcely left the lock, when he heard the minister alight from his bed upon the floor.

"He'll do!" said the curate to himself, and walked down the stair.

When he got home, he left Dorothy with his wife, and going to his study, wrote the following verses, which had grown in his mind as he walked silent beside her:-

WHAT MAN IS THERE OF YOU?

The homely words, how often read!
How seldom fully known!
"Which father of you, asked for bread,
Would give his son a stone?"

How oft has bitter tear been shed,
And heaved how many a groan,
Because Thou wouldst not give for bread
The thing that was a stone!

How oft the child Thou wouldst have fed,
Thy gift away has thrown!
He prayed, Thou heardst, and gav'st the bread:
He cried, it is a stone!

Lord, if I ask in doubt or dread
Lest I be left to moan-
I am the man who, asked for bread,
Would give his son a stone.

As Dorothy returned from the rectory, where Helen had made her happier than all the money by the kind words she said to her, she stopped at Mr. Jones' shop, and bought of him a bit of loin of mutton.

"Shan't I put it down, miss?" he suggested, seeing her take out her purse.-Helen had just given her the purse: they had had great fun, with both tears and laughter over it.

"I would rather not-thank you very much," she replied with a smile.

He gave her a kind, searching glance, and took the money.

That day Juliet dined with them. When the joint appeared, Amanda, who had been in the kitchen the greater part of the morning, clapped her hands as at sight of an old acquaintance.

"Dere it comes! dere it comes!" she cried.

But the minister's grace was a little longer than she liked, for he was trying hard to feel grateful. I think some people mistake pleasure and satisfaction for