Read Ebook: Mr. Claghorn's Daughter by Trent Hilary

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Ebook has 478 lines and 27672 words, and 10 pages

the Seminary might have wounded him. This was her way of curing such wounds. It would be ungracious to refuse the cheque, yet even as he looked at it, a strange foreboding was upon him.

"Not one penny of it," she answered with energy.

"Do you object to the conversion of the heathen?" he asked surprised.

"I do," was her emphatic answer. "Leave them alone. I suppose there are among them some that look with hope beyond the grave. I will not be an instrument to destroy that hope."

He jumped at once to the conclusion that she had been reading some of the frothy and ill-considered articles of the secular press in regard to the Hampton-Brigston controversy, and again the suspicion arose in his mind that Natalie was influenced by the wretched diatribes of the newspapers.

"God knows," she interrupted earnestly, "I desire to use that capacity for good. I have done grievous harm hitherto."

"I do not understand."

"Leonard, look at this. It is a fair statement. I know it because I have tested every line of it in the Seminary Library. Can I give money to bring tidings of their eternal damnation to the heathen? They are happier without such knowledge."

He took from her hand a cutting from a newspaper. It was an attack on his theology: "As a mitigation of the misery which flows from the Westminster Confession," wrote the journalist, "probation after death has been suggested by weaklings. We know how that suggestion has been received. In June, 1893, the General Assembly of the Church convicted Dr. Briggs, its author, of heresy, and stigmatized sanctification after death as 'in direct conflict with the plain teachings of the Divine Word, and the utterances of the Standards of our Church'; a deliverance which consigns to hell myriads of Jews, Mohammedans and honest doubters of Christendom--all to be added to the number of heathen in hell. Concerning these last, various computations have been made by theologians of a mathematical turn; the American Board estimates that five hundred millions go to hell every thirty years, or as Dr. Skinner has it, thirty-seven thousand millions since the Christian era. Dr. Hodge states that none escape. The last-named learned commentator on the Confession of Faith is even hopeless as to Christian infants, concerning whom he says, 'It is certainly revealed that none, either adult or infant, are saved, except by special election,' and that it is not 'positively revealed that all infants are elect.'"

The article proceeded to argue that, if all this were true , to impart the knowledge to the heathen would be cruel, and that if it were not true, so much the less should lives and money be spent in the dissemination of false views of God's mercy and justice.

"Beyond the fact that the writer is thoroughly illogical, slipshod and evidently malicious, there is no fault to be found with his statements," observed Leonard, as he returned the cutting to the lady.

"Leonard, my conscience will not permit me to disseminate a faith which knows no mercy."

He respected Mrs. Joe; he could even sympathize with her views, though, regarding her as a child in doctrine, he did not think it worth while to attempt to explain to her the enlightening and consolatory effect of the "high mysteries," which are to be handled "with especial care." "Let the matter rest awhile," he said. "I will arrange as to the hospital and for a donation to the blind asylum. We can agree as to the distribution of the rest of the fund later. You will not always be so hard on Hampton. Theology is not learned in a day, Mrs. Joe, and, you will excuse me for saying it, you have not given as much thought to the matter as some others."

"I am not foolish enough to pretend to a knowledge of theology. That would be as absurd as the exhibition presented by men who pass years in striving to reconcile eternal damnation and common justice." Having fired this shot, the lady took her departure.

The door had scarce closed upon her when Leonard called Natalie. An impression, revived by his visitor and her newspaper cutting, that his wife's attitude had its inspiration in the empty criticisms of the press, had aroused his anger. He resolved that the present mode of living should terminate. He had rights, God-given, as well as by the laws of men; he would enforce them if he must.

In their intercourse recently, Leonard had refrained from harshness, but he had been unable to conceal a resentment, hourly growing in strength; his manner had been hard and sullen. Without exhibiting actual discourtesy he had shown plainly enough that he preferred to be alone, and, except when it was inevitable, husband and wife had hardly met or spoken together for days.

Hence, when Natalie heard him call, a flush, born partly of apprehension, partly of hope, suffused her cheek. She came toward him, smiling and rosy, a vision of radiant loveliness. The pleading tenderness of her eyes was answered by the wolfish gleam of a gaze that arrested her steps. He seized her in his arms, clasping the lithe body in a clutch of fury, kissing her red lips and clinging to their sweetness with a ferocity that terrified her. In this shameful embrace they wrestled a moment until the man's violence enfeebled himself. She broke from him, standing before him an image of outraged modesty, panting, indignant and bewildered.

"Leonard!"

He sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. His own self-respect was shocked. He was humiliated, and his shame increased his resentment.

"What is it?" she asked, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder, and noting that he shuddered at the touch.

"Natalie," he said, in a slow, measured tone, "do you regard me as your husband?"

"You know I do, Leonard."

He sighed despairingly. How was he to bring a knowledge of facts to this woman incapable of comprehending them, or what they signified for him?

"Natalie," he said, and now he took her hand in his, noting its cool freshness again his own hot palm. "We cannot live thus; we are married. We must be husband and wife."

"You dare not create victims of hell," she whispered.

"Natalie, you would impiously abrogate God's holy ordinance. Marriage is enjoined by Scripture. Sin of the most heinous character is born of neglect of this ordinance of God."

"Leonard, Leonard," she cried, "you can have no assurance that your children will be saved. Only the elect."

"All, dying in infancy are elect," he answered impatiently. "That is the universal belief of to-day."

She grew very white as she looked at him; her eyes were big with horror. "Do you mean," she asked hoarsely, "that we should murder our babies?"

"Murder!" he exclaimed, amazed.

He burst into a discordant laugh. "Natalie," he said, "as a reasoner you would do credit to Brigston."

"I can see no other way," she said after a pause. "My reasoning may be defective, but you do not show me its defects. Surely you believe the Confession and the catechisms?"

"Every line of either," he answered defiantly and in anger. Had he not labored night and day for a year past to demonstrate the truth of the "Standards"?

"Then," she answered sadly, "you have no right to become a father. Fathers and mothers are instruments of the devil. According to your belief, no sin can compare with the sin of bringing forth a creature so offensive to God that it must suffer eternal punishment. You may believe that you and I are both to dwell together in hell. If that be our fate we must submit. But our children, Leonard! Shall we earn their hatred in life, and watch their torments in unquenchable fires?"

"Do you compare yourself and me, and children born of us, to the depraved mass of humanity? Have you no assurance of God's gracious mercy?"

"God's gracious mercy!" she repeated. "God's gracious mercy!"

"Natalie," he said, making a great effort to speak calmly. "You who but a short time since had no religion, surely you will concede that I know something of that which has been the study of my life. I tell you that your reasoning is frantic nonsense; it would be blasphemous if it were not for your ignorance."

He laughed, but as before there was no mirth in the laugh. "A whole day," he said, "and this profound research enables you to contend with me in a science that I have studied all my life."

"And say it again," he interrupted. "If I had never known it before, I would know it now."

"He punishes the guilty only."

"You insist that all are damned; you rave. Nobody asserts that all are damned."

He ground his teeth. She drew texts from the source he had declared to be the living truth. He had no answer; there was no answer.

"Leave me," he whispered, in a tone that evidenced his fury better than a roar of rage. Again he hid his face in his hands. She often turned to look at him as she slowly withdrew, but he did not raise his head.

He wrestled fiercely with his emotions and with the problem that fate had raised. At times rage consumed his soul, and his thoughts rioted in brutal instigation, which even then he feared, and of which he was ashamed. At moments he hated, at moments he loved, but hating or loving, the seductive charms of the woman swayed before his eyes, mocking him as the mirage mocks the fainting pilgrim. Hours passed and he remained in the same attitude, striving to estimate the situation correctly, so that he could evolve a remedy. He could not deny her reasoning; he would not give up his faith. His mind, rigid from the training to which it had been subjected, was incapable of readily admitting new theories; and his best nourished and most vigorous attribute was involved. Whether his integrity could be bent or not, it was certain that his vanity would not submit. No! He would not deny his faith. He would enforce his rights.

But not without further effort at persuasion. He made a heroic and worthy resolve. He would be patient still, meanwhile using every gentle measure. He would enlist Mrs. Joe in his cause. She was a matron, shrewd and too well balanced to allow religious notions to carry her to fanatical extremes; and she did not hold his own views, apparently not even as to eternal punishment. Perhaps she would convince Natalie that there was no hell. It would be a lie, but better that his wife believe a lie than that hell reign in his house and in his bosom.

At the dinner hour the maid handed her mistress a note. It ran thus:

"Dear Natalie--I have decided to leave home for a little time. I think we are better apart. If you will open your heart to Mrs. Joe she will explain that which you and I cannot discuss. I learn that you are in your own room, and think it better not to disturb you. Good-bye, for a little time. It may be that I shall not write.

"LEONARD."

A PAEAN OF VICTORY HYMNED IN HELL.

On the day following that upon which Leonard and Natalie had last met in Leonard's study, there were two women in a room of a shabby New York house, evidently once a worthy residence, but now sadly fallen from that estate.

One of the two, half dressed, with a good deal of tarnished lace decorating such clothing as she had on, sat on the bed in an easy attitude, careless as to the display of a handsome person. Dark, heavy-browed, her first youth past, her haggard face was redeemed by deep, soft eyes, that now, however, from beneath their long lashes, looked out upon the face of the other woman with suspicious wariness.

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