In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference

CHAPTER XIV.

With every vessel that has touched the New World's shores since that time have come these fireside voices. Whether stowed away in the ample chests of the first Virginians, or bound in the bundles of the last steerage passengers just landed at Castle Garden, some quaint custom of a distant Fatherland has always folded its wings, ready to chirp on the new hearthstone, the familiar even-song of the old.

That is how the American celebration of Christmas has become so cosmopolitan in its character. It is a chorus of all the customs that, cricket-like, have journeyed to us, each with its song of an "auld lang syne."

"I should like to have a little of everything this year," remarked Miss Caroline, as, pencil in hand, she prepared to make a long memorandum.

It was two weeks before Christmas, and she had called a family council in her room, after Jack had gone to bed.

Mrs. Marion and Lois were there, busily embroidering.

"It is the first time we have had a home of our own for so many years, or been where there is a child in the family," added Miss Harriet, "that we ought to make quite an occasion of it."

"Now, my idea," remarked Miss Caroline, "is to begin back with the mistletoe of the Druids, and then the holly and plum-pudding of old England. I'm sorry we can't have the Yule log and the wassail-bowl and the dear little Christmas waits. It must have been so lovely. But we can have a tree Christmas eve, with all the beautiful German customs that go with it. Jack must hang up his stocking by the chimney, whether he believes in Santa Claus or not. Then we must read up all the Scandinavian and Dutch and Flemish customs, and observe just as many as we can."

"And all this just for Jack and Lee," said Mrs. Marion, thoughtfully.

"Bless you, no," exclaimed Miss Caroline. "Jack is going to invite ten poor children that the Junior Mercy and Help Department have reported. He is so grateful for being able to walk a little, that he wants to give up his whole Christmas to them."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Lois. "I'm through with my last present now, and am ready for anything, from serving a dinner to the slums to playing a bagpipe for its entertainment."

As she spoke she snipped the last thread of silk with her little silver scissors, and tossed the piece of embroidery into Bethany's lap.

Bethany spread it out admiringly. "You are a true artist, Lois," she said. "These sweet peas look as if they had just been gathered. They would almost tempt the bees."

"They're not as natural as Ray's buttercups," answered Lois. "You can't guess whom she's making that table-cover for?"

Mrs. Marion held it up for them to see. "For that dear old grandmother where we were entertained at Chattanooga last summer," she said. "Don't you remember Mrs. Warford, Bethany? She couldn't hear well enough to enjoy the meetings, or to talk to us much, but her face was a perpetual welcome. She asked me into her room one day, and showed me a great bunch of red clover some one had sent her from the country. She seemed so pleased with it, and told me about the clover chains she used to make, and the buttercups she used to pick in the meadows at home, with all the artlessness of a child. That is why I chose this design."

"There never was another like you, Cousin Ray," said Bethany. "You remember everything and everybody at Christmas, and I don't see how you ever manage to get through with so much work."

"Love lightens labor," quoted Miss Harriet, sententiously. "At least that's what my old copy-book used to say."

"And it also said, if I remember aright," said Miss Caroline, a little severely, "'Plan out your work, and work out your plan.' It's high time we were settling down to business, if we expect to accomplish anything."

While this Christmas council was in session in Miss Caroline's room, another was being held in an old farm-house in the northern part of the State, by Gottlieb Hartmann's wife and daughter. Everything in the room gave evidence of German thrift and neatness, from the shining brass andirons on the hearth, to the geraniums blooming on the window-sill.

"Herzenruhe" was the name of the home Gottlieb Hartmann had left behind him in the Fatherland, when he came to America a poor emigrant boy; and that was the name now carved on the arch that spanned the wide entrance-gate, leading to the home and the well-tilled acres that he had earned by years of steady, honest toil.

It was indeed "heart's-ease," or heart-rest, to every wayfarer sheltered under its ample roof-tree.

He had accumulated his property by careful economy, but he gave out with the same conscientious spirit with which he gathered in. No matter when the summons might come, at nightfall or at cock-crowing, he was ready to give an account of his faithful stewardship. Not only had he divided his bread with the hungry, but he had given time and personal care, and a share in his own home-life, to those who were in need.

More than one young farmer, jogging past Herzenruhe in a wagon of his own, looked gratefully up the long lane, and remembered that he owed the steady habits of his manhood and his present prosperity to Gottlieb Hartmann. For in all the years since he had had a place of his own, there had seldom been a time when some homeless boy or another had not been a member of his household.

He was an old man now, white-haired and rheumatic, and called grandfather by all the country side; but he was still young at heart, sweet and sound to the very core, like a hardy winter apple. His children had all married and gone farther West, except his oldest daughter, Carlotta, whom no one had ever been able to lure away from her comfortable home-nest. She was an energetic, self-willed little body, and had gradually assumed control until the entire household revolved around her. Just now she had wheeled her sewing-machine beside the table, on which the evening lamp stood, and was preparing to dress a whole family of dolls to be packed in the Christmas boxes that were soon to be sent West.

Her mother sat on one side of the fireplace, her sweet, wrinkled old face bright with the loving thoughts that her needles were putting into a little red mitten, destined for one of the boxes.

"It will be the first Christmas since I can remember," said Carlotta, "that there will be no little ones here, and no tree to light. Ben's boy was here last year, and all of Mary's children the year before. It's a pity they are so far away. It will just spoil my Christmas."

Mr. Hartmann laid down the German Advocate he was reading.

"Ach, Lotta," he said, "I forgot to tell you. There will be a little lad here to-morrow to take dinner with us. When I was in town to-day I met our good friend, Frank Marion, and he had a boy with him whose father is just dead, and he is the guardian."

"How many years has it been since Mr. Marion first came here?" asked Carlotta. "Seems to me I was only a little girl, and now I have pulled out lots of gray hairs already."

"It has been twenty years at least," answered her mother. "It was while we were building the ice-house, I know."

"Yes," assented her husband, "I had gone into Ridgeville one Saturday to get some new boots, and I met him in the shoestore. He was just a young fellow making his first trip, and he seemed so strange and homesick that when I found he was a country boy and a strong Methodist, I brought him out here to stay over Sunday with us."

"I remember you brought him right into the kitchen where I was dropping noodles in the soup," answered Mrs. Hartmann, "and he has seemed to feel like one of the family ever since."

"Yes, he has never missed coming out here every time he has been in this part of the State, from that day to this," said Mr. Hartmann, taking up his paper again.

Meanwhile, in the Ridgeville Hotel, three miles away, Mr. Marion was telling Lee of all the pleasant things that awaited him at Herzenruhe. The boy was so impatient to start that he could hardly wait for the time to come, and he dreamed all night of the country.

Mr. Marion saw very little of him during the visit. The delighted child spent all his time in the barn, or in the dairy, helping Miss Carlotta. "O, I wish we didn't ever have to go away," he said. "There's the dearest little colt in the barn, and six Holstein calves, and a big pond in the pasture covered with ice!"

Later he confided to Mr. Marion, "Miss Carlotta makes doughnuts every Saturday, and she says there's bushels of hickory-nuts in the garret."

When Miss Carlotta found that Mr. Marion was going on to the next town before starting home, she insisted on keeping Lee until his return.

"Let him get some of 'the sun and wind into his pulses.' It will be good for him," she said.

"Nobody knows better than I," answered Mr. Marion, "the sweet wholesomeness of country living. I should be glad to leave him in such an atmosphere always. He would develop into a much purer manhood, and I am sure would be far happier."

Miss Carlotta shook her head sagely. "We'll see," she said. "Don't say anything to him about it, but we'll try him while you're gone, and then I'll talk to father. He seems right handy about the chores, and there is a good school near here."

Two days later, when Mr. Marion came back, he went out to the barn to find Lee. The boy had just scrambled out of a haymow with his hat full of eggs. His face was beaming.

"I've learned to milk," he said proudly, "and I rode to the post-office this afternoon, horseback."

"Do you like it here, my boy?" asked Mr. Marion.

"Like it!" repeated Lee, emphatically. "Well I should say! Mr. Hartmann is just the grandfatheriest old grandfather I ever knew, and they're all so good to me."

It proved to be a very eventful journey for the boy; for after some discussion about his board, it was arranged that he should come back to the farm after the holidays.

"Do I have to wait till then?" he asked. "Why couldn't I stay right on, now I'm here. You could send my clothes to me, and it wouldn't cost near as much as to go home first."

"What will Bethany say?" asked Mr. Marion. "She is planning for a big tree and lots of fun Christmas."

"But papa won't be there," pleaded Lee. "I'd so much rather stay here than go back to town and find him gone."

"Then you shall stay," exclaimed Miss Carlotta, touched by the expression of his face. "We'll have a tree here. You can dig one up in the woods yourself."

When Mr. Marion drove away, Lee rode down the lane with him to open the big gate. After he had driven through he turned for one more look.

The boy stood under the archway waving good-bye with his cap. The late afternoon sun shone brightly on the happy face, and illuminated the snow, still clinging to the quaintly carved letters on the arch above, till it seemed they were all golden letters that spelled the name of Herzenruhe.

This holiday season would have been a sad time for Bethany, had she allowed herself to listen to the voices of Christmas past, but Baxter Trent's example helped her. She turned resolutely away from her memories, saying: "I will be like him. No heart shall ever have the shadow of my sorrow thrown across it."

Full of one thought only, to bring some happiness into every life that touched her own, she found herself sharing the delight of every child she saw crowding its face against the great show windows. She anticipated the pleasure that would attend the opening of each bundle carried by every purchaser that jostled against her in the street. It was impossible for her to breathe the general air of festivity at home, and not carry something of the Christmas spirit to the office with her.

"Everybody has caught the contagion," she said gayly, coming into the office Saturday afternoon, with sparkling eyes, and snowflakes still clinging to her dark furs. "I saw that old bachelor, Mr. Crookshaw, whom everybody thinks so miserly, going along with a little red cart under his arm, and a tin locomotive bulging out of his pocket."

"Jack is missing a great deal," said David, "by not being down-town every day."

"O no, indeed!" she exclaimed. "He is nearly wild now with the excitement of the preparations that are going on at home. That reminds me, he has written a special invitation for you to be present at the lighting of his tree Christmas eve. He put it in my muff, so that I could not possibly forget. I am sure you will enjoy watching the children," she added, after she had told him of their various plans, "and I hope you will be sure to come."

"Thank you," he responded, warmly. "That is the second invitation I have had this afternoon. Mr. Marion has just been in to ask me to attend the League's devotional meeting to-morrow night. He says it will be especially interesting on account of the season, and insists that 'turn about is fair play.' He went to our Atonement-day services, and he wants me to be present at his Christmas services."

"We shall be very glad to have you come," said Bethany. "Dr. Bascom is to lead the meeting instead of any of the young people, who usually take turns. I can not tell how such a meeting might impress an outsider; to me they are very inspiring and helpful."

That night, as she sat in her room indulging in a few minutes of meditation before putting out the light, she reviewed her acquaintance with David Herschel. Her conscience condemned her for the little use she had made of her opportunity.

It had been four months since he had come into the office, and while they had several times discussed their respective religions, she had never found an occasion when she could make a personal appeal to him to accept Christ. Once when she had been about to do so, he had abruptly walked away, and another time, a client had interrupted them.

"I must speak to him frankly," she said. Then she knelt and prayed that something might be said or sung in the service of the morrow that would prepare the way for such a conversation.

David felt decidedly out of place Sunday evening as he took a seat in the back part of the room, in the least conspicuous corner he could find.

They were singing when he entered. He recognized the tune. It was the one he had heard at Chattanooga—"Nearer, my God, to Thee." It seemed to bring the whole scene before him—the sunrise—the vast concourse of people, and the earnestness that thrilled every soul.

At the close of the song, another was announced in a voice that he thought he recognized. He leaned forward to make sure. Yes, he had been correct. It was Hewson Raleigh's—one of the keenest, most scholarly lawyers at the bar, and a man he met daily.

He was leaning back in his seat, beating time with his left hand, as he led the tune with his strong tenor voice. He sang as if he heartily enjoyed it, and meant every word and note.

David moved over to make room for a newcomer. From his changed position he could see a number of people he recognized: Mr. and Mrs. Marion, Lois Denning, and the Courtney sisters. Bethany was seated at the piano.

Presently the door from the pastor's study opened, and Dr. Bascom came in and took his seat beside the president of the League.

"Look at Dr. Bascom," he heard some one behind him whisper to her escort. "What do you suppose could have happened? His face actually shines."

David had been watching it ever since he took his seat. It was a benign, pleasant face at all times, but just now it seemed to have caught the reflection of a great light. Everybody in the room noticed it. David, quick to make Old Testament comparisons, thought of Moses coming down the mountain from a talk with God. He felt as positively, as if he had seen for himself, that the minister had just risen from his knees, and had come in among them, radiant from the unspeakable joy of that communion. Every one present began to feel its influence.

The prophecy Dr. Bascom had chosen for reading, was one they had heard many times, but it seemed a new proclamation as he delivered it:

"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given."

Something of the gladness that must have rung through the song of the heralds on that first Christmas night, seemed to thrill the minister's voice as he read.

Then he turned to Luke's account of the shepherds abiding in the fields by night—that beautiful old story, that will always be new until the stars that still shine nightly over Bethlehem shall have ceased to be a wonder.

As the service progressed, David began to feel that he was not in a church, but that he had stumbled by mistake on some family reunion. Everything was so informal. They told the experiences of the past week, the blessings and the trials that had come to them since they had last seen each other.

Sometimes they stood; oftener they spoke from where they sat, just as they would have talked in some home-circle.

And through it all they seemed to recognize a Divine presence in the room, to whom they spoke at intervals with reverence, with humility, but with the deepest love and gratitude.

As David listened to voice after voice testifying to a personal knowledge of Christ as a Savior, he was forced to admit to himself that they possessed something to which he was an utter stranger.

When Hewson Raleigh arose, David listened with still greater interest. He knew him to be an eloquent lawyer, and had heard him a number of times in rousing political speeches, and once in a masterly oration over the Nation's dead on Memorial-day. He knew what a power the man had with a jury, and he knew what respect even his enemies had for his unimpeachable veracity and honor.

Raleigh stood up now, quiet and unimpassioned as when examining a witness, to give his own clear, direct, lawyer-like testimony.

He said: "There may be some here to-night to whom the prophecy that was read, and the story of the Advent, are only of historic interest. To such I do not come with the sayings of the prophets, or to repeat the tidings of the shepherds, or to ask any one's credence because the apostles and martyrs and Christians of all times believed. I tell you that which I myself do know. The Holy Spirit has led me to the Christ. If he were only an ethical teacher, if he were not the Son of God, he could not have entered into my life, and transformed it as he has done. My star of hope is far more real to me than the stars outside that lighted my way to this room to-night. I have knelt at his feet and worshiped, and gone on my way rejoicing. I know that through the sacrifice he offered on Calvary my atonement is made, and I stand before the Father justified, through faith in his only-begotten. The voice that bears witness to this may not be audible to you; but though all the voices in the universe were combined to dispute it, they would be as nothing to that still, small voice within that whispers peace—the witness of the Spirit."

On the Day of Atonement Marion and Cragmore had not been half so surprised at hearing the League benediction intoned by rabbi and choir, as was David when the familiar blessing of the synagogue was repeated in unison by those of another faith:

"The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

David had heard so much of Methodists that he had expected noisy demonstrations and great exhibitions of emotion. He had found enthusiastic singing and hearty responses of amen during the prayers; but while the prevailing spirit seemed one of intense earnestness, it had the depth and quiet of some great, resistless under-current.

He slipped out of the room after the benediction, fearful of meeting curious glances. A member of the reception committee managed to shake hands with him, but his friends had not discovered his attendance.

Two things followed him persistently. The expression of Dr. Bascom's face, and Hewson Raleigh's emphatic "I know."

He took the last train out to Hillhollow, wishing he had staid away from the League meeting. It haunted him, and made him uncomfortable.

He walked the floor until long after midnight. Even sleep brought him no rest, for in his dreams he was still groping blindly in the dark for something—he knew not what—but something wise men had found long years ago in a starlit manger, earth's "Herzenruhe."

CHAPTER XV.

In the street below people were hurrying by with their arms full of bundles. She was impatient to be gone, too. There were a great many finishing touches for her to give the tall tree in the drawing-room at home.

She had worked till the last moment at noon, and locked the door regretfully on the gayly-decked room, with its mingled odors of pine boughs and oranges, always so suggestive of Christmas festivities.

While she stood there, she heard steps in the hall.

"O, I thought you were Mr. Edmunds," she exclaimed, as David entered. It was the first time he had been at the office that day. "I have a message for him. Have you seen him anywhere?"

"No," answered David. "I have just come in from Hillhollow. Marta has telegraphed that she is coming home on the night train, so I shall not be able to accept Jack's invitation. She had not expected to come at all during the holidays; but one of the teachers was called home, and she could not resist the temptation to accompany her, although she can only stay until the end of the week."

As Bethany expressed her regrets at Jack's disappointment, David picked up a small package that lay on his desk.

"O, the expressman left that for you a little while ago," she said. "Your Christmas is beginning early."

She turned again to the window, peering out through the dusk, while David lighted the gas-jet over his desk, and proceeded to open the package.

It occurred to her that here was a time, while all the world was turning towards the Messiah on this anniversary eve of his coming, that she might venture to speak of him. Before she could decide just how to begin, David spoke to her:

"Do you care to look, Miss Hallam? I would like for you to see it."

He held a little silver case towards her, on which a handsome monogram was heavily engraved.

As she touched the spring it flew open, showing an exquisitely painted miniature on ivory.

She gave an involuntary cry of delight.

"What a beautiful girl," she exclaimed. "It is one of the loveliest faces I ever saw." She scrutinized it carefully, studying it with an artist's evident pleasure. Then she looked up with a smile.

"This must be the one Rabbi Barthold spoke to me about," she said. "He said that she was rightly named Esther, for it means star, and her great, dark eyes always made him think of starlight."

"How long ago since he told you that?" asked David in surprise.

"When we first began taking Hebrew lessons," she answered.

"And did he tell you we are bethrothed?"

"Yes."

David felt annoyed. He knew intuitively why his old friend had departed so from his usual scrupulousness regarding a confidence. He had intimated to David, when he had first met Miss Hallam, that she was an unusually fascinating girl, and he feared that their growing friendship might gradually lessen the young man's interest in Esther, whom he saw only at long intervals, as she lived in a distant city.

"I had hoped to have the pleasure of telling you myself," said David.

"I have often wondered what she is like," answered Bethany, "and I am glad to have this opportunity of offering my congratulations. I wish that she lived here that I might make her acquaintance. I do not know when I have seen a face that has captivated me so."

"Thank you," replied David, flushing with pleasure. A tender smile lighted his eyes as he glanced at the miniature again before closing the case. "She will come to Hillhollow in the spring," he added proudly.

They heard Mr. Edmunds's voice in the hall. Bethany held out her hand.

"I shall not see you again until next week, I suppose," she said, "so let me wish you a very happy Christmas."

He kept her hand in his an instant as he repeated her greeting, then, looking earnestly down into the upturned face, added gently in Hebrew, the old benediction—"Peace be upon you."

It was quite dark when she stepped out into the streets. She thought of David and Esther all the way home.

At first she thought of them with a tender smile curving her lips, as she entered unselfishly into the happiness of the little romance she had discovered.

Then she thought of them with tears in her eyes and a chill in her heart, as some little waif might stand shivering on the outside of a window, looking in on a happy scene, whose warmth and comfort he could not share. The joy of her own betrothal, and the desolation that ended it, surged back over her so overwhelmingly that she was in no mood for merry-making when she reached home.

She longed to slip quietly away to her own room, and spend the evening in the dark with her memories. She had to wait a moment on the threshold before she could summon strength enough to go in cheerfully.

Mrs. Marion and Lois were in the dining-room helping the sisters decorate the long table, where the children were to be served with supper immediately on their arrival.

"Frank and Jack have gone out in a sleigh to gather them up," said Mrs. Marion. "They'll soon be here, so you'll not have much time to dress."

"All right," responded Bethany, "I'll go in a minute. Mr. Herschel can't come, so you may as well take off one plate."

"But George Cragmore can," said Miss Caroline, pausing on her way to the kitchen. "I asked him this morning, and forgot to say anything about it."

Then she trotted out for a cake-knife, blissfully unconscious of the grimace Bethany made behind her back.

"O dear!" she exclaimed to Lois, "Miss Caroline means all right, but she is a born matchmaker. She has taken a violent fancy to Mr. Cragmore, and wants me to do the same. She thinks she is so very deep, and so very wary in the way she lays her plans, that I'll never suspect; but the dear old soul is as transparent as a window-pane. I can see every move she makes."

"What about Mr. Cragmore?" asked Lois. "Is he conscious of her efforts in his behalf?"

"O no. He thinks that she is a dear, motherly old lady, and is always paying her some flattering attention. It is well worth his while, for she makes him perfectly at home here, keeps his pockets full of goodies, as if he were an overgrown boy (which he is in some respects), and treats him with the consideration due a bishop. She is always going out to Clarke Street to hear him preach, and quoting his sermons to him afterwards. There he is now!" she exclaimed, as two short rings and one long one were given the front door-bell.

"So he even has his especial signals," laughed Lois. "He must be on a very familiar footing, indeed."

"He got into that habit when he first started to calling by to take me up to the Hebrew class," she explained. "Miss Caroline encouraged him in it."

Just then Miss Caroline came hurrying through the room to receive him.

"Bethany, dear," she said in an excited stage whisper, "you'd better run up the back stairs. And do put on your best dress, and a rose in your hair, just to please me. Now, won't you?"

Bethany and Lois looked at each other and laughed.

"I'd like to shock her by going in just as I am," said Bethany; "but as it's Christmas-time I suppose I must be good and please everybody."

It was not long before a great stamping of many snowy little feet announced the arrival of the Christmas guests.

They came into the house with such rosy, happy faces, that no one thought of the patched clothes and ragged shoes.

"Dear hearts, I wish we could have a hundred instead of ten," sighed Miss Harriet, as she helped seat them at the table. "They look as though they never once had enough to eat in all their little lives."

"They shall have it now," declared Miss Caroline heartily, "if George Cragmore doesn't keep them laughing so hard they can't eat. Just hear the man!"

She had never seen him in such a gay humor, or heard him tell such irresistibly funny stories as the ones he brought out for the entertainment of these poor little guests, who had never known anything but the depressing poverty of the most wretched homes.

Mr. Marion was the good St. Nicholas who had found them, and spirited them away to this enchanted land; but Cragmore was the Aladdin who rubbed his lamp until their eyes were dazzled by the wonderful scenes he conjured up for them.

When the dinner was over, and everything had been taken off the table but the flowers and candles and bonbon dishes, he lifted the smallest child of all from her high chair, and took her on his knee.

With his arms around her, he began to tell the story of the first Christmas. His voice was very deep and sweet, and he told it so well one could almost see the dark, silent plains and the white sheep huddled together, and the shepherds keeping watch by night.

One by one the children slipped down from their chairs, and crowded closer around him.

He had never preached before to such a breathless audience, and he had never put into his sermons such gentleness and pathos and power.

He was thinking of their poor, neglected lives, and how much they needed the love of One who could sympathize to the utmost, because he was born among the lowly, and "was despised and rejected of men." When he had finished, the tears stood in his eyes with the intensity of his feeling, and the children were very quiet.

The little girl on his lap drew a long breath. Then she smiled up in his face, and, putting her arm around his neck, leaned her head against him.

There was a bugle-call from the library, and Jack led the children away to listen to an orchestra composed of boys from the League, who had volunteered their services for the occasion.

While they were playing some old carols, Miss Caroline called Mr. Cragmore aside. "I've sent Bethany to light the candles on the tree in the drawing-room," she said. "May be you can help her."

Lois heard the whisper, and his hearty response, "May the saints bless you for that now!" She hurried into the hall to intercept Bethany.

"Ah ha, my lady," she said teasingly, "you needn't be putting everything off onto poor Aunt Caroline. I've just now discovered that she is only somebody's cat's-paw."

Bethany was irritated. She had been greatly touched by the winning tenderness of Cragmore's manner with the children. If there had been no memory of a past love in her life, she could have found in this man all the qualities that would inspire the deepest affection; but with that memory always present, she resented the slightest word that hinted of his interest in her.

She made Lois go with her to light the tapers, and that mischief-loving girl thoroughly enjoyed forestalling the little private interview Miss Caroline had planned for her protege.

It was still early in the evening, while the children were romping around the dismantled tree, that Cragmore announced his intention of leaving.

"I promised to talk at a Hebrew mission to-night," he explained, in answer to the remonstrances that greeted him on all sides.

"By the way," he exclaimed, "I intended to tell you about that, and I must stay a moment longer to do it."

He hung his overcoat on the back of a tall chair, and folded his arms across it.

"The other day I made the acquaintance of a Russian Jew, Sigmund Ragolsky. He has a remarkable history. He married an English Jewess, was a rabbi in Glasgow for a long time, and is now a Baptist preacher, converted after a fourteen years' struggle against a growing belief in the truth of Christianity. The story of his life sounds like a romance. He was so strictly orthodox that he would not strike a match on the Sabbath. He would have starved before he would have touched food that had not been prepared according to ritual. He is here for the purpose of establishing a Hebrew mission. You should see the people who come to hear him. They are nearly all from that poor class in the tenement district. One can hardly believe they belong to the same race with Rabbi Barthold and his cultured friends. Ragolsky, though, is a scholar, and I should like to hear the two men debate. He says the Reform Jews are no Jews at all—that they are the hardest people in the world to convert, because they look for no Messiah, accept only the Scripture that suits them, and are so well satisfied with themselves that they feel no need of any mediator between them and eternal holiness. They feel fully equal to the task of making their own atonement. Rabbi Barthold says that the orthodox are narrow fanatics, and that the majority of them live two lives—one towards God, of slavish religious observances; the other towards man, of sharp practices and double-dealing. I want you to hear Ragolsky preach some night. I'll tell you his story some other time."

"Tell me this much now," said Bethany, as he picked up his overcoat again; "did he have to give up his family as Mr. Lessing did?"

"No, indeed. Happily his wife and children were converted also. He had two rich brothers-in-law in Cape Colony, Africa, who cut them off without a shilling, but he is not grieving over that, I can assure you. O, he is so full of his purpose, and is such a happy Christian! If we were all as constantly about the Master's business as he is, the millennium would soon be here."

Afterward, when the children had been taken home, and the feast and the tree, and the people who gave them, were only blissful memories in their happy little hearts, Bethany stood by the window in her room, holding aside the curtain.

Everything outside was covered with snow. She was thinking of Ragolsky and Lessing, and wondering which of the two fates would be David Herschel's, if he should ever become a Christian.

Would Esther's love for her people be stronger than her love for him?

She knew how tenaciously the women of Israel cling to their faith, yet she felt that it was no ordinary bond that held these two together.

Looking up beyond the starlighted heavens, Bethany whispered a very heartfelt prayer for David and the beautiful, dark-eyed girl who was to be his bride; and like an answering omen of good, over the white roofs of the city came the joyful clangor of the Christmas chimes.

CHAPTER XVI.

Bethany sat nervously assorting the letters in the different pigeon-holes of her desk. Ninety-five was slipping out into the eternities. It had brought her a prayed-for opportunity; it was carrying away a far different record from the one she had planned. She felt that she could not bear to have it go in that way, yet an unaccountable reticence sealed her lips.

David had been in the office very little during the past week, only long enough to get his mail. This afternoon he had a worried, preoccupied look that made it all the harder for Bethany to say what was trembling on her lips.

She heard him slipping the letter into the envelope. He would be gone in just another moment. Now he was putting on his overcoat. O, she must say something! Her heart beat violently, and her face grew hot. She shut her eyes an instant, and sent up a swift, despairing appeal for help.

David strolled into the room with his hat in his hand, and stood beside her table.

"Well, the old year is about over, Miss Hallam," he said, gravely. "It has brought me a great many unexpected experiences, but the most unexpected of all is the one that led to our acquaintance. In wishing you a happy new year, I want to tell you what a pleasure your friendship has been to me in the old."

Bethany found sudden speech as she took the proffered hand.

"And I want to tell you, Mr. Herschel, that I have not only been wishing, but praying earnestly, that in this new year you may find the greatest happiness earth holds—the peace that comes in accepting Christ as a Savior."

He turned from her abruptly, and, with his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets, began pacing up and down the room with quick, excited strides.

"You, too!" he cried desperately. "I seem to be pursued. Every way I turn, the same thing is thrust at me. For weeks I have been fighting against it—O, longer than that—since I first talked to Lessing. Then there was Dr. Trent's death, and that nurse's prayer, and the League meeting Frank Marion persuaded me into attending. Cragmore has talked to me so often, too. I can answer arguments, but I can't answer such lives and faith as theirs. Yesterday morning I had a letter from Lee—little Lee Trent—thanking me for a book I had sent him, and even that child had something to say. He told me about his conversion. Last night curiosity led me down town to hear a Russian Jew preach to a lot of rough people in an old warehouse by the river. His text was Pilate's question, 'What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?' It wasn't a sermon. There wasn't a single argument in it. It was just a tragically-told story of the Nazarene's trial and death sentence—but he made it such a personal matter. All last night, and all day to-day those words have tormented me beyond endurance, 'What shall I do? What shall I do with this Jesus called Christ!'"

He kept on restlessly pacing back and forth in silence. Then he broke out again:

"I saw a man converted, as you call it, down there last night. He had been a rough, blasphemous drunkard that I have seen in the police courts many a time. I saw him fall on his knees at the altar, groaning for mercy, and I saw him, when he stood up after a while, with a face like a different creature's, all transformed by a great joy, crying out that he had been pardoned for Christ's sake. I just stood and looked at him, and wondered which of us is nearer the truth. If I am right, what a poor, deluded fool he is! But if he is right, good God—"

He stopped abruptly.

"Mr. Herschel," said Bethany, slowly, "if you were convinced that, by going on some certain pilgrimage, you could find Truth, but that the finding would shatter your belief in the creed you cling to now, would you undertake the journey? Which is stronger in you, the love for the faith of your fathers, or an honest desire for Truth, regardless of long-cherished opinion?"

For a moment there was no answer. Then he threw back his shoulders resolutely.

"I would take the journey," he said, with decision. "If I am wrong I want to know it." Bethany slipped a little Testament out of one of the pigeon-holes, and handed it to him, opened at the place where the answer to Thomas was heavily underscored:

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

"Follow that path," she said, simply. "The door has never been opened to you, because you have never knocked. You have no personal knowledge of Christ, because you have never sought for it. He has never revealed himself to you, because you have never asked him to do so."

He turned to her impatiently.

"Could you honestly pray to Confucius?" he asked; "or Isaiah, or Elijah, or John the Baptist? This Jewish teacher is no more to me than any other man who has taught and died. How can I pray to him, then?"

Bethany fingered the leaves of her little Testament, her heart fluttering nervously.

"I wish you would take this and read it," she said. "It would answer you far better than I can."

"I have read it," he replied, "a number of years ago. I could see nothing in it."

"O, but you read it simply as a critic," she answered. "See!" she cried eagerly, turning the leaves to find another place she had marked. "Paul wrote this about the children of Israel: 'Their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil' (the one told about in Exodus, you know) 'untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.'"

"Where does it say that?" he asked, incredulously. He took the book, and turning back to the first of the chapter, commenced to read.

The great bell in the court-house tower began clanging six.

"I must go," he said; "but I'll take this with me and look through it another time."

"I wish you would come to the watch-meeting to-night," she said, wistfully. "It is from ten until midnight. All the Leagues in the city meet at Garrison Avenue."

He slipped the book in his pocket, and buttoned up his overcoat. A sudden reserve of manner seemed to envelop him at the same time.

"No, thank you," he answered, drawing on his gloves. "I have an informal invitation from some friends in Hillhollow to dance the old year out and the new year in."

His tone seemed so flippant after the recent depth of feeling he had betrayed, that it jarred on Bethany's earnest mood like a discord. He moved toward the door.

"No matter where you may be," she said as he opened it, "I shall be praying for you."

After he had gone, Bethany still sat at her desk, mechanically assorting the letters. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had quite forgotten it was time to go home.

The door opened, and Frank Marion came in. He was followed by Cragmore, who was going home with him to dinner.

"All alone?" asked Mr. Marion in surprise. "Where's David? We dropped in to invite him around to the watch-meeting to-night."

"He has just gone," answered Bethany. "I asked him, but he declined on account of a previous engagement. O, Cousin Frank," she exclaimed, "I do believe he is almost convinced of the truth of Christianity!"

She repeated the conversation that had just taken place.

"He has been fighting against that conviction for some time," answered Mr. Marion. "I had a talk with him last week."

"What do you suppose Rabbi Barthold would say if Mr. Herschel should become a Christian?" asked Bethany.

"Ah, I asked the old gentleman that very question yesterday," exclaimed Mr. Cragmore. "It astounded him at first. I could see that the mere thought of such apostasy in one he loves as dearly as his young David, wounded him sorely. O, it grieved him to the heart! But he is a noble soul, broad-minded and generous. He did not answer for a moment, and when he finally spoke I could see what an effort the words cost him:

"'David is a child no longer,' he said, slowly. 'He has a right to choose for himself. I would rather read the rites of burial over his dead body than to see him cut loose from the faith in which I have so carefully trained him; but no matter what course he pursues, I am sure of one thing, his absolute honesty of purpose. Whatever he does, will be from a deep conviction of right. I, who was denounced and misunderstood in my youth because I cast aside the weight of orthodoxy that bound me down spiritually, should be the last one to condemn the same independence of thought in others.'"

"Herschel would have less opposition to contend with than any Jew I know," remarked Mr. Marion.

"That little sister of his would be rather pleased than otherwise, and, I think, would soon follow his example."

Bethany thought of Esther, but said nothing.

"We'll make it a subject of prayer to-night," said Cragmore, who had been appointed to lead the meeting.

"Yes," answered Marion, clapping his friend on the shoulder. Then he quoted emphatically: "'And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.'"

"Let's ask him right now!" cried Cragmore, in his impetuous way.

He slipped the bolt in the door, and kneeling beside David's desk, began praying for his absent friend as he would have pleaded for his life. Then Marion followed with the same unfaltering earnestness, and after his voice ceased, Bethany took up the petition.

"Nobody need tell me that those prayers are not heard," exclaimed Marion, triumphantly, as he arose from his knees. "I know better. Come, Bethany; if you are ready to go, we will walk as far as the avenue with you."

As they went down-stairs together, he kept singing softly under his breath, "Blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord!"

By ten o'clock the League-room of the Garrison Avenue Church was crowded.

George Cragmore had prepared a carefully-studied address for the occasion; but during the half hour of the song service preceding it, while he studied the faces of his audience, his heart began to be strangely burdened for David and his people. He covered his eyes with his hand a moment, and sent up a swift prayer for guidance, before he arose to speak.

"My friends," he said in his deep, musical voice, "I had thought to talk to you to-night of 'spiritual growth,' but just now, as I have been sitting here, God had put another message into my mouth. We are all children of one Father who have met in this room, and for that reason you will bear with me now for the strangeness of the questions I shall ask, and the seeming harshness of my words. This is a time for honest self-examination. I should like to know how many, during the year just gone, have contributed in any way to the support of Home and Foreign Missions?"

Every one in the room arose.

"How many have tried, by prayer, daily influence, and direct appeal, to bring some one to Christ?"

Again every one arose.

"How many of you, during the past year, have spoken to a Jew about your Savior, or in any way evinced to any one of them a personal interest in the salvation of that race?"

Looks of surprise were exchanged among the Leaguers, and many smiled at the question. Only two arose, Mr. Marion and Bethany Hallam.

When they had taken their seats again there was a moment of intense silence. The earnest solemnity of the minister was felt by every one present. They waited almost breathlessly for what was coming.

"There is a young Jew in this city to-night whose heart is turning lovingly towards your Savior and mine. I have come to ask your prayers in his behalf, that the stumbling-blocks in his way may be removed. But it is not for him alone my soul is burdened. I seem to hear Isaiah's voice crying out to me, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.' And then I seem to hear another voice that through the thunderings of Sinai proclaims, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' Ah! the Christian Church has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It must read a terrible handwriting on the wall in the fact that Israel's eyes have not been opened to the fulfillment of prophecy. For had she seen Christ in the daily life of every follower since he was first preached in that little Church at Antioch, we would have had a race of Sauls turned Pauls! We are Christ's witnesses to all men. Do all men see Christ in us, or only a false, misleading image of him? He cherished no racial prejudices. He turned away from no man with a look of scorn, or a cold shrug of indifference. He drew no line across which his sympathies and love and helping hands should not reach. When we do these things, are we not bearing false witness to the character of him whose name we have assumed, and the emblem of whose cross we wear? I can not believe that any of us here have been willfully neglectful of this corner of the Lord's vineyard. It must be because your hearts and hands were full of other interests that you have been indifferent to this."

Then he told them of Lessing and Ragolsky and David, and called on them to pray that his friend might find the light he was seeking. A dozen earnest prayers were offered in quick succession, and every heart went out in sympathy to this young Jew, whom they longed to see happy in the consciousness of a personal Savior.

David had not gone out to Hillhollow. He dined at the restaurant, and was just starting leisurely down to the depot when he found that his watch told the same time as when he had looked at it an hour before. It must have been stopped even some time before that. At any rate it had made him too late for the train. The next one would not leave till nine o'clock. He stood on a corner debating how to pass the time, and finally concluded to go back to the office for a magazine he had borrowed from Rabbi Barthold, and take it home to him.

His steps echoed strangely through the deserted hall as he climbed the stairs to the office. He lighted the gas, and sat down to look through the papers on his desk for the magazine. But when he had found it, he still sat there idly, drumming with his fingers on the rounds of his chair.

After awhile he took Bethany's Testament out of his pocket, and began to read. It was marked heavily with many marginal notes and underscored passages, that he examined with a great deal of curiosity. Beginning with Matthew's account of the wise men's search, he read steadily on through the four Gospels, past Acts, and through some of Paul's epistles. It was after ten by the office clock when he finished the letter to the Hebrews.

He put the book down with a groan, and, folding his arms on the desk, wearily laid his head on them.

Just then Bethany's parting words echoed in his ears, "No matter where you may be, I shall be praying for you."

It had irritated him at the moment. Now there was comfort in the thought that she might be interceding in his behalf. He loved the faith of his fathers. He was proud of every drop of Israelitish blood that coursed through his veins. He felt that nothing could induce him to renounce Judaism—nothing! Yet his heart went out lovingly toward the Christ that had been so wonderfully revealed to him as he read.

The conviction was slowly forcing itself on his mind that in accepting him he would not be giving up Judaism, that he would only be accepting the Messiah long promised to his own people—only believing fulfilled prophecy.

He wanted him so—this Christ who seemed able to satisfy every longing of his heart, which just now was 'hungering and thirsting after righteousness;' this Christ who had so loved the world that he had given himself a willing sacrifice to make propitiation for its sins—for his—David Herschel's sins.

The old questions of the Trinity and the Incarnation came back to perplex him, and he put them resolutely away, remembering the words that Bethany had quoted, that when Israel should turn to the Lord, the veil should be taken from its heart.

Suddenly he started to his feet, and with his hands clasped above his head, cried out: "O, Thou Eternal, take away the veil! Show me Christ! I will give up anything—everything that stands in the way of my accepting him, if thou wilt but make him manifest!"

He threw himself on his knees in an agony of supplication, and then rising, walked the floor. Time and again he knelt to pray, and again rose in despair to pace back and forth.

He hardly knew what to expect, but Paul's conversion had been attended by such miraculous manifestations that he felt that some great revelation must certainly be made to him.

Opening the little Testament at random, he saw the words, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

"I do believe it," he said aloud. "And I will confess it the first opportunity I have. Yes, I will go right now and tell Uncle Ezra—no matter what it may cause him to say to me."

He looked at the clock again. The old year was almost gone. It was nearly midnight. Rabbi Barthold would be asleep. Then he remembered the watch-night service Bethany had asked him to attend. Cragmore and Marion would be there. He would go and tell them.

He started rapidly down the street, saying to himself: "How queer this seems! Here am I, a Jew, on my way to confess before men that I believe a Galilean peasant is the Son of God. I don't understand the mystery of it, but I do believe in some way the promised atonement has been made, and that it avails for me."

He clung to that hope all the way down to the Church. It was growing stronger every step.

Bethany had risen to take her place at the piano at the announcement of another hymn, when the door opened and David Herschel stood in their midst. Not even glancing at the startled members of the League, he walked across the room and held out one hand to Cragmore and the other to Marion. His voice thrilled his listeners with its intensity of purpose.

"I have come to confess before you the belief that your Jesus is the Christ, and that through him I shall be saved."

Then a look of happy wonderment shone in his face, as the dawning consciousness of his acceptance became clearer to him.

"Why, I am saved! Now!" he cried in joyful surprise.

Glad tears sprang to many eyes, and only one exclamation could express the depth of Frank Marion's gratitude—an old-fashioned shout of "Glory to God!" Yes, an old, old fashion—for it came in when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

"O, I must tell the whole world!" cried David.

"Come!" exclaimed Cragmore, turning to those around him, and laying his hand on David's shoulder; "here is another Saul turned Paul. Who such missionaries of the cross as these redeemed sons of Abraham? Leagued with such an Israel, we could soon tell all the world. Who will join the alliance?"

In answer they came crowding around David, with warm hand-clasps and sympathetic words, till the bells all over the city began tolling the hour of midnight.

At a word from Cragmore they knelt in the final prayer of consecration.

There was a deep silence. Then the leader's voice began:

"The untried paths of the new year stretch out into unknown distances. But trusting in an Allwise Father, in a grace-giving Christ, and the sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit, how many will sing with me: