The Redemption of David Corson

THE END OF EXILE

"Every one goes astray, and the least imprudent is he who
repents soonest."            —Voltaire.

The steamer on which Corson embarked after his overland journey from New York City to Pittsburg, had descended the Ohio almost as far as Cincinnati, before other thoughts than those which were concerned with Pepeeta and his spiritual regeneration could awaken any interest in his mind. But as the boat approached Cincinnati, the places, the persons and the incidents of his childhood world began to present themselves to his consciousness. An irrepressible longing to look once more upon the place of his birth and the friends of his youth took possession of his mind.

He found, on inquiry, that the boat was to remain at the wharf in Cincinnati for several hours, and that there would be time enough for him to make the journey to his old home and back before she proceeded down the river. He decided to do so, and observed with satisfaction that those painful gropings for the next stepping stone across the streams of action which had been so persistent and painful a feature of his recent life had given place to the swift intuitions of his youth. He saw his way as he used to when a boy, and made his decisions rapidly and executed them fearlessly. The discovery of this fact gave a new zest and hope to life.

In a few moments after he had landed at the familiar wharf he was mounted upon a fleet horse, rushing away over those beautiful rolling hills which fill the mind of the traveler with uncloying delight in their variety, their fertility and their beauty. It was the first time since he had left the farm that his mind had been free enough from passion or pain to bestow its full attention upon the charms of Nature; they dawned on him now like a new discovery. The motion of the horse,—so long unfamiliar, so easy, so graceful, so rhythmical,—seemed of itself to key his spirits to his environment, for it is an elemental pleasure to be seated in the saddle and feel the thrill of power and rapid motion. The rider's eyes brightened, his cheeks glowed, his pulses bounded. He gathered up the beauties of the world around him in great sheaves of delicious and thrilling sensations. Long-forgotten odors came sweeping across the fields, rich with the verdure of the vernal season, and brought with them precious accompaniments of the almost-forgotten past. The rich and varied colors of field and sky and forest fed his starved soul with one kind of beauty; and the sweet sounds of the outdoor world intoxicated him with another. The low of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the crowing of chanticleers, the cackling of hens, the gobble of turkeys, the multitudinous songs of the birds enveloped him in a sort of musical atmosphere. For the first time since his restoration to hope, the past seemed like a dream, and these few blissful moments became a prophecy of a new and grander life. "For, if the burden can fall off for a single moment, why not for many moments?" So he said to himself, as the consciousness of his past misery and his unknown future thrust their disturbing faces into the midst of these blissful emotions.

The vague joys which had been surging through his soul became vivid and well-defined as the details of the landscape around his old home began gradually to be revealed. At first he had recognized only the larger and more general features like the lines of hills, the valleys, the rivers; but now he began to distinguish well-known farms and houses, streams in which he had fished, groves in which he had hunted, roads over which he had driven; and the pleasure of reviving old memories and associations increased with every step of progress. At last he began to ascend the high hill which hid the house of his childhood from view. He reached the summit; there lay the village fast asleep in the spring sunshine. He recognized it, but with astonishment, for it looked like a miniature of its former self. The buildings that once appeared so grand had shrunk to playhouses. The broad streets had contracted and looked like narrow lanes. He rubbed his eyes to see if they were deceiving him.

An unreality brooded mysteriously over everything. It was the same, yet not the same, and he paused a moment to permit his mind to become accustomed to these alterations; to ponder upon the reasons for this change; to realize the joy and sadness which mingled in his heart; and then he turned into a side road to escape any possible encounter with old acquaintances.

The route which he had chosen did not lead to the farm house, but to the cemetery where the body of his mother lay wrapped in her dreamless sleep; that neglected grave was drawing him to itself with a magnetic force. He who, for a year, had thought of her scarcely at all, now thought of nothing else. The last incident in her life, the face white with its intolerable pain of confession, the gasp for breath, the sudden fall, the quiet funeral, his own responsibility for this tragic death—he lived it all over and over again in an instant of time as grief, regret, remorse, successively swept his heart. Tying his horse outside the lonely burying ground, he threaded his way among the myrtle-covered graves to the low mound which marked her resting place, approached it, removed his hat and stood silently, reverently, by its side.

There come to us all hours or moments of sudden and unexpected disclosures of the hidden meaning of life. Such an one came to David, there by that lowly grave. He saw, as in the light of eternity, the grandeur and beauty of that character which the story of her sin and suffering had made him in his immaturity, misinterpret and despise! He did not comprehend that tragic story when she told it; it was impossible that he should, for he had no knowledge or experience adequate to furnish him the clew. Nothing is more inconceivable and impossible to a child than the possibility of his parents dying or doing wrong. When he awakens to consciousness he finds around him eternal things,—rocks, hills, rivers, stars, parents! They all seem to belong to the same order of indestructible existence, and he would as soon expect to see the sun blotted from heaven as a parent removed from earth! And when his ethical perceptions awake, he has another experience of a similar character. His father and mother stand to him for the very moral order itself! To his mind, it is inconceivable that they should ever err, and the bare suggestion that those august and venerable beings can really sin, fills him with horror and incredulity. If he, therefore, sometime learns that they have committed a trifling indiscretion, he trembles, and if, in some tragic moment, irresistible proof is brought to bear on him that they have been guilty of a dark and desperate deed, the whole moral system seems to undergo a sudden and final collapse! There is no longer any standing-ground beneath his feet and he could not be driven into a deeper despair if God himself had yielded to temptation. This discovery and this despair had fallen to the lot of David, and he had cherished the impressions, formed in that dark hour, through all these many months. But now, returning to the scenes of his boyhood and bringing back his burdens of care and sin, bringing back also his deepened experience of life and his enlarged ability, to comprehend its difficulties and sorrows, he suddenly saw the conduct and character of his mother in a new light. He, too, had met temptation, had fallen, had gone down into the depths, and in that awful and interpretative experience, comprehended the victory which his mother had won on the field of dishonor and defeat! He was now enabled to reconstruct, by the aid of his enlightened imagination, a true picture of the events which she had sketched so imperfectly in those few brief words. He realized what she must have had to struggle against, and could measure the whole weight of guilt and despair that must have rested on her heart. He knew only too well how easy was the road into darkness, and how rugged the one leading up into the light; yet this frail woman had followed it and scaled those heights! She had been able to put that past into the background, and keep it where it belonged. She had hidden her sorrows in her heart; nothing had daunted her; no discouragement had cast her down. By a wonderful grace she had concealed her sin from some, and made others fear even to whisper the knowledge they possessed. She had made that sin a torch to illumine her future. She had used it as a stepping stone to ascend into purity and holiness. He could not remember in all those long years of devotion and of love, that she had ever permitted him to feel a moment's distrust of her perfect purity and goodness; and this seemed to him a miracle! That purity and goodness must have been real! So protracted an hypocrisy would have been impossible. Whence, then, had she derived the power thus to rise superior to her past? She had shown its terrific spell over her sensibilities by dying with shame when she at last proclaimed it, and yet for twenty years she had kept it under her feet like a writhing dragon, while she calmly fought her fight. It was incredible, sublime!

As he stood there by her grave, measuring this deep and tragic experience with his new divining rod of sympathy, there rushed upon him an overmastering desire to reveal his appreciation to that suffering heart beyond the skies. A feeling of bitterness at his inability to do this frenzied him; a new consciousness of the irony of life in permitting him to make these discoveries when they could do her no good plunged him suddenly into a struggle with the darker problems of being which for a little while had ceased to vex him.

"Do all the appreciations of heroism come too late?" he asked his sad heart. "Do we acquire wisdom only when we, can no longer be guided by it? Do we achieve self-mastery and real virtue only to be despised by our children? Where is the clue to this tangle? Oh! mother, mother, if I could only have one single hour to ask thee what thou didst learn about this awful mystery in those lonely years of struggle! If I could only tell thee of my penitence, of my admiration, my love! But it is too late—too late."

With this despairing cry on his lips, he flung himself upon the grave, buried his face in the green turf and burst into a convulsive passion of tears, such tears as come once or twice, perhaps, in the lives of most men, when they are passing through the awful years of adjustment to the incomprehensible and apparently chaotic experiences of existence.

Like a thunderstorm, these convulsions clear the atmosphere and give relief to the strained tension of the soul. At length, when his emotion had spent itself in long-drawn sighs, David rose in a calm and tender frame of mind, plucked a bunch of violets from the grave and reluctantly turned away.

On foot, and leading his horse, he entered a quiet and secluded path which led past the rear of the farm. He had not consciously determined what he should do next; but his heart impelled him irresistibly toward that little bridge where he had encountered Pepeeta on his return from the lumber camp. It was at that place and that hour, perhaps, that he had passed through the deepest experience of his whole life, for it was there that the full power of the beauty of the woman in whom he had met his destiny had burst upon him, and it was there that for the first time he had consciously surrendered himself to those rich emotions which love enkindles in the soul.

Perhaps our spiritual enjoyments are capable of an ever-increasing development and intensity; but those pleasures that belong to the earthly life and are excited by the things of time and sense, however often they may recur, by an inviolable law of nature attain their climax in some one single experience, just as there is in the passage of a star across the sky a single climactic moment, and in the life of a rose an instant when it reaches its most transcendent beauty. They all attain their zenith and then begin to wane; that one brilliant but transitory instant of perfect bliss can no more be recalled than the passing stroke of a bell, the vanished glory of a sunset, or the last sigh of a dying friend; and many of the vainest and most unsatisfying struggles of life are expended in the effort to reproduce that one evanescent and forevermore impossible ecstasy.

Possibly David hoped that he could live that perfect moment over again by standing on that bridge! It was thither he bent his steps, and as he approached it there did come back faint echoes, little refluent waves; his lively imagination reproduced the scene; the dazzling figure really seemed once more to emerge from the secluded forest path; he almost heard the sound of her voice!

He threw the horse's bridle over the limb of a tree, leaned over the handrail of the bridge and looked down into the water. The stillness of the world, the slumber-song of the stream, the haunting power of the past superinduced a mood of abstraction so common in other, happier days.

Oblivious to all the objects and events of that outside world, he stood there dreaming of the past. While he did so, Pepeeta, following her daily custom, left the farm-house to take an evening walk. She also sought the little bridge. Perhaps she was summoned to this spot by some telepathic message from her lover; perhaps it was habit that impelled her, perhaps it was some fascination in the place itself. She moved forward with the quiet step peculiar to natures which are sensitive to the charm of the great solitudes of the world, and came noiselessly out from the low bushes behind the lonely watcher. As she stepped out into the road, she caught sight of the solitary figure and her heart, anticipating her eye in its swift recognition, throbbed so violently that she placed her hand on her bosom as if to still it.

"David!" she said in a low whisper.

She paused to observe him for a moment and, as he did not stir, began to move quietly towards him as he stood there motionless—a silhouette against the background of the darkening sky. She drew near enough to touch him; but so profound was his reverie that he was oblivious of her presence. It could not have been long that Pepeeta waited, although it seemed ages before he moved, sighed and breathed her name.

She touched him on the arm. He turned, and so met her there, face to face.

It was an experience too deep for language, and their emotions found expression in a single simple act. They clasped each other's hands and stood silently looking into each other's eyes. After many moments of silence David asked: "Why do you not speak to me, Pepeeta?"

"My eyes have told you all," she said.

"But what they say is too good to be believed! You must confirm their mute utterance with a living word," he cried.

"I love you, love you, love you," she replied.

"You love me! I bless you for it, Pepeeta, but there is something else that I must know."

"What can it be? Is not everything comprehended in that single word? It is all-embracing as the air! It enfolds life as the sky enfolds the world!"

"Ah! Pepeeta, you loved me when we parted, but you did not forgive me!"

She dropped her eyes.

"Have you forgiven me now?"

"It is not true that I did not forgive you," she replied, looking up at his face again. "There has never been in my heart for a single moment any sense of a wrong which I could not pardon. It has been one of the awful mysteries of this experience that I could not feel that wrong! When I tried to feel it most, my heart would say to me, 'you are not sorry that he loved you, Pepeeta! You would rather that all this agony should have befallen you than that he should not have loved you at all!' It is this feeling that has bewildered me, David. Explain it to me. Let me know how I could have such feelings in my heart and yet be good. It seems as if I ought to hate you; but I cannot. I love you, love you, love you."

"But, Pepeeta, if you loved me, why did you leave me? I do not comprehend. How could you let me stand in the darkness under your window and then turn away from it into the awful blackness and solitude to which I fled?"

"Do not reproach me, I thought it was my duty, David."

"I do not reproach you. I only want to know your inmost heart."

"I do not know! There has been all the time something stronger than myself impelling me. I grew too weak to reason. I felt that the heart had reasons of its own, too deep for the mind to fathom, and I yielded to them. I was only a woman after all, David. Love is stronger than woman! Oh! it was I who wronged you. I ought not to have forsaken you. Ought I? I do not know, even now. Who can tell me what is right? Who can lead me out of this frightful labyrinth? If I did wrong in seeking you, I humbly ask the pardon of God, and if I did wrong in abandoning you, I ask forgiveness in all lowliness and meekness from the man I wronged."

"No, Pepeeta, you have never wronged me; I alone have been to blame. The result could not have been really different, no matter what course you took. The scourge would have fallen anyway! All that has happened has been inevitable. Justice had to be vindicated. If it had not come in one way, it would in another, for there are no short cuts and evasions in tragedies like this! Every result that is attached to these causes must be drawn up by them like the links in a chain, and one never knows when the end has come."

His solemn manner and earnest words alarmed Pepeeta.

"Oh, David," she cried, "it cannot, cannot be so awful. Such consequences cannot hang upon the deeds we commit in the limitations and ignorance of this earthly life."

"Forgive me, Pepeeta, I should not talk so. These are the fears of my darker moments. I have brighter thoughts and hopes. There is a quiet feeling in my heart about the future that grows with the passing days. God is good, and he will give us strength to meet whatever comes. We must live, and while we live we will hope for the best. Life is a gift, and it is our duty to enjoy it."

"Oh! it is good to hear you say that! It comforts me. I think it cannot be possible that we should not be able to escape from this darkness if we are willing to follow the divine light."

"I think so, too," he said.

His words were spoken with such assurance as to awaken a vague surmise that he had reasons which he had not told. She pressed his hands and besought him to explain.

"Oh! tell me," she said eagerly; "is there anything new? Has anything happened?"

"Pepeeta," he answered slowly, "we have been strangely and kindly dealt with. It is not quite so bad as it seemed, for I did not kill him."

"You did not kill him! What do you mean?"

"No, it is a strange story! I thought I had killed him. I knew murder was in my heart. It was no fault of mine that the blow was not fatal. I left him in the road for dead. But, thank God, he did not die; he did not die then!"

"He did, not die then? Have you seen him? Is he dead now? Tell me! Tell me!"

Quietly, gently, briefly as he could, he narrated the events of the past few months, and as he did so she drew in short breaths or long inspirations as the story shifted from phase to phase, and when at last he had finished, she clasped her hands and gazed up into the depths of the sky with eyes that were swimming in tears.

"Poor doctor, poor old man," Pepeeta sighed at last. "Oh! How we have wronged him, how we have made him suffer. He was always kind! He was rough, but he was kind. Oh! why could I not have loved him? But I did not, I could not. My heart was asleep. It had never once waked from its slumber until it heard your voice, David. And, afterwards,—well I could not love him! But why should we have wronged him so? How base it was! How terrible! I pity him, I blame myself—and yet I cannot wish him back. Listen to me, David. I am afraid I am glad he is dead. What do you think of that? Oh! what a mystery the human heart is! How can these terrible contradictions exist together? I would give my life to undo that wrong, and yet I should die if it were undone. All this is in the heart of a woman—so much of love, so much of hate, for I should have hated him, at last! I cannot understand myself. I cannot understand this story. What does all this mean for us, David? Perhaps you can see the light now, as you used to! I think from your face and your voice that you are your old self again. Oh! if you can see that inner light once more, consult it. Ask it if there is any reason why we cannot be happy now? Tell it that your Pepeeta is too weak to endure this separation any longer. I am only a woman, David! I cannot any longer bear life alone. I love you too deeply. I cannot live without you."

Waiting long before he answered, as if to reflect and be sure, David said quietly but confidently, "Pepeeta, I cannot see any reason why we should not begin our lives over again, starting at this very place from which we made that false beginning three long years ago. We cannot go back, but, in a sense, we can begin again."

"But can we really begin again?" she asked. "How is it possible? I do not see! We are not what we were. There is so much of evil in our hearts. We were pure and innocent three years ago. Is it not necessary to be pure and innocent? And how can we be with all this fearful past behind us? We cannot become children again!"

"I have thought much and deeply about it," David responded. I know not what subtle change has taken place within me, but I know that it has been great and real. My heart was hard, but now it is tender. It was full of despair, and now it is full of hope. I am not as innocent as I was that night when you heard me speak in the old Quaker meeting-house, or rather I am not innocent in the same way. My heart was then like a spring among the mountains; it had a sort of virgin innocence. I had sinned only in thought, and in the dreamy imaginations of unfolding youth. It is different now; a whole world of realized, actualized evil lies buried in the depths of my soul. It is there, but it is there only as a memory and not as a living force. There must in some way, I cannot tell how, be a purity of guilt as well as of innocence, and perhaps it is a purity of a still higher and finer kind. There was a peace of mind which I had as an innocent boy, which I do not possess now; but I have another and deeper peace. There was a childish courage; but it was the courage of one who had never been exposed to danger. There is another courage in my heart now, and it is the courage of the veteran who has bared his bosom to the foe! I know not by what strange alchemy these diverse elements of evil can have become absorbed and incorporated into this newer and better life, but this I do know, and nothing can make me doubt it—that while I am not so good, yet I am better; while I am not so pure, yet I am purer. Yes, Pepeeta, I think we can go back on our track. We can be born again! We can once more be little children. I feel myself a little child to-night—I who, a few days ago, was like an old man, bowed and crushed under a load of wretchedness and misery! God seems near to me; life seems sweet to me. Let us begin again, Pepeeta. We have traveled round a circle, and have come back to the old starting point. Let us begin again."

"Oh! David," she said, kissing the hands she held; "how like your old self you are to-night. Your words of hope have filled my soul with joy. Is it your presence alone that has done it, or is it God's, or is it both? A change has come over the very world around us. All is the same, and yet all is different. The stars are brighter. The brook has a sweeter music. There is something of heaven in this intoxicating cup you have put to my lips! I seem to be enveloped by a spiritual presence! Hush! Do you hear voices?"

The excitement had been too intense for this sensitive woman to endure with tranquillity. Her heart, her conscience, her imagination had suffered an almost unendurable strain. She flung herself into the arms of her lover and trembled upon his breast, and he held her there until she had regained her composure.

"Do you really love me yet?" she asked, at length, raising her face and gazing up into his with an expression in which the simple affection of a little child was strangely blended with the passionate love of an ardent and adoring woman.

"Love you!" he cried; "your face has been the last vision upon which I gazed when I fell into a restless slumber, and the first which greeted returning consciousness, when I waked from my troubled dream. My life has been but a fragment since we parted; a part of my individuality seemed to have been torn away. I have always felt that neither time nor space could separate us for—"

At that instant the horse which had stood patiently beside them on the bridge, shook his head, rattled his bridle and whinnied.

"Poor fellow! I had forgotten all about him in my joy!" said David, starting at the sound, and patting his shoulder. "You have had a hard run, and are tired and hungry. I must get you to the barn and feed you. They will miss you at the stable to-night, but I will send you back to-morrow, or ride you myself, that is if Pepeeta wishes to be rid of me."

He said this teasingly, but smiled at her,—a tender and confident smile.

"Oh! you shall never leave me again—not for a moment," she cried, pressing his arm against her heart.

He paused a moment and looked down as if a new thought had struck him.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Do you think they will welcome me at home?" he said, with a penitence and humility that touched her deeply.

"Welcome you home?" she exclaimed; "you do not know them, David. They talk of nothing else. They have sent messages to you in every direction. The door is never locked, and there has never been a night since you disappeared that a candle has not burned to its socket on the sill of your window; what do you think of that? You do not know them, David. They are angels of mercy and goodness. I have been selfish in keeping you so long to myself. Come, let us hasten."

Just at that instant a loud halloo was heard—"Pepeeta, Pepeeta, Pepeeta!"

"It is Steven—the dear boy! He has missed me. You have a dangerous rival, David."

She said this with a merry laugh and cried out, "Steven, Steven, Steven!"

"Where are you?" he called.

"I am here by the bridge!" she cried, in her silvery treble.

"She is here by the bridge!" The deep bass voice of her lover went rolling through the woods.

There was silence for a moment, and then they heard a joyous shout, "Uncle David! Uncle David! Oh! Mother, Father, it is Uncle David."

There was a crashing in the bushes, and the great half-grown boy bounded through them and flung himself into the arms extended to him, with all the trust, all the love, all the devotion of the happy days of old.

A SELF-IMPOSED EXPIATION

"Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave."
—Friedrich von Logau.

David's welcome home was quiet, cordial and heartfelt. The Quaker life is calm; storms seldom appear on its surface, even though they must sometimes agitate its depths; mind and heart are brought under remarkable control; sympathy and charity are extended to the erring; hospitality is a duty and an instinct; domestic love is deep and powerful.

When David had frankly told his story, he was permitted to resume his place in the life of the old homestead as if nothing had happened. He expressed to his brother and sister his love for Pepeeta, and his determination to make her his wife in lawful marriage.

They assented to his plans, and at the earliest possible moment the minister and elders of the little congregation of Friends were asked to meet, in accordance with their custom, to "confer with him about a concern which was on his mind."

They came, and heard his story and his intention, told with straightforward simplicity. They, too, touched with sympathy and moved to confidence, agreed that there was no obstacle to the union. The date of the wedding was placed at the end of the month, which, by their ecclesiastical law, must elapse after this avowal, and an evening meeting was appointed for the ceremony.

In the meantime David remained quietly at home, and took up his old labors as nearly as possible where he had laid them down. Such a life as he had been leading induces a distaste for manual labor, and sometimes he chafed against it. Again and again he felt his spirit faint within him when he recalled the scenes of excitement through which he had passed, and looked forward to years of this unvaried drudgery; but he never permitted his soul to question his duty! He had decided in the most solemn reflections of his life that he would conquer himself in the place where he had been defeated, perform the tasks which he had so ignominiously abandoned, and then, when he had demonstrated his power to live a true life himself, devote his strength to helping others.

The charms of this pastoral existence gradually came to his support in his heroic resolution. The unbroken quiet of the happy valley which had irritated him at first, grew to be more and more a balm to his wounded spirit. The society of the animal world lent its gracious consolation; the great horses, the ponderous oxen, the doves fluttering and cooing about the barnyard, the suckling calves, the playful colts, all came to him as to a friend, and in giving him their confidence and affection awakened his own.

Above all Pepeeta was ever near him. It was no wonder that her beauty threw its spell over David's spirit. It had been enhanced by sorrow, for the human countenance, like the landscape, requires shadow as well as sunshine to perfect its charms. But the burst of sunshine which had come with David's return had brought it a final consummation which transfigured even the Quaker dress she had adopted. Her bonnet would never stay over her face but fell back on her shoulders, her animated countenance emerging from this envelope like the bud of a rose from its sheath. She was as a butterfly at that critical instant when it is ready to leave its chrysalis and take wing. She was a soul enmeshed in an ethereal body, rather than a body which ensheathed a soul.

Quietly and sedately the lovers met each other at the table, or at the spring, or at the milking.

And when the labors of the day had ended, they sat beneath the spreading hackberry trees, or wandered through the garden, or down the winding lane to the meadow, and reviewed the past with sadness or looked forward to the future with a chastened joy. Their spirits were subdued and softened, their love took on a holy rather than a passionate cast, they felt themselves beneath the shadow of an awful crime, and again and again when they grew joyous and almost gay they were checked by the irrepressible apprehension that out from under the silently revolving wheels of judgment some other punishment would roll.

Tenderly as they loved each other, and sweet as was that love, they could not always be happy with such a past behind them! In proportion to the soul's real grandeur it must suffer over its own imperfections. This suffering is remorse. In proud and gloomy hearts which tell their secrets only to their own pillows, its tears are poison and its rebukes the thrust of daggers. But in those which, like theirs, are gentle and tender by nature, remorseful tears are drops of penitential dew. David and Pepeeta suffered, but their suffering was curative, for pure love is like a fountain; by its incessant gushing from the heart it clarifies the most turbid streams of thought or emotion. Each week witnessed a perceptible advance in peace, in rest, in quiet happiness, and at last the night of their marriage arrived, and they went together to the meeting house.

The people gathered as they did at that other service when David made the address to which Pepeeta had listened with such astonishment and rapture. The entire community of Friends was there, for even Quakers cannot entirely repress their curiosity. There was evidence of deep feeling and even of suppressed excitement. The men in their broad-brimmed hats, the women in their poke bonnets, moved with an almost unseemly rapidity through the evening shadows. The pairs and groups conversed in rapid, eager whispers. They did not linger outside the door, but entered hastily and took their places as if some great event were about to happen.

There was a preliminary service of worship, and according to custom, opportunity was given for prayer or exhortation. But all minds were too intent upon what was to follow to enable them to take part with spirit. The silences were frequent and tedious. The young people moved restlessly on their seats, and their elders rebuked them with silent glances of disapproval. All were in haste, but nothing can really upset the gravity of these calm and tranquil people, and it was not until after a suitable time had elapsed that the leader of the meeting arose and said: "The time has arrived when David and Pepeeta are at liberty to proceed with their marriage, unless there be some one who can show just cause why this rite should not be solemnized."

A flutter ran through the assembly, and a moment of waiting ensued; then David rose, while every eye was fixed on him.

"My friends," he said, in a voice whose gentleness and sweetness stirred their hearts; "you have refrained from inquiring into the story of my life during the three years of my absence. I would be glad if I could withhold it from your knowledge; but I feel that I must make a confession of my sins."

In the death-like stillness he began. The narrative was in itself dramatic, but the deep feeling of him who told it, his natural oratory and the hearers' intent interest, lent to it a fascination that at times became almost unendurable. Sighs were often heard, tears were furtively wiped away, criticism was disarmed, and the tenderness of this illicit but passionate and determined love, blinded even those calm and righteous listeners to its darker and more desperate phases. By an almost infallible instinct we discover true love amid fictitious, unworthy and evil elements; and when seen there is something so sublimely beautiful that we prostrate ourselves before it and believe against evidence, even, that sooner or later it will ennoble and consecrate those who feel it.

When David had completed the narrative he continued as follows: "It is now necessary that I should convince you, if I can, that with my whole soul I have repented of this evil that I have done, and that I have sought, and I hope obtained, pardon for what is irreparable, and am determined to undo what I can. It is with awe and gratitude, my friends, that I acknowledge the aid of heaven. From the logical and well-deserved consequences of this sin I did not escape alone! I was snatched from it like a brand from the burning! No mortal-mind could have planned or executed my salvation. It is marked by evidences of Divine power and wisdom. Through a series of experiences almost too strange to be credible, I have been drawn back here to the scenes of my childhood, to encounter the one I have wronged and to find myself, so far as I know, able not only to make reparation, but to enjoy the bliss of a love of which I am unworthy. If I were wise enough, I would set before you the spiritual meaning of this terrible experience, but I am not. Three years ago I stood here in boyish confidence and boldly expounded the mysteries of our human life. It is only when we know nothing of life that we feel able to interpret it! Now that I have seen it, tasted it, drunk the cup almost to the dregs—I am speechless. Three facts, however, stand out before my vision—sin, punishment, pardon! I have sinned; I have suffered; I have been forgiven. I have been fully pardoned, but I feel that I have not been fully punished! There are issues of such an experience as this that cannot be brought to light in a day, a year, perhaps not in a lifetime. Whatever they are, I must await them and meet them; but as it is permitted a man to know his own mind, when he is determined so to do, I know that I have turned upon this sin with loathing! I know that I am ready to take up my burden where I left it years ago. I know that I would do anything to atone for the evil which I have wrought to others. I mean, if it seem good to you, here and now to claim as my bride her into whose life I have brought a world of sorrow. I mean, if God permits me, to live quietly and patiently among you until I have so recruited my spiritual strength that I can go forth into the great world of sorrow and of sin which I have seen, and extend to others a hand of helpfulness such as was stretched out to me at the moment of my need; but if there is any one here to whom God has given a message for me, whether it be to approve or condemn my course, I trust that I shall have grace to receive it meekly."

He took his seat, and it seemed for a few moments that every person in the room had yielded heart and judgment to this noble and modest appeal. But there was among them one whose stern and unyielding sense of justice had not been appeased. He was a man who had often suffered for righteousness sake and who attached more value to the testimony of a clear conscience than to any earthly dignity. He slowly and solemnly rose. His form was like that of a prophet of ancient days. His deep-set eyes glowed like two bright stars under the cloudy edge of his broad-brimmed hat. His face was emaciated with a self-denial that bordered upon asceticism, and wan with ceaseless contemplations of the problems of life, death and immortality. Not a trace of tender emotion was evident on features, which might have been carved in marble. It was impossible to conceive that he had ever been young, and there seemed a bitter irony in the effort of such a man to judge the cause of a love like that which pleaded for satisfaction in the hearts of David and Pepeeta, and to pronounce upon the destinies of those whose souls were still throbbing with passion.

But such was the purpose of the man. His first words sounded on the stillness like an alarm bell and shook the souls of listeners with a sort of terror.

"We did not seek to try this cause," he said. "It was brought before us by the wish of this sinful man himself. But if we must judge, let us judge like God! We read of Him—that he 'lays righteousness to the line and judgment to the plummet.' Let us do the same. That a great wrong hath been done is evident to every mind. It is not meet that such wrongs should go unpunished! These two transgressors have suffered; but who believes that such wrongs may justly be so soon followed by felicity? It would be an encouragement to evil-doers and a premium upon vice! Who would refrain from violently rending the marriage bonds or sundering any sacred tie, if in a few short months the fruit of the guilty deed might be eaten in peace by the culprit? What assurance may we have that the lesson which has been but superficially graven on this guilty heart may not be obliterated in the enjoyment of triumph? Why should these youths make such unseemly haste? If they are indeed in earnest to seek the truth and lay to heart the meaning of this experience into which their sinful hearts have led them, let them of their own accord and out of their humble and contrite hearts devote a year to meditation and prayer. Let them show to others they have learned that to live righteously and soberly, and not to grasp ill-gotten gains or enjoy unhallowed pleasures, is the chief end of human life! The hour is ripe for such a demonstration. We have seen other evidences among us of an unholy hungering after the unlawful pleasures of life. It is time that a halt were called. If this community is dedicated to righteousness, then let us exalt the standard. It is at critical moments like this that history is made and character formed. If we weaken now, if we permit our hearts to overpower our consciences, God will smite us with His wrath, vice will rush upon us like a flood, and we shall be given over to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life! 'To the law and to the testimony, my brethren.'"

With his long arm extended and his deep-set eyes glowing, he repeated from memory the solemn words:

"'Behold ye trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not, and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say, "We are delivered to do all these abominations?" Is this house which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have said it, saith the Lord. But go ye now into my place which was Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel! And now because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord—and I spake unto you (rising up early and speaking), but ye heard not, and I called you but ye answered not—therefore will I do unto this house which is called by my name (wherein ye trust) and unto the place which I gave unto you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh! And I will cast you out of my sight—even the whole people of Ephraim! Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayers for them, neither make intercession to me—for I will not hear thee!'

"This is my message! This is the advice ye have invited! Wait a year! Watch and pray! Fit yourselves for the enjoyment of your love by repentance."

The impression made by these solemn words was tremendous. It was as if eternity had suddenly dawned in that dim-lit room, and the leaves of the book of doom had been opened.

There had been stillness before, but now there was the silence of the grave, and at this dramatic moment one of the tallow candles whose feeble light had served but to render the darkness visible, spluttered, went out, and intensified the silence with a meaningless and exasperating sound. No one knew how to break the spell which these intense and terrible words had cast over them. Their limbs and faculties were both benumbed.

Upon Pepeeta this message had fallen like a thunderbolt. Her Oriental imagination, her awakened conscience, her throbbing heart had all been thrilled. She did not move; her eyes were still fixed on the prophet; her face was white; her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

David leaned forward in his seat and listened like a culprit hearing sentence from a judge. Those who were closely observing his noble countenance saw it suddenly light up with the glow of a spiritual ecstasy, and rightly conjectured that he was burning with the zeal of martyrdom. He saw his way, for the first time, to a worthy expiation of his sin. The prophet had interpreted the purpose of God and pointed out the path of duty. He started to his feet, but at the same instant over in the corner of the room rose the figure of a man whose full form, benignant countenance and benevolent manner afforded the most marked contrast to that of the Jeremiah who had electrified them by his appeal to righteousness.

He moved toward one of the half dozen candles which were still burning, and stood within the narrow circle of its feeble rays. Drawing from the inner pocket of his coat a well-worn volume he opened it, held it up to the light and began to read. The tones of his voice were clear and mellifluous, his articulation slow and distinct, and his soul seemed permeated with the wondrous depth and beauty of what is perhaps the most exquisite passage in the literature of the world. It was the story of the prodigal son.

As he proceeded, and that brief but perfect drama unfolded itself before the imagination of his hearers, it was as if they had never heard it before, or at least as if its profound import had never been revealed to their dull minds. Intimations and suggestions which had never been disclosed to them came out like lines written in sensitive ink, under the influence of light and heat. The living medium through which they were uttered seemed slowly to melt away, and as in a dissolving view, the sublime teacher, the humble Galilean stood before them, and they heard his voice! The last words died away; the reader took his seat without uttering a single comment. Not a person moved.

Each heart in that silent room was thrilled with emotions which were common to all. But there was one which had a burden all its own.

The demure Quaker maiden who had looked love out of her dove-like eyes three years ago when Pepeeta appeared for the first time among these quiet folk, was in her old familiar seat. Her life had never been the same since that hour, for the man whom she loved with all the deep intensity of which a heart so young, so pure, so true was capable, had been suddenly stolen from her by a stranger. Her thwarted love had never found expression, and she had borne her pain and loss as became the child of a religion of silence, patience and fortitude. But the wound had never healed, and now she was compelled to be a sad and hopeless spectator of another scene which sealed her fate and made her future hopeless. Her bonnet hid the sad face from view, as her heart hid its secret.

The turn which had been given to the emotions of these quiet people by the reading of the parable had been so sudden and so powerful that perhaps not a single person in the room doubted that David and Pepeeta would at once rise and enter into that holy contract for which the way seemed to have been so easily opened by the tender story of the father's love for the prodigal son.

But it was the unexpected which happened. The soul of David Corson had passed through one of those genuine and permanent revolutions which sometimes take place in the nature of man. He had completed the cycle of revolt and anarchy to which he had been condemned by his inheritance from a wild and profligate father. Whether that fever had run its natural course or whether as David himself believed, he had been rescued by an act of divine intervention, it is certain that the change was as actual as that which takes place when a grub becomes a butterfly. It was equally certain that from this time onward it was the mental and spiritual characteristics of his mother which manifested themselves in his spiritual evolution.

He became his true self—a saint, an ascetic, a mystic, a potential martyr.

When he rose to his feet a moment after the reader had finished, his face shining with an inward light and glowing with a sublime purpose, all believed that he was about to summon Pepeeta to their marriage.

What was the astonishment, then, when in rapt words he began:

"God has spoken to us, my friends. We have heard his voice. It is too soon for me to enjoy this bliss! Yes, I will wait! I will dedicate this year to meditation and prayer. Pepeeta, wilt thou join me in this resolution? If thou wilt, let the betrothal of this night be one of soul to soul and both our souls to God! Give me thine hand."

Still under the spell of strange spiritual emotions to which her sensitive spirit vibrated like the strings of an Æolian harp, Pepeeta rose, and placing her hands in those of her lover, looked up into his face with a touching confidence, an almost adoring love. It was more like the bridal of two pure spirits than the betrothal of a man and woman!

Not one of those who saw it has ever forgotten that strange scene; it is a tradition in that community until this day. They felt, and well they might, those strange people who had dedicated themselves and their children to the divine life, that in this scene their little community had attained the zenith of its spiritual history.

No wonder that from an English statesman this eulogy was once wrung: "By God, sir, we cannot afford to persecute the Quakers! Their religion may be wrong, but the people who cling to an idea are the very people we want. If we must persecute—let us persecute the complacent!"

FASTING IN THE WILDERNESS