第112章 The Happiest of Weeks (4)

"It is nothing at second hand," said Erica."He is a shoe maker, as grand-looking a fellow as you ever saw, fond of reading, and very thoughtful, and with more quiet common sense than almost any I ever met.He had been brought up to believe in verbal inspiration that had been thoroughly crammed down his throat; but no one had attempted to touch upon the contradictions, the thousand and one difficulties which of course he found directly he began to study the Bible.So he puzzled and puzzled, and got more and more dissatisfied, and never in church heard anything which explained his difficulties.At last one day in his workshop a man lent him a number of the 'Idol Breaker,' and in it was a paper by my father on the Atonement.It came to him like a great light in his darkness; he says he shall never forget the sudden conviction that the man who wrote that article understood every one of his difficulties, and would be able to clear them right away.The next Sunday he went to hear my father lecture.I believe it would make the veriest flint cry to hear his account of it, to see the look of reverent love that comes over his face when he says, 'And there I found Mr.Raeburn ready to answer all my difficulties, not holding one at arm's length and talking big and patronizing for all he was so clever, but just like a mate.' That man would die for my father any day hundreds of them would.""I can well believe it," said Donovan.Then, after a pause, he added, "To induce Christians to take a fair, unprejudiced look at true secularism and to induce secularists to take a fair, unprejudiced view of true Christ-following, seems to me to be the great need of today.""If one could!" said Erica, with a long-drawn sigh.

"If any one can, you can," he replied.

She looked up at him quickly, awed by the earnestness of his tone.

Was she a young girl, conscious of so many faults and failings, conscious of being at the very threshold herself to dare even to attempt such a task? Yet was it a question of daring to attempt?

Was it not rather the bit of work mapped out for her, to undertake, perhaps to fail in, but still bravely to attempt? He heart throbbed with eager yearning, as the vision rose before her.What was mere personal pain? What was injustice? What was misunderstanding? Why, in such a cause she could endure anything.

"I would die to help on that!" she said in a low voice.

"Will you live for it?" asked Donovan, with his rare, beautiful smile."Live, and do something more than endure the Lady Carolines and Mr.Cuthberts?"Few things are more inspiriting that the realization that we are called to some special work which will need our highest faculties, our untiring exertions which will demand all that is good in us, and will make growth in good imperative.With the peacefulness of that country Sunday was interwoven a delicious perception that hard, beautiful work lay beyond.Erica wandered about the shady Mountshire woods with Gladys and the children, and in the cool restfulness, in the stillness and beauty, got a firm hold on her lofty ideal, and rose about the petty vexations and small frictions which had been spoiling her life at Greyshot.

The manor grounds were always thrown open to the public on Sunday, and a band in connection with one of the temperance societies played on the lawn.Donovan had been much persecuted by the Sabbatarians for sanctioning this; but, though sorry to offend any one, he could not allow what he considered mistaken scruples to interfere with such a boon to the public.Crowds of workingmen and women came each week away from their densely packed homes into the pure country; the place was for the time given up to them, and they soon learned to love it, to look upon it as a property to which they had a real and recognized share.

Squire Ward, who owned the neighboring estate, grumbled a good deal at the intrusion of what he called the "rabble" into quiet Oakdene.

"That's the worst of such men as Farrant," he used to say."They begin by rushing to one extreme, and end by rushing to the other.

Such a want of steady conservative balance! He's a good man; but, poor fellow, he'll never be like other people, never!"Mrs.Ward was almost inclined to think that he had been less obnoxious in the old times.As a professed atheist, he could be shunned and ignored, but his uncomfortably practical Christianity had a way of shaking up the sleepy neighborhood, and the neighborhood did not at all like being shaken!