Startling into his troubled thoughts came the words of the leader: “I am going to ask our new president, Mr. Allan Murray, to lead us in the opening prayer—”
Chapter 19
Never in his life had Murray Van Rensselaer been asked to make a speech or do a stunt that he had been known to refuse or be inadequate to the occasion. It had been his boast that a fellow could always say something if he would just have his wits about him, but the time had come when wits would not serve him. He was suddenly confronted with the Lord God and told to speak to Him before many witnesses! A great swelling horror arose around him like a cloud of enemies about to throttle him. His speech went from him, and his strength, also his self-confidence. A few weeks back he might have jumped to his feet and rattled off a pleasant little prayer, appropriate in its petitions, correct in its address and setting, and felt smart about having risen to the occasion. Not so now. He felt himself to be sitting confused and ashamed before the Lord, and he had nothing to say.
He was in dire straits. He realized fully that if he did not do what he was asked, his mask was off, and before all this assembled multitude he would be discovered and brought to shame. Yet he dared not say off a prayer that he did not mean. So much he had grown in the knowledge of the Holy One. He knew it would be blasphemy.
There was a dead silence in the room, a settling down of awe and waiting, half-bowed heads, trying to glimpse the new president before the prayer began, yet reverently waiting for him to address the great high throne of God for them.
A panic came upon him. He dared not sit still. Old habit of responding to any challenge, no matter how daring, goaded him; fear got him to his unwilling feet, and there he stood.
The silence grew. The heads were bent reverently now. Such a young man to be such a great leader, they thought. Such a deep spiritual look upon his face!
Murray stood there and faced God, his voice all gone!
Then the audience seemed to melt away behind a great misty cloud. A radiance was before his closed eyes, and his voice came back. Unwillingly it had to speak, to recognize the Presence in which he stood.
“Oh, God!—”
A wave of sympathy came up from the audience inaudibly, as incense from an altar. Murray felt the uplift of their spirits, as if they were far away, yet pressing him forward.
“You know I am not worthy to speak for this people—” He paused. His forehead was damp with the mighty physical effort of the words, as if they were drawn forth from his very soul.
“You know I am a sinful man—”
He felt as if he stood in the courtroom at last, confessing himself guilty before the world. Now his mother would know! Now his father would know! Now Bessie’s mother and Mrs. Summers, and all of them would know, but he was glad! Already his soul felt lighter! The burden was going!
“You know I am not what they think!” he burst forth. “I am not able to preside at a meeting like this. Won’t You take my place, oh God? Won’t You lead these people, and won’t You help me and tell me what to do? I am willing for You to do what You like with me. I’m hiding in You!”
He hesitated. Then he added what he had heard in prayers ever since he came to Marlborough, what Mrs. Summers always closed her evening petition with—“For Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”
Two ministers at the back of the church whispered to one another softly.
“A most remarkable prayer!” said one.
“Yes, and a most remarkable young man, they say!” said the other. “A wonder in this age that his head is not turned with all the praise he is receiving. How humble he is!”
Murray slumped into his seat with a sense of exhaustion upon him and dropped his head upon his shielding hand. The leader in a sweet tenor voice started softly the hymn:
“Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way!
Thou are the potter, I am the clay;
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.”
The many voices took it up and it swept through the room like a prayer, softly, tenderly, the words clear and distinct. Murray had never heard anything like it before.
“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.”
Murray felt a great longing sweep over him to be washed whiter than snow. He had never heard talk like this, but it filled his need. He felt soiled inside. He did not understand it at all, but he seemed to have been wandering for a long time in filth, and now he realized that what he needed was cleansing. His own soul began to cry out with the spirit of the prayer song that was trembling about him from all these people, who seemed to know the words and by some miracle to all feel the same way that he did. Why! Were they all praying for him?
—“wounded and weary, help me I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!”
They sang with such assurance, as if they knew He could and would do what they asked. Dared he ask, too? Were thereconditions to such assurance? Would God take a man who had killed a girl and then gone on masquerading as a Christian just to save his skin?
“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!” went on the quiet prayer. Ah! That was the condition. Surrender! Well, he was ready. That was what that fellow Saul did, just said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” He could ask that.
“Hold o’er my being absolute sway!” went on the song. Yes, he could echo that. He was ready for anything, if there was only a way out of this awful hole he was in. He was sick of himself and his own way. It had never been much but froth. He saw that now. Why had he not seen it before?
“Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!”
What would that be like? Filled with Christ’s Spirit! And men looking at him would see Christ, not Murray Van Rensselaer anymore. He understood. That was just what he had been trying to put across about Allan Murray, and he had almost done it. That was the reason why he had not been able to get away, because men looking at him had seen Allan Murray and taken him for what they expected Allan Murray to be! Ah! But this was to be Jesus Christ! Could he possibly get away with that? Only this was not to be a getaway. It was to be real. He was to surrender and let Jesus Christ live in him. Just cut out the things he wanted as if theywere not, and let the Spirit of Christ do with him what He liked. Would that be unbearable? What was there he cared for anyway now? Why! He wanted to do this! He wanted to be made over! He wanted to die to the old life forever and be made new, and this seemed to be the only way to do it: Could this be the new birth?
There were other voices praying now, just short sentence prayers, tender and pleading, and all with an assurance as if the Lord to whom they prayed was quite near. They prayed for the young leader, that the Holy Spirit might be poured out upon him, and Murray sat with bowed head in great wonder and humility, and spoke within himself: “Oh God! Hear them! Hear them! Let me be Your child, too!” Surely, then, before the Throne, mention was made of Murray Van Rensselaer’s name, and it was said of him, “For behold, he prayeth!”
Murray went through the rest of that convention in a daze of joy and wonder. He was not aware that he was doing an amazing thing, really an outrageous thing when one came to think of it. He had not the slightest perception of the gigantic fraud he was perpetrating upon an adoring public. He was absorbed in the thing that had come to pass within his own soul.
Every prayer that ascended to heaven, every song that was sung, every speech that was made, he drank in like the milk of a newborn babe. It all seemed to be happening for him. He was learning great things about this Savior that was his. He was finding out new facts about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For before he was like some of the early Christians, who said, “We have notso much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” He was but a babe i
n the truth.
For the rest he did as he was told. They asked him to preside at the meeting, and with gravity and humility he took his place, not realizing at all that it was presumption in him and that he was a false deceiver. His entire mind was engrossed with the wonder that had been wrought in himself. He went through the entire two days as one goes through a fire or an earthquake or any other sudden cataclysm which changes everything normal, and where one has to act for the moment. He had no consciousness for the time being of the past or its consequences, or that he was in the least responsible for them now. Deep in his mind he knew they were to be dealt with sometime, but he seemed to sense as the babe senses its mother’s care that he now had a Savior to deal with those things for him. He was a new creature in Christ. Old things were passed away, and all things were become new!
They were wonderfully kind and helpful to him. They had all the matters of business carefully thought out and written up on little cards, with the hours neatly penned, and what he had to say about each item of business. They handed him a new card at the beginning of each session, and they thought him so modest that he kept in the background and did not try to shine when everybody was ready to bow down to him. He asked intelligent questions now and then about matters of business, and he carried them through without a hitch when it came to voting and appointing committees.
Somehow, too, he got through the introductions that were a part of his duty, though none of the speakers were at all known to him. They would say, “Now the next is Scarlett, from Green County. You know, the fellow that made his mark getting hold of the foreigners in his district and forming them into a society, and finally into the nucleus of a church. Great fellow, Scarlett! Give him the best send-off you can! He isn’t very prepossessing in appearance, but he’s a live wire!”
And Murray would get up and revamp these remarks into the finest kind of a “send-off,” in his own peculiarly happy phrasing, and then sit down and wonder as some plain little man with clothes from a cheap department store and an unspeakable necktie would get up and tell in horrendous English of the souls that had been saved and the workers that had developed in his little corner of the vineyard. Murray found his eyes all dewy and his voice husky when the Scarlett man was done, and he turned for his next cue to his mentor.
“Whipple of China. Yes, the Whipple! Stuck by his mission when the mob was burning his school and came through. He’s back, you know. Got it all built up again. Raised the money himself—but he’ll tell about that, of course.”
And Murray would get up and say: “It ill befits me to try to say anything in introducing Mr. Whipple, of China. You all know of his thrilling escape and of his wonderful success in rebuilding the work that the enemy had pulled down. I am sure you want to hear him tell his own story, and I will not take one moment of his precious time in anticipating it. Mr. Whipple.”
Then he would sit down again to listen to a tale of God’s care for His own, more thrilling than any that had ever come his way in story, drama, or life. And this was what men who knew the Lord had been doing with their lives! While he had been driveling his away in childish nonsense, they had been risking their lives for the sake of telling the story of salvation. Salvation! Oh, salvation! What a great word! He seemed never to have heard it before. What if someone had shouted that in his ear as he started away in the night from that hospital door? If it had been whispered behind him as he stood by Mrs. Chapparelle’s kitchen window and watched her go away to answer the doorbell! If he could have heard it as he lay under the freight car and rode over the tortuous way! That there was salvation! Salvation for him! Why, he had not even realized then that he was a sinner. He had only thought of the consequences of his sin if he were found out. He had felt sorry for having hurt Bessie and her mother, of course, but he had no sense of personal sin. And now he had. Now he knew what the burden had been that weighed him down, growing gradually heavier and heavier through the weeks. And now it was gone! He wanted to run and shout that there was such a word as salvation, and that it was his! He did not quite know how he got it nor what it was, but he knew it was his, and that he had surrendered himself for life. He was not his own anymore. He belonged to Someone who would undertake for him. His old self was dead, and Christ had promised to see to all that. There would be things for him to do,of course, when this meeting was over. He did not know what they were, but he would be shown. He was like a person blinded now, groping, being led. It came to him that he was like Saul of Tarsus, waiting there in the street called Straight for someone to say, “Brother Saul, receive thy sight!” Strange what an impression that first Bible story of his life had made upon him! It probably would not have been remembered if he had not heard it in such a peculiar way, first taught by his wild little Sunday school class, and then read slowly, with original comments, by Mrs. Summers not many nights later at her evening worship. He realized that he had gotten a great deal of knowledge from Mrs. Summers. He put that away in his mind for future gratitude and absorbed himself in listening to the speakers, who one and all seemed to have the same power and impetus behind their lives, whether they were from China or Oklahoma or Sayres’ Corners. Not all of them could speak good grammar. Not all of them knew how to turn a finished phrase, but all knew the Lord Jesus Christ and seemed glad about it. Strange there could have been so many people in the world who knew and loved these things and believed in a life that was invisible and eternal, and he had never come in contact with any of them before! He had known church people, not a few. His mother went to church sometimes, professed to be a member of one of the most fashionable congregations in his home city, but he felt positive his mother knew nothing of surrender to Christ. Why had no one ever told people in his home circle? His father! Did his father know?
It was undoubtedly Murray’s absorption in the great new peace that had come to his soul through simple self-surrender that carried him through the services of those days without self-consciousness or fear. His quiet self-effacement made a deep impression on all. He did not seem to realize that he had evaded all attempts to bring him into the limelight. He had been so entirely taken up with his new thoughts that the old situation that had haunted him for weeks was gone for the time.
They came home on the midnight train, and it happened that the man from China was riding on that same train to the city farther on and sat with Murray.
Now Murray had never talked with a man face-to-face who had been through so many hairbreadth escapes as this man from China. Neither had he ever talked with a man or known a man who was so altogether devoted to his cause. So it came about that he sat an entranced listener again to the words of a disciple who had given his life to preaching the gospel in China.
“And how did you feel the night they surrounded the mission with the fire burning all about you, and creeping in the ceiling above?” asked Murray wonderingly. To think that a man had been through that and could sit calmly and talk about it.
“Oh, well, I had to work all the time, of course, stamping out the fire that fell all around, but I kept all the time thinking in the back of my mind that perhaps I’d see the Lord Jesus Himself pretty soon. That was a great thought. There was only one thing held meback. I didn’t want to go till I had told a few more people about Him. I couldn’t bear to go when there were so few of us telling the story, don’t you see? Why, in China, do you know how many thousands of people there are to just one missionary? People I mean who have never even heard the name of Jesus?”
“No,” said Murray, “but I’m beginning to get a sense of how many thousands there are in my own land who don’t know Him, and haven’t even got one missionary to the whole bunch of them! I’m wondering if you could even get at some of them to tell them, they’re so full of their own matters. Take my own home city, now—”
Murray had forgotten that he was Allan Murray now of Marlborough. He was thinking of his home and father and mother, and the fashionable circle from which he had fled. There is no telling what he might have said had not someo
ne plucked him by the sleeve and called: “Hey, Murray! This is our station! Aren’t you going to get out? Not going on to China tonight, are you?” And they hustled him off into the night, with the stars looking down and a strange feeling that all the earth had been made over anew for him.
Murray undressed in a dream. He had not heard any of the nice things they had said about him as they walked down the silent street to Mrs. Summers’ door. He had answered only in monosyllables. He had been thinking that when one got to know the news the next thing was to tell it, and how was that going towork out with the life he had left behind him and the mess that he was in? What was the thing for him to do next?
He did not see the pile of mail lying on his bureau. If he had he would probably have paid very little heed to it. He had gotten over the sudden shock that it gave him to see mail addressed to Allan Murray awaiting him. There had been letters several times, most of them circulars, one or two business letters. He had pried them open carefully to discover any possible clue to the situation and then sealed them and put them carefully away in the trunk. Opening the letters even of a dead man was not to his taste, but in this case it seemed almost necessary if he were to remain where he was.
However, the mail lay unnoticed till morning. He turned out the light and knelt awkwardly by his bed. It is a strange thing when a man kneels for the first time before his Maker. Murray dropped down and hid his face in the pillow, as if he were coming to a refuge, yet did not know what to say.
He knelt a moment quietly waiting, and then he said aloud in a low clear voice, as if there were someone else visible in the room:
“Lord, what do You want me to do now?”
In the morning he saw the letters. It was Sunday morning. He remembered that at once, for a bell was ringing off in the distance somewhere. And then his glance wandered to the little pile of letters lying on the bureau. They seemed to recall him to himself. He reached out and got them. Several circulars. There had been mail before from the same firms. Two letters bore the names of Christian Endeavor County Secretaries, and the last in the pile said, in a clear hand, written in the upper left-hand corner: “If not called for in five days, please return to Mr. Allan Murray.”