Now he was here, Gareth felt a strange reluctance toward telling his errand to any but a man of God.
“I can’t wait till Monday. I’m in a hurry, and it’s important. I must tell him myself what my errand is, and if he can’t see me now, I’ll have to go to someone else.”
At that the janitor trudged away. He soon came back and led Gareth through a hallway into a pleasant room, nicely furnished and lined from floor to ceiling with books.
The minister was seated behind a big mahogany desk, and when he saw Gareth’s uniform and his engaging grin, he came out of his comfortable chair to meet him, for he had feared that after all his denials, this must be another form of salesman.
“I’m in a hurry,” said Gareth as he sat down in the chair opposite the minister, “and perhaps you are, too. I’ll come to the point at once. I’m an aviator, and I’m going on a trip within the next few hours. Something has made me feel I need God. I don’t have a clue how to go about it, and I figured you’d be able to tell me in a few minutes just what I ought to do.”
“Why, that’s very commendable, my dear fellow.” said the minister pleasantly. It had been many a day since anyone had come to him inquiring the way to God. “Very commendable indeed. What—ah, were you thinking of? Did you wish to connect yourself with our church before you start on your voyage? That could be done. We usually have our communion service every three months, and we receive new members at that time. We had our usual communion service last Sunday, I regret to say, but of course if there is special need of haste, it could be arranged privately, say, tomorrow, if you wish. Was that your idea?”
Gareth looked puzzled. “No,” he said, hesitating, “I don’t know anything about churches. I’ve never had much to do with them. I just want to get sort of acquainted with God. A friend told me I ought to know God. She seemed troubled that I wasn’t what she called ‘saved.’ ”
“I see,” said the minister. “You wish to take some sort of a stand on the Lord’s side. That is very gratifying indeed. Very commendable! I suppose, my dear fellow, that you would perhaps like to have the ordinance of baptism administered. That is a simple matter, of course, unless perhaps you have already been baptized?”
Gareth still looked puzzled. “Do you mean was I christened? I don’t believe I ever was. I never heard of it. I don’t think it was a custom in our family. But what has that got to do with being saved?”
“Why, my dear fellow, we are told to believe and be baptized. Of course, I do not mean to say that baptism is necessary to salvation. It is not a saving ordinance, but it is the outward sign. I am taking it for granted that you believe?”
“I never have before,” answered Gareth thoughtfully, “but something happened that made me sure I do. Of course, I know absolutely nothing about this line—that’s why I came to you.”
“Well, then, my dear fellow, I would advise you to be baptized. We could arrange it tomorrow morning quietly before the service, here in my study, if you prefer.”
“But what is baptism for?” persisted the puzzled young man. “I’ve heard of it, of course, but it never meant a thing in my young life.”
“Why, baptism,” said the minister deliberately, “is a symbol of the inward cleansing, the cleansing of your soul.” Gareth looked helpless. “Is that all?” he asked. “Isn’t there anything for me to do?”
It all seemed so hopelessly indefinite. It had not occurred to him that his soul needed cleansing. He had no sense of sin.
“Oh, of course, my dear fellow, there are the means of grace. Attendance on divine worship, reading of the Holy Scriptures, prayer, giving to worthy causes. Those are all helps to a life hid with Christ in God.”
Gareth felt as if he were going deeper and deeper and getting nowhere. Why couldn’t the man use language he understood? But he assented helplessly. He had a wistful feeling that if only that little girl with the clear blue eyes were here, she would make it all plain. But she was not here, and he must do the best he could and make haste about it.
It was arranged that Gareth would be baptized the next morning at ten o’clock. The minister did not feel that he could bring it about sooner, as it was customary to have some member or members of his church present, and he felt sure he would not be able to reach any of them before the morning hour.
Gareth left the minister, half hesitating, feeling that he had done all he knew how to do, yet knowing there was a lack somewhere. If only he had asked Amory what she meant by being saved! She seemed to have some real definite idea back of her words, something that the old man with all his dignity did not seem to understand.
Perhaps it was her pure childlike faith in things unseen. But where did she get it? What had she got to rest it upon? The minister had talked in high-sounding phrases that Gareth had never heard before and got him nowhere. Why hadn’t he asked the girl what she meant and how he could get it?
It was almost twilight when he went out into the street again. He looked uncertainly about and felt dissatisfied. He wished he knew something more to do.
He went finally to a telephone booth and called up the four men who were his sponsors for the trip. He told them it was possible he might be able to start tomorrow at noon, if the weather conditions were favorable. They grumbled a little but accepted his decision because they knew they had to do so. He was a young man who usually knew his own mind.
Five minutes later a paragraph for the last edition of the evening papers was telephoned to the Associated Press.
“Ted” Kingsley planning to hop off at noon tomorrow! Bound for Siberia via Alaska.
Chapter 7
Gareth went to a hotel and ate his dinner. Then, instead of hunting up some friends for a jolly evening as he would naturally have done at another time, he went to his room and took out the little book. He felt he had a duty to perform, a problem to work out that somehow might be solved by that book.
He opened the book to the flyleaf first and read the neat inscription:
Amory Lorrimer
From Mother,
For my dear little girl on her fifth birthday
There followed a date and the name of a town that the young man had never heard of; below was written in a cramped little-girl hand, “Mother dear went home to heaven”—and another date a year and a half later than the first.
The young man’s eyes clouded with tears. So this book that he had so lightly begged from her was a treasure, a precious memorial of a beloved mother. A link between her little girlhood and her present life. He could hardly remember his own mother. For a moment he thought perhaps he should send it back to her at once, and then he remembered her eyes as she had said gravely, “I want you to have it.”
No, he would not return it. He wanted to read it first. But he would take it back to her on his return, or, if anything happened to him, they would send the little book to her. He would see to that. He would keep it in an addressed envelope in his pocket while he flew, so that if he was wrecked the book might stand a chance of finding her again. And that this might not fail, he went at once before he had looked further into its pages and addressed one of the hotel envelopes to Miss Amory Lorrimer at Briarcliffe. When he had stamped it with more than enough postage to mail the book, he went back to his reading.
He discovered that there were marked verses, and sometimes marked chapters. One said in fine little printing, “I learned this chapter on my tenth birthday.”
Another was marked, “The verse my mother loved,” and still another, “A verse I love to think about.”
Bit by bit he gathered up a picture of her life, this sweet child whom he had come upon so unexpectedly and seen but for a few minutes, and when he read the verses she had marked, he seemed to be looking into her soul and seeing things in the book as she had seen them. It seemed to open an amazing new world to him. He had not dreamed there was a girl in the world who lived in the thought of God in this intimate way.
Skipping through the book from one marked verse to another, he came on s
ome amazing facts about God as revealed in Christ, and when at last he lay down to rest, he carried the little book with him and slept with it in his hand. He had a strange feeling that his experience in the clouds that morning had changed the whole of life for him, yet he had as yet no definite idea of what it might be going to mean.
The service in the dim old historic church the next morning seemed strange to him. The empty pews, the distant music as the organist played softly in preparation for the day, the few solemn-faced strangers who assisted the minister, the stately words that were pronounced, some of which he recognized from the night before out of Amory’s little book, the drops of water on his brow, his name “Gareth” and “Child of God, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!”
Saved! Was he saved? Had this ceremony somehow mysteriously put upon him the mark of God?
He went out into the street in a kind of awe, trying to realize that some mysterious change had taken place. He was God’s now. His seal had been put upon him. He did not in the least understand what nor why, but he was willing to believe it was as the minister had said and as he had read in the book in several places. He believed because he had met God out there in the air and had made a covenant with Him—he called it a bargain—and He had accepted that covenant and brought him safely to New York. That part was simple enough. The rest was spiritual, and he could not understand it. He did not know why anyone thought he understood it. But he was glad the matter was settled so far as he could settle it.
He went straight to the office where he had met the four men yesterday who were his sponsors. There was yet an hour to high noon when he was supposed to set sail. He was keeping his appointment while church chimes were ringing on the Avenue and the world was just beginning to waken.
But the barometric conditions were not favorable for starting yet. He must wait. Perhaps at midnight. He went back to his hotel impatiently. Now that he had done his best to fulfill his promise, he was anxious to be off. He wanted to get back and talk with Amory. But since he must wait, it was necessary that he sleep and store up strength for his flight. So to sleep he went and did not waken till almost sundown. After a light supper he went out for a walk. The weather seemed to have changed for the better. His thoughts leaped up with relief. Probably he could get off by midnight after all. How he longed to get this trip over with. He had never been so impatient before over anything he had ever tried to do. And yet, somehow, it was as if an unseen hand was detaining him, holding him back from starting, even if the barometer had been right. It was as if there was still something left undone, some condition not yet complied with.
He did not notice where he was going, turning a corner here or there, wherever the traffic was least congested. There were bells ringing again, Sabbath bells, evening bells, calling across a work-worn, sin-harried city, a call of prayer. Something wistful in his soul was listening to them, answering, longing to find the satisfaction and sense of safety of which he had never before felt the need in his self-satisfied young life.
Suddenly he halted before a great sign in front of an old gray church. The sign stood out level with the sidewalk and announced in mammoth letters that there was a Bible conference inside that church. But it was not in the Bible conference that Gareth was interested. It was in the two lines that stood out in still larger letters below the heading: “What shall I do to be saved?” and below it: “Ye must be born again!”
It startled him to have his own question staring at him in great red and black letters. And that strange answer, “Ye must be born again!” What did it mean? How could a man be born again? But perhaps it was not an answer. Why shouldn’t he go in and see?
The door of the church stood open. It was early and there was no one inside but the janitor. Gareth approached him and asked about the service and what the sign meant. Was that the speaker’s subject?
The janitor assured him that it was and that the speaker was most unusual.
“It’s early,” he said reassuringly, “but you was wise to come early. This morning every seat was full, and some sat on the pulpit steps. It’s liable to be worse tonight. Everybody’s crazy about this preacher.”
Gareth sought out a seat under the balcony and sank into it with relief. There was something restful about the very atmosphere in here away from the din of the street. The lights, except one by the door, were not yet turned on, and he sat looking about in the dusk at the rows of pews and the great stained glass windows, which gave forth faint colors from the twilight outside.
Gradually, people stole in and sat down, bowing their heads in prayer. Gareth sat with a new kind of awe stealing over him and a sense that there were other people seeking God as well as himself.
Presently the lights sprang up and the church began to fill. The organ played softly, and brisk men walked into the pulpit, several of them, all with strong faces, who looked as if they knew how to deal with real life. The singing, pushing along like a strong tide, surprised him with its earnestness and thrilled him with its sweetness. There was a tender, heartfelt appeal in it.
The man who finally stood up to speak, with a much-worn open Bible in his hand, had a face that arrested Gareth’s attention at once. It was alert and true, with a settled peace about it, and he spoke like one with authority, in a cultured, scholarly voice, yet quiet and most arresting. Gareth was not fond of listening to addresses, yet this man held his attention from start to finish, and it seemed when he was done as if he had been speaking only about five minutes.
Gareth learned for the first time that because of Adam’s sin, all men were born spiritually dead and could not understand spiritual things until they were born again. He learned that salvation was not to be bought, nor won by anything that a man could do, that it was a free gift of grace. He was much astonished by this. He learned that the only thing a man had to do was to accept that gift by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and His atoning death on the cross to cover his own sin and that the moment he believed, he was born again and became a child of God.
The speaker substantiated every statement he made by reading from the Bible. The simple explanation, the beauty and easiness of the plan of salvation, was startlingly within the reach of the most ignorant. Several times the preacher quoted the verse, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life!” If that was true, he could leave this church knowing that he was a child of God, and his salvation was secure. Was this what Amory had meant?
The prayer that followed the sermon seemed to set his own immediate case before the eyes of the Most High God, and he found himself with bowed head as it were, standing before the God who had met him in the air, listening to the plea of Jesus the Savior, who had given His own life that this salvation might be his.
When the service was over, Gareth stood for an instant looking at the strong face of the preacher, wishing he might ask him a few questions, but there was already an eager crowd around him, so he went out into the street and made his way to his hotel.
It was growing late. If conditions were as he felt they were likely to be, there would be nothing in the way of his starting soon. There was a strange peace upon him. The restlessness of the morning was gone. A new exhilaration had taken its place. There were still things he did not understand, things he was taking for granted, but something strange and wonderful had been done for him, and he walked the city streets like one who had just been introduced to God.
When he reached his hotel room he walked over to the telephone and stood for some minutes looking at it. Then he called up long distance and got his aunt’s home in Briarcliffe.
When the butler tapped upon Amory’s door and told her someone wished to speak to her on the telephone, she arose with such haste that she dropped the book she was reading and almost tripped over the rug as she reached the door. What was wrong at home? Was Aunt Hannah worse? Surely nothing short of something tragic would make Aunt Jocelyn waste the price of a long-distance telephone call? Money was too precious just n
ow.
It seemed a mile down the stairs and down the long hall to the telephone, and she felt weak as she slid into the seat, with the receiver in her hands.
“Hello! Is that you, Miss Lorrimer?” came a strong voice with a lilt in it.
Now who could that be? It wasn’t any of the boys at home, nor was it the next-door neighbor, who was the only near neighbor that had a telephone and whom Aunt Jocelyn would be likely to resort to in time of stress.
“Hello!” she said, in such a weakly little voice that the question came again.
“Is that you, Miss Lorrimer? Amory?”
And then she knew, and a thrill came to her heart. It was Gareth! Gareth, for whom she had prayed all day long. He was alive then! He had not flown as the family had said he was to do!
“Oh, yes,” she said, but still her voice was husky with feeling. “Yes, this is Amory.”
“Speak a little louder. I can’t hear you.”
“Yes, this is Miss Lorrimer. This is Amory!” She found her lips were trembling and her voice was laughing out in triumph. “Shall I—shall I call someone else?”
“Not on your life, little girl!” came back the hearty answer. “It’s you I want to talk to. This is Gareth.”
“Oh-h!” rippled Amory happily, “Yes—Gareth!”
“That’s the talk, little girl. Well, I’m hopping off, and I had a sneaking notion you wouldn’t mind if I said good-bye once more!”
“Oh!” said the girl, with suddenly frightened eyes. “Oh, then you’re really going?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In a couple of hours.”
“Oh!” There was a choking sound in the girl’s voice.
“You won’t forget what you promised?”
“Oh, no—I … have been … remembering!”
The words came hesitantly.