Beloved Stranger

  So Sherrill put out a friendly hand and greeted all the girls with her own warm smile, and they loved her at once. The strangest part about it was that somehow she couldn’t help liking them. They were all so friendly and eager, what was the use of trying to act exclusive?

  There was one thing she couldn’t understand. She heard one of those girls just behind her speaking to Lutie. The words came out between the clamor of the people who were gathering. “She’s lovely, isn’t she? Is she saved, Lutie?” And Lutie murmured something very low that Sherrill couldn’t catch. Somehow she knew they were talking about her. And then the other girl said, “Well, we’ll be praying for her tonight,” and slipped away up front with a group of others, and whispered to them. They nodded, gave quick glances back, and a moment later Sherrill could see them off at one side bunched together with their heads bowed. A quick intuition told her they were praying for her, and the color mounted into her cheeks. Her chin went up a trifle haughtily. Why should she, Sherrill Cameron, need to be prayed for? And why should they presume to do it unasked?

  But the room was filling up rapidly now. Lutie led her to a seat halfway up and gave her a hymn book. The little group of praying ones had scattered, one to play the old piano, two others to distribute hymn books and Bibles, and suddenly the room burst into song, but she noticed that two or three of them still kept their heads bent, their eyes closed as if they were yet praying.

  Sherrill looked around her in amazement. Here was a crowd of people, almost all young people, and they were singing joyously as if it made them glad to do so. They were singing with that same lilt that Lutie had had while she was working, and their faces all looked glad, although some of them obviously must be very poor, if one might judge from their garments and the weary look on their young faces, while others again were well dressed and prosperous looking.

  Presently they began to sing Lutie’s song:

  “If I have sorrow in my heart,

  What can take it away?”

  And Sherrill, without realizing she was doing so, began to sing it herself, and felt a little of the thrill that seemed to be in the air.

  She fell to thinking of her own interrupted life and wondering why it all had to be. Why couldn’t Carter have been all right, the perfect man she had thought him? Why did it all have to turn out that way, in that sudden mortifying manner? If it only could have happened quietly! Not in the face of her whole invited world as it were.

  But suddenly she felt the audience bowing in prayer, and was amazed to hear different voices taking up petitions, so many young people willing to pray in public! And so simply, so free from all self-consciousness apparently. It was extraordinary. Even little Lutie beside her prayed a simple sentence.

  “Please, dear Father, don’t let anything in us hinder Thy light from shining through us, so that others may see and find Thee.”

  Dear little soul! How had Lutie learned all this sweet simplicity? Just a little serving maid, yet she seemed to have something really worthwhile. What was this mysterious power? Just an idea? A conviction?

  One of the prayers impressed her deeply. It came from a girl’s voice up toward the front, perhaps one of those who had been introduced to her. It was “Dear Father, if any have come in here tonight not knowing Thee as Savior, may they find Thee and not go out unsaved.” Sherrill had a strange feeling that the prayer was for her, although she couldn’t exactly understand why she needed saving.

  Then the prayers changed into song again, a rousing one:

  “I’ve found a friend who is all to me,

  His love is ever true;”

  Ah! That was what she wanted, Sherrill thought, a friend whose love was ever true. It was almost uncanny, as if someone here knew just what she needed.

  “I love to tell how He lifted me,

  And what His grace can do for you,”

  sang the audience, and then burst into that tremendous chorus that thrilled her, though she only half understood its meaning:

  “Saved by His power divine,

  Saved to new life sublime!

  Life now is sweet and my joy is complete

  For I’m saved, saved, saved.”

  Sherrill ran her eye through the rest of the verses and lingered on those lines—

  “I’m leaning strong on His mighty arm; I know He’ll guide me all the way”—

  and experienced a sudden longing. If there were only someone who could guide her! Someone who could take away this utterly humiliated, lost feeling, and make her sure and strong and happy again; the way she used to be before all this happened to her!

  Then another hymn was called for, and the eager young voices took on a more tender note as they sang just as earnestly, only with deeper meaning to the words than any of the other songs had carried. Sherrill followed the words, and to her amazement found a great longing in her soul that she might be able to sing these words and mean them, every one.

  “Fade, fade, each earthly joy.”

  That was what had been happening to her. The life that she had planned and that seemed all rosy before her had suddenly in a moment faded out.

  “Jesus is mine!”

  How she wished she might truly say that!

  “Break every tender tie,”—

  Ah! Her case exactly. “Jesus is mine!” rang the triumphant words. She glanced about at the eager young faces, so grave and certain. How could they be certain that Jesus was theirs? What did it mean anyway to have Jesus? Was it just a phrase? A state of mind? She studied several of them intently.

  “Dark is the wilderness,

  Earth has no resting-place,

  Jesus alone can bless,

  Jesus is mine!”

  The tears suddenly welled into her eyes, and she blinked them back angrily. She certainly did not want these stranger girls to think she was soft and sentimental.

  The leader arose after the hymn was ended and prayed, just a few words, but it seemed to bring them all to the threshold of another world, an open heaven. Sherrill had never had such a feeling in a meeting before, not even in the solemn beautiful church where Aunt Patricia worshipped. And this was all so simple, and without any emotion except gladness!

  There was a little stir all over the room. Everybody was opening Bibles. Lutie found the place and gave Sherrill one, and they all began to read together.

  At first Sherrill did not pay much attention to what she was reading because she was so busy watching the others and feeling astonished. But gradually the words began to make themselves felt in her mind. She looked up at the speaker, startled, to see if he were looking at her. She almost thought he must have known of her trouble and selected the passage because he knew she was to be here.

  “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you—”

  It was strange, though, thought Sherrill; how could she pretend it wasn’t?

  “But rejoice,” the voices went on in unison, “inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

  Christ’s sufferings! How could her trouble have anything to do with what Christ had suffered on earth? He had never had anyone go back on Him as she had; He had never been made a public laughingstock by anyone who was supposed to be His special friend—or wait, perhaps she was wrong! Had not His own disciple been the one who turned against Him, betrayed Him, laid the plot that led to His being nailed to the cross before the mocking multitudes?

  These thoughts flashed through Sherrill’s mind as she looked up from her Bible to give a grudging attention to the speaker.

  “Let us see,” he was saying, “to whom these words are addressed. Peter was writing a letter to Christians who had fled from their homes because of persecution. At the beginning of the letter he says that they, and himself with them, are ‘begotten again’ unto a living hope—” Sherrill winced; her hopes were all dead.

  “These words describ
e those to whom the letter is written. No one else has a right to the promises in the letter except those who are ‘begotten again’—born again. We must understand that clearly before we go on with the letter. If you want the joy that Christ can give even in the midst of suffering, remember that it is for you only if you are a child of God, born into His family by believing that Jesus Christ the Son of God was nailed to the cross because of your sins. He rose from the dead, and He can give you life, but your new birth comes from more than just believing this about Him! Believing about Christ never saved anyone. It must be believing in Him. Believe that He took your condemnation upon Himself, and accept Him as your own personal Savior.”

  Sherrill’s eyes were fixed on the teacher’s face now, utterly absorbed. She had never heard anyone talk like this before. It was quite possible she had sat in church often under sermons that included such doctrines, but they had never been able to reach her heart before, perhaps because her mind was too full of her own plans and thoughts. In fact, it was probably the first time in her life that she had even read a portion of scripture with her mind on it. Her mind had always been politely aloof when she entered God’s house, or found it necessary to take up a Bible.

  A living hope. How she wished she might get one. This teacher was talking just as Lutie had talked, only more convincingly. And these people in the room looked at their teacher eagerly, earnestly, as if they understood from experience what he meant. She looked about on them wistfully. Could she get what they had? The teacher had said it came by believing in Christ, but how could one believe in someone who died so many years ago? How could one believe unless one knew and was convinced?

  As if the man had read her thoughts and were answering them, he went on.

  “Belief is not an intellectual conviction. Belief is an act of the will, whereby you throw yourself on the promise of God and let Him prove Himself true. If someone asked you to take a ride in a new kind of airplane, you might not be able to go over every bit of its machinery and be sure that it was in perfect order; you might not understand the principle by which it worked, nor be sure it could carry you safely; you might not even know the man who made it, nor have the wisdom to judge the principle under which it operated, but you could get into the plane and take a ride and let it prove to you what it claimed to be able to do. If you were in need of getting somewhere in a desperate hurry, you might not even stop to think very carefully about it. You would say: ‘This plane has taken others. I believe it will take me. At least I am going to trust myself to it.’ And so you would get into the plane and fly away. Afterward when you have safely reached your destination, then you are convinced that the plane can fly, for it has safely carried you. You have experience, but faith comes first. Now turn to Hebrews the twelfth chapter.”

  The room was filled with the rustling of Bible leaves as heads were bent and the place was found. Sherrill blundered around among the books of the Bible like a person in a strange city trying to find a street. She was beginning back somewhere near Genesis, and her cheeks were a bit red with confusion. All these young people were turning straight to the right page with confidence. She tried to see over Lutie’s shoulder without seeming to do so, to get the number of the page. Surely Bibles had pages, didn’t they? Why didn’t he tell the page? Again that feeling of resentment at being caught in a humiliating position welled up in her. Why did she let herself come here to be made a fool of? All she could remember was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that in connection with some old nursery rhyme.

  But Lutie came to her rescue now and made short work of finding the place—Lutie the little maid who did the cleaning and ironing! Wise in the scriptures!

  Then every voice in the room began to read, and Sherrill read, too, startled at how the words seemed meant just for her.

  “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”

  The teacher stopped them for a moment.

  “The literal meaning of the word ‘to chasten’ here is ‘to train a child.’ Although you may be born again, a son of God, you are not to forget your subjection to the will of the Father. I wonder how many of you have been wondering why you have had to pass through some peculiar trial or testing? Have you found out yet that God was giving you that hard thing just to teach you to know Him better? Sometimes we are so taken up with the world, or with our own plans and selves, that we haven’t given a thought to God, and He just had to take away the thing in which we were interested to make us give our attention to Him, that we might know His will and get the full blessing He has prepared for us.

  “I have sometimes seen a mother take away a toy from a little child in order to make him listen to her teaching, and God often has to do that for His dearest sons. Go back to First Corinthians 11:31: “‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.’ The sons of God—that is, believers—cannot be condemned with the world, and if they do not judge their careless and unworthy ways, then the Lord must deal with them and make them experience His chastening.”

  Sherrill wondered in passing if Aunt Pat had ever studied the Bible in this way. Did she know how the Bible fit people’s daily lives, and that a verse in one book explained a verse in another book?

  And then the teacher whirled them back to the Old Testament for an illustration, and Sherrill had to have Lutie’s help once more in finding the place. By this time she had determined that before another week—if she decided to come to that class again—she would learn the books of the Bible.

  The teacher was making plain now how God yearned for the love and fellowship of His children. He showed how disappointed God must be in them because they are so filled with themselves, so forgetful of the fact that they are on this earth only temporarily, getting ready for an eternal life.

  It was a new view of God. Sherrill had never thought of herself as having any relationship to God at all, and now it seemed one had to be either a son or a deliberate rejector of the wonderful love and grace of God toward sinners. Sinners! As the teacher went on, bringing more and more verses to their attention, Sherrill had a view of the Lord Jesus and began to get the realization that everybody was a sinner. She was appalled to think of herself under such a classification.

  When the meeting finally closed with another wonderful prayer, Sherrill was in a maze of bewilderment. She wanted to get away alone and think. There were so many questions that had come to her mind that, as she watched the young people gather around the teacher, eagerly asking questions, she wished she had the courage to join them.

  Lutie had excused herself to take a message to a girl across the room, and Sherrill, left alone for the moment, turned to the book table at the back of the room. What an array of little paper-covered books with startling titles! They were all on topics she was in the dark about.

  A sign above them said they were only fifteen cents apiece. Sherrill picked out half a dozen and got out her purse, paying the pleasant-faced boy who had charge of the table.

  “Got a Scofield study Bible?” asked the youth, waving his hand toward a collection of Bibles in various bindings.

  “Why, no, what is a Scofield Bible?” asked Sherrill shyly, and realized at once as the youth stared at her that she had shown great ignorance.

  “Oh, it’s the regular text, of course,” he explained politely, “only it has a lot of helpful notes that make it pretty plain about the dispensations and symbolism and covenants and things. It helps a lot to have them right there on the page with the text, that’s all.”

  “How much are they?” asked Sherrill, reaching for a small limp-covered one in real leather.

  “Well, that’s about the most expensive one we have,” said the boy, looking at her with a new respect. ?
??We have cheaper ones.”

  “But I like this one,” said Sherrill and paid for it feeling as if she had bought a gold mine. Now perhaps she had something that would answer some of her questions!

  When Lutie came back, apologetic for being so long, Sherrill had a package all done up ready to take home.

  “They are wonderful books!” said Lutie, casting wistful eyes at the book table. “I’ve got two or three for my own. We girls get different ones and lend them around among ourselves.”

  When Sherrill got home, she went straight to her aunt’s room.

  Aunt Pat had gone to bed but was lying bolstered up with pillows reading, and Sherrill noticed that her little Bible lay on the bed beside her.

  “I’ve been buying some books,” said Sherrill, half shamefaced. “See what you think of them.”

  She undid her package and displayed them.

  Miss Catherwood took up the Scofield Bible first and examined it curiously.

  “I’ve heard about this,” she said thoughtfully. “I’d like to look it over sometime. Maybe I’ll get one, too. They say it’s very enlightening.”

  Then she went over the other books one by one.

  “Yes, I know this one. It’s by a president of a theological college, a wonderful man, they say. I came across a notice of this book in a magazine. And this I know and love. I used to have a copy, but someone borrowed it and never brought it back. But these others I never heard of. You’ll have to read some of them aloud to me. I’d like to know what they are. The titles look wonderfully interesting. Well, how did you like the meeting? Was it a meeting?”

  “Why, no,” said Sherrill thoughtfully. “It wasn’t exactly a meeting, nor exactly like a school. I don’t just know what to call it, but it was wonderfully interesting.”