THE LAST CHRISTIAN 
 
 |IV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 SHE WAS VERY PALE A TALL FIGURE IN 
 A WHITE GOWN RATHER OLD-FASHIONED
 
 THE LAST CHRISTIAN 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE KIBBE TURNER 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR 
 
 HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO. 
 NEW YORK 1914 
 
 2133187
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY Co., INC. 
 
 Copyright, 1914. by 
 THE MCCLURK PUBLICATIONS, INC. 
 
 All rights reserved, including the translation into foreign 
 languages, including the Scandinavian 
 
 NN A BODED CO. PMM 
 
 RAHWAV, N. J.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS .... 9 
 
 II THE WHITE CHURCH .... 22 
 
 III THE SECRET BOOK 41 
 
 IV THE COMING OF MORTAL ERROR . 66 
 V THE VAGRANT FEAR .... 80 
 
 VI THE GOD OF MY FATHERS . . .in 
 
 VII MY OWN PEOPLE 128 
 
 VIII THE ROAD INTO THE DARK . . .145 
 
 IX THE VALE OF PEACE . . . .161 
 
 X THE VAMPIRE 194 
 
 XI THIS Is NONE OTHER BUT THE 
 
 HOUSE OF GOD 210 
 
 XII THE DEAD PROPHETS .... 229 
 
 XIII WHAT Is UPON Us? . . . . 252 
 
 XIV THE DARKENED SHRINE . . .271
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL CRISIS 
 
 THE time of the Great Crisis for the Earth in 
 1886 was, as it happened, a matter of great 
 concern and importance to me personally. 
 From the beginning of the year I had heard them 
 talking continually of Hell. But I find that my 
 mind goes back naturally to the summer Sunday 
 afternoon when the four bearded men sat together 
 in my grandfather's sitting-room, canvassing the 
 whole great matter thoroughly. 
 
 I stood, from the beginning of it, at Mr. Gris- 
 wold's knee, where he had called me perfectly 
 silent. The great, bony knuckle of his knee-joint 
 lay hard at my back, and onje or twice, in moving, 
 I touched unintentionally the long gray beard, 
 which hung almost to his waist. 
 
 I felt his lean leg stiffening behind me as the 
 president of the Christian College talked on. A 
 question burst from him at last. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, " is this book the Word of 
 God or of Professor Smyth? " 
 
 " Yes," said the long brown missionary, leaning 
 forward eagerly, " tell us that." 
 9
 
 io The Last Christian 
 
 He stretched out gauntly from his chair all 
 brown : a lean brown face, a small round head, a 
 round brown beard, and an Adam's apple, which 
 appeared and disappeared in the scanty margin of 
 his whiskers as he talked, and little eyes that 
 gleamed brilliantly. 
 
 " In the light of modern discovery," said the 
 president of the Christian College, " can it be a 
 question whether we shall have intelligent inter- 
 pretation of the Scriptures? If so " 
 
 " No, not at all. This is not interpretation," 
 said Mr. Griswold loudly. 
 
 " Certainly not," said Mr. Means, the mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 "Interpretation, no!" said Mr. Griswold; 
 "whittling, and whittling! Picking and choosing 
 what you want, and throwing all the rest away. 
 What's left is not the religion of Jesus Christ; it 
 is the religion of Egbert Smyth." 
 
 " You are right," said the missionary. 
 
 " I tell you," said Mr. Griswold, shaking with 
 nervous tension, " and you mark my words. When 
 we give up the Word of God as it is written, when 
 the Smyths and Perkinses make over our religion 
 for us, the day of the last Christian has come I " 
 
 Mr. Griswold had been an awesome figure to 
 me always, but he was appalling when he became 
 aroused. It was not his huge, bony frame alone, 
 nor his loose, erratic movements, nor his long gray
 
 The Universal Crisis n 
 
 beard. More than these, it was the deep-set eyes, 
 which gleamed out between his hollow temples, 
 intense and brilliant like a fever in a skull. And 
 he was continually catching fire from his religious 
 feeling. 
 
 " Thank God," his vibrant voice continued, 
 " that day will never come ! " 
 
 A shiver of relief passed over me as he said it. 
 Even the suggestion worried me. 
 
 I had been forgotten long before. I knew it, 
 and I would have gone out gladly. And yet I did 
 not move, for fear I might in some way disturb 
 my elders. 
 
 " I should hope not, I am sure," said President 
 Mercer of the Christian College, and smiled 
 slightly, but very politely, as he said it. He was 
 a spare, dark man, with thin side whiskers, which 
 fell on either side of his face with the peculiar 
 lifeless droop of an old-fashioned black string tie; 
 a yellow man, who was always taking white home- 
 opathic pills from a little vial. Of all the the- 
 ologians who called on us from the world abroad, 
 he represented the most advanced culture. 
 
 " I think we need have no fear of that," he said. 
 
 " No ; God will see to that ! " said Mr. Means, 
 the missionary. 
 
 " But, Mr. Griswold," asked President Mercer, 
 " do you yourself believe to-day in a literal Hell 
 of fire?"
 
 12 The Last Christian 
 
 " Who does not," asked Mr. Means quickly, 
 " who believes in the inspired Word of God? " 
 
 My grandfather watched him silently from his 
 arm-chair, turning his sharp black eyes from one 
 face to another, biting at a wisp of his silver- 
 tipped black beard saying nothing. He never 
 spoke at times like this, when he entertained the 
 learned preachers from the White Church on 
 Sunday. 
 
 " And you believe that all who have not ac- 
 cepted Christ all, every one are eternally con- 
 demned to it?" 
 
 " How could I believe otherwise and have seen 
 what I have seen ? " asked the missionary. " What 
 folly, what folly! " he went on bitterly. " Here 
 are millions of our fellow men waiting on the edge 
 of an eternal torment; and they propose that 
 we say to them : * We do not know. We are not 
 sure. But no doubt, no doubt, you will have a 
 period of probation in another world.' Nonsense, 
 and worse than nonsense! Do you know what 
 that would mean? " 
 
 President Mercer shook his head. 
 
 "It would mean the death of Christian mis- 
 sions. Yes. The disappearance of the Christian 
 religion from the earth." 
 
 " It is an immense question," remarked Presi- 
 dent Mercer, " this discussion that is convulsing 
 now the world of thought."
 
 L The Universal Crisis 13 
 
 "What is your belief?" asked Mr. Griswold 
 suddenly of President Mercer. 
 
 " I confess I am not clear," answered the presi- 
 dent of the college. "Are you?" He always 
 asked a question back. 
 
 " I am," replied Mr. Griswold. " I stand upon 
 the Word of God." 
 
 " Absolutely," said the missionary. 
 
 " There is no doubt of what it means," said 
 Mr. Griswold. " It says it clearly." 
 
 " One trial and no more," called Mr. Means. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Griswold. 
 
 "And failing that?" asked President Mercer. 
 
 " God's immutable penalty the everlasting 
 pangs of Hell," said the brown missionary, and 
 his eyes gleamed. 
 
 " It is an immense question," said President 
 Mercer, " an immense question ! " 
 
 And, there being a pause in a long argument, 
 I glanced at my grandfather, and caught his eye 
 and got consent. And I moved awkwardly and 
 self-consciously out of the sitting-room. My going 
 was not noticed, except by President Mercer, who 
 smiled sadly but politely at me. A few hasty steps, 
 a feeling of relief at the nape of my neck from 
 the glance of eyes that were not looking at me 
 at all, and I was out in the dining-room and the 
 door was closed behind me. 
 
 And there, beside the door in the dining-room,
 
 14 The Last Christian 
 
 stood my grandmother, where she had been listen- 
 ing white and trembling. 
 
 " I am very glad you came out, Calvin," she 
 said quickly. " Let us go into the bedroom and 
 read." . 
 
 She took my fingers into her cold hand and 
 started toward her bed-chamber, which led out 
 of the dining-room. But first I stopped to get 
 my book from the secretary. All the books in 
 our house were in the secretary the upper part 
 of our writing-desk. There were five large tan 
 volumes of the Encyclopedia and two of Natural 
 History, full of illustrations of animals. I was 
 forbidden to read these on Sunday. All of the 
 rest of the books, prose or poetry, were Biblical, 
 or founded on Bible fact. I must choose one from 
 these for Sunday reading. I chose, as I usually 
 did, the story of Bunyan's Christian; and went 
 into the bedroom, where my grandmother was al- 
 ready sitting, with her two books on her lap. 
 
 I knew perfectly well that my grandmother had 
 been listening to the conversation in the sitting- 
 room, and the reason why she had done so. And 
 yet, strangely enough, it made very little impres- 
 sion on me. 
 
 My grandmother was a little woman who was 
 always cold. Her lips were cold, the flesh on her 
 fingers was loose and cold, and she wore, even in 
 summer, a small gray worsted shawl close drawn
 
 The Universal Crisis 15 
 
 about her shoulders. She had not been well for 
 several years since the time when my father and 
 mother had been killed in " the Accident." And 
 she sat every day, nearly all the afternoon, read- 
 ing in her bedroom. 
 
 Over the bed was the big steel engraving of 
 " The Crucifixion," full of figures in pain. Above 
 her, at one side of the window by which she sat, 
 was a photograph of my father a long, dark 
 face, long nose, and black eyes which followed 
 me about the room. He had been my grand- 
 mother's only child. 
 
 Since the beginning of that year, when they 
 talked so much of Hell, my grandmother, I knew, 
 had followed that discussion continually. The 
 past few weeks she had been sitting, with her two 
 books, her flexible leather Bible and her brown 
 Concordance, searching out, day after day, the 
 texts quoted in the progress of the argument. The 
 .leaves of the Concordance were worn and dark- 
 ened at the places of exposition of the three words 
 for Hell. 
 
 She read more rapidly that afternoon than I 
 had ever seen her, fumbling nervously at the books 
 in her haste to find the texts that they had quoted 
 in the sitting-room. She was breathing hard, as I 
 had noticed her doing lately. Once, looking up, 
 I saw that she seemed to be having one of her 
 spells of shivering.
 
 1 6 The Last Christian 
 
 But the long Sunday afternoon wore on, and 
 finally I heard the deep tones of the men's voices 
 in the front hall and the jar of the front door, 
 and I knew that the Sunday visitors had gone on 
 to the house of Mr. Griswold, beyond the church. 
 And still my grandmother kept reading in her two 
 books with her eyes focussed now, I could see, 
 where they usually stopped at that worst of all 
 texts : 
 
 " Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is 
 not quenched." 
 
 I looked up. My grandfather was in the door- 
 way, his sharp black eyes upon my grandmother. 
 Still she kept at her reading. 
 
 " I thought you were getting the better of this/' 
 said my grandfather sharply. 
 
 My grandmother started quickly. " I do try 
 I do try, Mr. Morgan," she said nervously. She 
 always called him " Mr. Morgan." Her two 
 books slipped down to the floor. 
 
 " You have got to get control of yourself," said 
 my grandfather. 
 
 He stooped down for the books, and laid them 
 precisely as he did everything upon the table 
 by the bed. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Morgan, I know I have 
 I know I have," said my grandmother. " But 
 yet " 
 
 "We won't discuss it now," my grandfather
 
 The Universal Crisis 17 
 
 said, and looked at me. Yet he must have known 
 that I knew quite well already. 
 
 That night I awakened with a start. It was 
 very late. There was the sound of a strange voice 
 in the house, and I knew, with a jump of my heart, 
 that the doctor was there. I was up in rny bare 
 feet, at the head of the stairs, listening. For some 
 time they were in the bedroom. The back stair- 
 case stretched down, a black hole, below me. I 
 held my breath and listened. And finally I heard 
 my grandfather and the doctor coming oppo- 
 site the other side of the stairway door below 
 me. 
 
 " her mind," the doctor was saying. 
 
 " Worry," said my grandfather. " Our boy." 
 
 " I thought so," said the doctor. 
 
 " The fact of the matter is," my grandfather 
 explained abruptly, " our boy never joined the 
 church." 
 
 " I remember," said the doctor. 
 
 " And toward the last of it, I suppose he got to 
 be kind of a free-thinker." 
 
 "As good a fellow as ever lived!" said the 
 doctor. 
 
 " And then," went on my grandfather slowly, 
 " you know the Accident." 
 
 " Yes," the doctor said. " And now this ever- 
 lasting talk of Hell fire." 
 
 " Yes," said my grandfather.
 
 1 8 The Last Christian 
 
 " New England's Hell. Do you know what it 
 does, principally?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " I am no theologian," said my grandfather. 
 
 " It burns up the women. Ten generations of 
 New England women have been burned alive 
 by it! How many of them have I seen myself. 
 Older women. Take my own mother. I have 
 to " 
 
 They moved farther from the door. 
 
 " Serious " my grandfather was saying. 
 
 " kill her if " said the doctor. 
 
 They were in the sitting-room, out of earshot. 
 
 I was in bed again puzzled and well fright- 
 ened, but soon asleep. 
 
 In the morning my grandmother was up and 
 about at breakfast-time again. I looked at her 
 with fear and apprehension. Would she die? 
 How did people look before they died? As far 
 as I could see, she seemed little changed. Weaker, 
 perhaps, a little more short of breath that was 
 all. 
 
 But it was that next night that my grandmother 
 began coming into my room with her lamp. She 
 had always put me to bed when I was very small; 
 but now, never. It was my grandfather's belief 
 that I was old enough to go to bed alone when 
 I was six. 
 
 But, that night, the light of the lamp upon my 
 face waked me. I was a little frightened at first,
 
 The Universal Crisis 19 
 
 and I lay still and looked without moving. Then 
 I decided not to move at all. I did not know, in 
 fact, just what I should do. Several times she 
 looked at me, and once she bent as if to touch 
 me. But finally, with a sigh, she turned, and her 
 shadow turned slowly after her and followed the 
 yellow light of her lamp went out of the room. 
 And very soon I was asleep again. 
 
 The next night, and the night after, she did 
 this. But the fourth night she stopped and spoke 
 to me: 
 
 " Calvin," she whispered, " Calvin, are you 
 awake?" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," I said, sitting up quickly. 
 
 She sat down beside me on the edge of my bed, 
 leaving her lamp on the stand. 
 
 " Lie down, Calvin," she said; and, when I had 
 done so, she took my hand in her cold fingers. 
 
 " Do you ever lie here in your bed, Calvin," 
 she asked, " and think of God, and how good He 
 is to you?" 
 
 " Sometimes I do," I answered. And so I did; 
 I was reminded to do so continually. 
 
 " So kind, so kind," she said. And her hand 
 shivered in mine as she said it: " Did you never 
 want to do something for Him? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," I said, with the rush of emotion 
 with which I had always responded to such an 
 appeal.
 
 2O The Last Christian 
 
 " Did you ever think you would like to join 
 the Church?" 
 
 " Yes, I did one time," I said. I had. It was 
 at a time, two years before, when two other boys, 
 a little older than I, had done so. 
 
 "And now would you?" she asked; and her 
 hands shook still more in mine. 
 
 " Yes, I would. I know I would," I said, still 
 under the emotion that had wakened in me. 
 
 My grandmother leaned over suddenly, and I 
 felt her cold, wet lips upon my forehead. 
 
 " My boy, my little boy ! " she whispered. 
 
 Her emotion surprised me. She kissed me very 
 seldom. But then I saw that she was not looking 
 at me at all but past me. 
 
 " This is your father's room, Calvin," she said, 
 sitting up and looking across it. 
 
 I waited. 
 
 " I used to come in to see him here, as I do you 
 to-night, when he was no older than you are now." 
 
 She got up, apparently without noticing me any 
 longer. 
 
 " And now he has gone," she said absently, 
 taking up her lamp and starting for the door. 
 Then she turned and looked at me again. 
 
 "You will not forget?" she said. 
 
 " No, ma'am, I will not," I told her. 
 
 The shadow closed upon the room, and I was 
 alone again.
 
 The Universal Crisis 21 
 
 I lay awake for some time after she went out, 
 thinking. Then, as now, your bedroom is the 
 place where you yourself, stark alone, as you will 
 be in the hour you die, face the facts of the uni- 
 verse as they are to you without disguise or color 
 or companion. 
 
 I was twelve; and I lay and stared across the 
 dark into the universe as I knew it then.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE WHITE CHURCH 
 
 THE Universe in which I first found myself 
 was divided into two parts. The first of 
 these was the Earth. 
 
 There was a street of white houses, ranged be- 
 hind two parallel lines of large elm trees white 
 houses with pillars in front of them. I lived in 
 the largest house with the largest pillars my 
 grandfather's. Next to us was the House of God 
 a tremendous white building, with huge white 
 fluted pillars stretching upward to its roof. At the 
 top of them, the pigeons cooed and chuckled some- 
 where out of sight. From my bedroom window, at 
 night I could see the high black windows on its 
 side. 
 
 The Earth went outward to the ragged tops of 
 the mountains close behind the town and ended 
 in the sky. And there, above us, stretched the 
 second and vastly more important part of the Uni- 
 verse, which I knew just as certainly as the Earth. 
 
 Toward the center of it, at an angle of about 
 sixty degrees from the Earth, was God, a great, 
 gray-bearded Presence much larger than a man
 
 The White Church 23 
 
 seated upon a high white throne. Round him 
 were countless multitudes of saints and angels 
 and seraphim, with one pair of their six wings 
 across their eyes. The dead were there also 
 my father and mother. There was a City with 
 crystal walls, a Glassy Sea, and a River with a 
 Shining Shore. Everything was white and lumi- 
 nous with internal light. And there was always 
 certain rapture in the sense of intensity and white- 
 ness of this light. 
 
 This second part of the Universe Heaven 
 could not be seen; it was too distant. But I cannot 
 remember the time when I did not know it was 
 there. I learned it before I can remember; but 
 the sources of my knowledge I know perfectly 
 well. 
 
 From my grandmother I learned the fact and 
 location of this part of the Universe, and the 
 emotion with which all thought of it should be 
 accompanied. She spoke to me of it as soon as I 
 could understand articulate speech; explained the 
 presence of God there, and of my father and 
 mother; and taught me, at the beginning of my 
 own use of words, to address myself there kneel- 
 ing, bowing my head, raising my hands or my 
 eyes with every possible expression of profound 
 emotion. 
 
 My clear and detailed vision of Heaven I 
 learned from songs the women sang. I can not,
 
 24 The Last Christian 
 
 in fact, remember the time when I did not hear the 
 women singing of Heaven. 
 
 The street of white houses was a silent place, 
 usually. The sharp sound of chopping wood now 
 and then of pounding; but little human noise and 
 laughter, and that almost all of children. But no 
 day passed, and few hours, when I could not hear 
 some woman, in one of the houses, singing the joys 
 of Heaven simple, plaintive, monotonous songs, 
 with the refrain sung over and over again, until 
 they beat into my memory a sharp and vivid pic- 
 ture of the topography and inhabitants of the 
 great division of the Universe above me. 
 
 The most familiar of all of these songs of the 
 women was " There's a Land that is Fairer than 
 Day"; the most impressive, to me, "Where the 
 Waves of Eternity Roll." And the one that I 
 liked best, and that my grandmother often sang 
 to me: 
 
 Shall we gather at the river, 
 Where bright angel feet have trod 
 With its crystal side forever 
 Flowing from the Throne of God. 
 
 There were many of these songs describing the 
 details of Heaven. I knew many of them myself 
 before I could read. 
 
 Both from my grandmother's teachings and 
 from the words of these songs, I learned the rela- 
 tion of the two parts of the Universe to each
 
 The White Church 25 
 
 other. I learned that the dead, who had lived 
 upon the Earth, were now in Heaven; and that 
 we, now upon the Earth, must sometime follow 
 them there. The songs that the women sang were 
 full of joy and anticipation of the change; and 
 twice this change had come to persons upon the 
 street of white houses. I heard the women singing 
 their songs of joy and peace and promise in the 
 houses of the dead. 
 
 I may have had some knowledge at that earlier 
 time that there was a third dimension of the Uni- 
 verse the part below the horizon-line and under- 
 neath my feet. But, if I had, I never realized it. 
 It was spoken of covertly, if at all. And, for me, 
 Hell practically had no existence until I began 
 myself to attend the White Church. Indeed, I 
 had never obtained the clear vision of it that I 
 had of the remainder of the Universe of the 
 Earth or of Heaven. I knew it was a fact, but it 
 never greatly terrified me even in that year when 
 they were continually talking of it. 
 
 Before I was five years old I began to attend 
 the White Church and to be given systematic in- 
 struction concerning the Universe out of the Bible, 
 from which I had always known that all the 
 knowledge in the women's songs and my grand- 
 mother's teachings had been drawn. 
 
 The great White Church, long before I at- 
 tended it, was the most impressive and mysterious
 
 26 The Last Christian 
 
 object in my world. It was the gathering-place 
 and one great center of emotion for all people. 
 On Sundays it was continually filled with solemn 
 voices. On three nights a week there was light 
 in its high windows, and the sound of women 
 singing and the rhythm of voices the voices of 
 older men in prayer. And four nights a week I 
 saw, as I lay in bed, that the high windows were 
 black, and I knew that darkness brooded in the 
 great upper room, where the golden Gothic letters 
 over the pulpit arch announced the fact I knew so 
 well. 
 
 bis 10 Hone Otbcr but tbe Ifoousc of (Boo 
 
 In the basement of the White Church, which 
 was fitted up for the instruction of the children 
 from the Bible, I learned, from the time that I 
 was five, the history and philosophy of the making 
 of the Earth and of Man, and Man's progress 
 upon the Earth as God revealed it to the ancient 
 Hebrews. And I learned with deep and purifying 
 emotion the Christians' history of the saving of 
 mankind by God's Son. 
 
 In a way, I had a complete knowledge and phi- 
 losophy of the Universe. The information was 
 all there, of course; but it was not entirely made 
 clear to me. 
 
 And so it remained for me, like those about 
 me, to have my complete and final knowledge of 
 the Universe, in its full three parts, from the min-
 
 The White Church 27 
 
 ister of the White Church, Mr. Griswold. Sun- 
 day after Sunday, from the time I was six, I heard 
 that great, vibrant voice, expounding it from be- 
 hind the high black pulpit underneath the golden 
 motto of the House of God. 
 
 There were three parts of the Universe, he 
 proclaimed each with very definite relations to 
 the others. There was the Earth, populated with 
 teeming millions of men, unsaved. There was a 
 Heaven above, made possible to us only by the 
 awful Blood Atonement of the Son of God. And 
 there was Hell beneath us, in which all men who 
 were not Christians must go at death, for perpetual 
 torment. 
 
 This was the Universe that I lay in, and faced 
 and measured my relations to, that summer night, 
 when I was twelve. It was still early summer 
 the time before the insects start their singing 
 through the night. A light breeze sucked the mus- 
 lin curtains to the window and jogged the window- 
 screen at intervals. Outside there in the dark 
 Silence, the White Church, the Earth; the deep 
 sky, and God, the Great Judge, always watching ! 
 
 Never since have I lived in a universe so real, 
 so definite, so full of high emotions. Compared 
 to it, the one that most of us live in to-day is the 
 shadow of a shadow. But, of all of it, that one 
 part, Hell, which was not in the Universe that I 
 knew first, lacked in spite of all the disturbing
 
 28 The Last Christian 
 
 talk and emotion of that year the sense of reality 
 that the others had. It was not fear which drove 
 me, that summer night, to my decision to become 
 a member of the White Church. It was the emo- 
 tion of worship and reverence and gratitude, which 
 was taught me before the time I knew articulate 
 speech; and which still, for all of us, makes the 
 Heaven above us the involuntary goal of all our 
 deep emotions. 
 
 I had only one cause for hesitancy embarrass- 
 ment, the fear of standing there before the con- 
 gregation of the White Church on Sunday; and 
 also, almost as great, my awe of Mr. Griswold, 
 the minister. 
 
 I saw him nearly every day. They lived just 
 beyond the White Church. I watched him tramp- 
 ing by in all weather going to services and to 
 funerals, with his Bible; carrying flowers from his 
 deep garden to the sick : alone, head down, talking 
 to himself; or, with his little daughter, head up, 
 striding down the street. He was a man of moods, 
 but always, in any mood, an awe-inspiring 
 figure to me. I dreaded greatly that first visit to 
 him. 
 
 But at last, one afternoon in the latter part of 
 June, I found myself driven by an extraordinary 
 effort of my will at the door of the White Par- 
 sonage. The door swung back, and the minister's 
 little daughter stood in the doorway.
 
 The White Church 29 
 
 " He's very busy," she said decidedly. 
 " Couldn't you come some other time? " 
 
 " I would rather see him now," I answered. I 
 could not face the idea of repeating, from the be- 
 ginning, that effort of dragging myself up the 
 gravel walk to the front door. 
 
 " Do you have to see him now?" she asked a 
 second time, standing squarely in the middle of 
 the doorway. Her eyes were blue-gray and as 
 fixed and determined in their place as a gray stone 
 wall. But now I had the incentive to break by 
 them. I had to. 
 
 " I've got to see him, Ceeste; honestly, I have," 
 I repeated. And then she let me in. 
 
 I had known her all my life. She was a very 
 decided girl, and rather quick-tempered. She was 
 the best runner, for a girl, in our school. But 
 now she was kept in the house a great deal. Since 
 her mother had been so sick, she had taken charge 
 of the house herself considerably, and of her 
 father. He was a very absent-minded and care- 
 less man. 
 
 " All right," said Celeste Griswold, with a sigh, 
 " but he is working on his sermon." 
 
 But now her manner changed. " Won't you 
 come out into the study?" she said politely; and 
 she left me there while she went upstairs. 
 
 I sat there in a big chair and waited motionless 
 in that dim, impressive place that place of
 
 30 The Last Christian 
 
 learning and study of the man of supernatural 
 wisdom. It was a room full of books all one 
 side was books. I never had seen so many of them 
 anywhere else. They were brown volumes, a good 
 share of them, with leather backs; and there was 
 a dry and dusty smell from them which filled the 
 room. Over them were pictures of old ruined 
 buildings. 
 
 It was very still; little sounds stood out clearly. 
 Once or twice I heard the coughing of Mr. Gris- 
 wold's wife upstairs. And I had a most uncom- 
 fortable knowledge of my own heart beating. But 
 at last there was the scrape of a chair on the floor 
 above me and the sound of the minister coming 
 down the stairs. My heart thumped to hear it. 
 Then Mr. Griswold stood in the white doorway, 
 focusing his kindly eyes upon me. 
 
 " Good afternoon, my boy," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold. " What is, it that you have come to see 
 me about? " 
 
 I stammered through the reason of my call upon 
 him. My message was difficult enough; but my 
 awe of the man and the place made me still more 
 inarticulate. And I was never more surprised 
 than when I raised my eyes and saw the effect 
 upon Mr. Griswold of what I had been saying. 
 
 "I am glad," he said very solemnly; but his 
 whole face had lighted up, and the tone of his 
 voice changed entirely.
 
 The White Church 31 
 
 " I am glad." He took both of my hands in 
 one of his, covering them. " Sit down," he said; 
 and, as we sat there, asked me a few simple ques- 
 tions about my faith. 
 
 I answered them as best I could but satisfac- 
 torily. He told me so. 
 
 Then suddenly the minister let go my hands, 
 stood up, and started walking in the room. He 
 stopped abruptly, and stood before me. 
 
 " You can not know, my boy but these last 
 few days have been a time of awful struggle for 
 me. To-day I have been especially instant in 
 prayer." 
 
 I did not speak. I had no idea how to answer 
 him nor what the struggles of such a man could 
 be. 
 
 And he went on, in a low voice, as if I were 
 not in the room at all : 
 
 "I have been discouraged; I own it. There 
 has been hesitation a feeling of heaviness I can- 
 not describe it in the Christian Church, here and 
 everywhere. And with young people especially. 
 But now now I see ! " 
 
 His eyes looked farther and farther away, and 
 a sharper fire kindled in them. 
 
 " O, ye of little faith ! " he said suddenly, and 
 struck his clenched fist on the arm of his chair. 
 
 " And so you see, Calvin," he said at last, his 
 eyes returning to me, " I am very glad glad and
 
 32 The Last Christian 
 
 humble for what you have told me for the thing 
 that I have seen to-day." 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said tentatively. 
 
 " I will tell you, my boy," he went on buoyantly, 
 " what we will do. My daughter is ready to join 
 the church. You two shall join it together. It 
 will be a day of joy for all of us." His eyes shone 
 with affection as he spoke of Celeste. .They al- 
 ways did. 
 
 He talked to me then as I had never been spoken 
 to before as an adult and an equal. It seemed 
 to me that the experience must be an incident of 
 the new state of life that I was assuming. But 
 he spoke particularly of the events that I would 
 see in my life and he would not. 
 
 " I have never known such years," he said, " as 
 these that we are passing now. New attacks every 
 day, strange faiths, strange gods yes, literally, 
 my boy those who proclaim themselves as gods. 
 I could tell you, Calvin -" he said, and stopped. 
 
 " My boy," he went on, and laid his hand upon 
 my knee, now, exactly as if I were an adult, " you 
 will see much greater changes, stranger faiths, bit- 
 terer assaults, than I have ever seen. I know it. 
 But you will also see a greater triumph. 
 
 " Remember that always ! The greater the 
 assaults, the greater at the end will the triumph 
 be." 
 
 It was a long time before he dismissed me
 
 The White Church 33 
 
 finally. The afternoon shadows of the elms had 
 shifted greatly on the sidewalks when I went out. 
 
 I was naturally under great emotion when I 
 left, and when I saw across the wide roadway 
 Miss Avery upon her piazza, lying among her 
 pillows, I could not keep myself from going over 
 to her. There were few people whom I would 
 have told my news to. But I felt that she should 
 know. 
 
 Miss Avery had taught me in the basement of 
 the White Church, since I had gone there a child 
 of five. She was a little woman, very neat, and 
 very highly educated. She was the greatest reader 
 in all the White Church. But what I remembered 
 best of her always were her eyes bright, restless 
 eyes like a bird's, in a dull white face; and hands 
 that were never quiet. 
 
 For several months now, Miss Avery had not 
 taught us. She was often ill recently she had 
 been very sick. And for several hours each day 
 she sat upon her porch, as she was sitting now. 
 The strange cousin, from Boston, who had come 
 to take care of her, was with her, reading aloud, 
 as usual her frizzled head, parted carefully 
 through the middle, bent down over the book 
 which they were always studying together. She 
 stopped when I approached, and fixed on me her 
 calm and mirthless smile. 
 
 I realized too late how far my enthusiasm had
 
 34 The Last Christian 
 
 driven me. It was extremely distasteful for me 
 to tell Miss Avery of my intention before this 
 stranger. But I had gone too far to avoid it now. 
 
 " That's very nice, Calvin," Miss Avery said, 
 when I had spoken. " Your grandmother will 
 be so pleased." And she increased, by a very 
 little, the smile that now lay always on her face. 
 But that was all. And after that there was silence. 
 She was lukewarm only too obviously. I could 
 not understand it, and my enthusiasm was suddenly 
 and most unexpectedly chilled. Finally I turned 
 and went away. 
 
 The two women turned their strange smile upon 
 me as I left a smile perpetually alike, I thought, 
 on both of their faces. And, before I was out 
 of the yard, I heard the dry, monotonous voice 
 of the cousin, Mrs. Thursby, reading from their 
 book. 
 
 I was, in fact, considerably surprised at the lack 
 of interest which this change, that caused such 
 a stress of emotion in myself, occasioned in others. 
 My grandfather, even, said very little of it to me. 
 And though several older people did speak of it 
 to me, they seemed more often to be talking in 
 a spirit of mere forced politeness than from real 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 I remember, in particular, meeting Mr. Tubbs, 
 the organist. He was a little, thick-set man with 
 a heavy mustache, a very friendly, talkative men,
 
 The White Church 35 
 
 who always wore an Odd Fellow's badge upon his 
 coat lapel. 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Tubbs, " so you are 
 going to join the Church, Calvin. Well, well ! " 
 
 That was all he said. But many of the other 
 expressions seemed to me almost as vacant. 
 
 One day, I remember, Mrs. Judd addressed me 
 in her quavering voice. 
 
 "The young must take our places; the young 
 must take our places. We shall soon be gone ! " 
 she said. And asked, as usual, most solicitously 
 for my grandmother's health. 
 
 She seemed old. They all seemed old. 
 
 But then, I remember clearly not exactly as 
 you remember realities, but as you recall a very 
 vivid dream the Sunday morning on which I was 
 admitted to the White Church. I was, in fact, in 
 a state of intense nervousness, which placed me in 
 a kind of daze. 
 
 The White Church was filled with the serious 
 congregation of my boyhood the staid, respect- 
 able citizens and heads of families at the opening 
 of their pews; at the other end their wives; and, 
 in the interval between them, their families, or, in 
 the case of older people, a vacant space where the 
 families had been. All very stiff and clean and 
 serious, with the sense of the Sabbath heavily upon 
 them. Across the aisle from us I saw Mr. Doty, 
 with his white vest and Prince Albert coat, and his
 
 36 The Last Christian 
 
 continual smile. Next to my grandfather, he was 
 the leading giver in the White Church now. 
 
 On the other side of our pew sat the daughter 
 of the minister, Celeste Griswold her russet hair 
 in sharp contrast with the immaculate white dress 
 she wore. And with her that morning was her 
 mother a tall, pale woman with reddish hair, who 
 held her hand continually at her throat to stop her 
 coughing during service. She rarely came to the 
 White Church now, because of this. That morn- 
 ing she was there only because of the first com- 
 munion of her daughter. 
 
 The text that day was from I Kings, Chapter 
 1 8, which recounts the bloody downfall and death 
 of the priests of Baal before Elijah. And the 
 subject of the sermon was " The Living God and 
 the Dead." 
 
 The minister was in a different mood that Sun- 
 day than he had been for many Sundays past 
 buoyant, triumphant, and strong. His great voice 
 rattled in the four corners of the room as 
 he rehearsed the tragic downfall of the dead 
 gods. 
 
 I wondered vaguely about the gods that were 
 dead. I was too nervous really to think. I was 
 deeply and genuinely moved by the ceremony 
 which lay before me. But my mind dwelt chiefly, 
 I must admit, upon the awful progress alone up 
 the aisle that was to follow on the ending of the
 
 The White Church 37 
 
 sermon. It came at last. The voice of the min- 
 ister aroused itself for the- closing. 
 
 " We fret," he cried. " We worry. We are 
 greatly troubled. 'How long? 'we cry. 'How 
 long? Is the coming of Thy kingdom to be de- 
 layed forever.' And God replies : ' What are your 
 times to me? A year is a day in mine eyes and a 
 thousand years a watch in the night. All will come 
 right in my good pleasure.' 
 
 " And then, if we will only watch, we too can 
 see the progress for ourselves. 
 
 " Where now are the dead gods of the heathen? 
 Where is Baal or Buddha? And where are now 
 Confucius and Mohammed? Gone forever gone 
 or fast fading from the earth. And never passing 
 faster than they are to-day. 
 
 " But we Christians, we know whereof we 
 speak ! We have assurances that can never be con- 
 founded. Eternal in the heavens sits the Chris- 
 tian's God. Of Him forever sounds the Psalm- 
 ist's triumph : ' From everlasting to everlasting, 
 Thou art God.' " 
 
 He was done. We sang a hymn, turning about 
 and facing toward the choir and the broad back 
 of Mr. Tubbs at his organ. And I realized, al- 
 most with a sense of paralysis, that the time had 
 come when I must go alone up the aisle to the place 
 before the pulpit. 
 
 I remember the ceremony most indistinctly
 
 38 The Last Christian 
 
 the short, confused answers that I made; the twist- 
 ing pattern of white lines in the red ingrain carpet, 
 that my eyes were cast upon; the sturdy figure of 
 the girl beside me, answering clearly and distinctly, 
 and looking steadily in the eyes of her father. 
 And, at the end, the sound of the voice of Mr. 
 Griswold praying for God's blessing on " these 
 Thy young servants." 
 
 It was over. I passed down the aisle again, 
 stumbling into the entrance of the pew. I took 
 with great reverence, but an overwhelming sense 
 of relaxation and relief, my first communion. 
 Then the congregation left the church, and I es- 
 caped, as quickly as I could, the handshakes and 
 the smiles of the older members. 
 
 That afternoon I read again beside my grand- 
 mother in her bed-chamber. Never had I passed 
 so willingly into the quiet and inactivity of a long 
 New England Sunday afternoon as after the strain 
 and emotion of that morning. 
 
 A horse stamped somewhere in a stable. A 
 warbling vireo trailed its intermittent little ara- 
 besque of song in the elm trees. Occasionally we 
 heard the hollow note of a crow in the distance. 
 Across the street, we could see Miss Avery and 
 Mrs. Thursby reading from their book. 
 
 My grandmother seemed more than usually 
 happy and well to me that afternoon. It was 
 probably the very fact that she had heightened
 
 The White Church 39 
 
 color which made me think so. I had no idea 
 that she would have that worst of all her attacks 
 that night. 
 
 I was awakened again late in the night by the 
 sound of men's voices. I saw again a light upon 
 the grass below the lower windows. And I knew 
 that the doctor had come once more. 
 
 I scarcely had got to the head of the stairs when 
 my grandfather came up to me. 
 
 " You must come down and see your grand- 
 mother," he told me. " She is very sick." 
 
 I could hear her breathing. I was afraid to 
 go into the room. 
 
 She lay there in the great bed, beneath the 
 dark steel engraving of the Crucifixion, with its 
 figures in pain. It seemed impossible for anything 
 human to be so small and thin and frail. Her 
 smooth hair was dishevelled about her forehead. 
 The wrinkles from across her face centered upon 
 her sunken mouth. Her withered neck moved 
 with difficulty in her breathing. She seemed to be 
 repeating something. 
 
 " Speak to her," said my grandfather. 
 
 I was greatly embarrassed; I did not know what 
 to say. I kissed her on her cold, wet lips. She 
 reached out her thin hand weakly to take mine, 
 and tried to smile. 
 
 My grandfather stood at the foot of the bed, 
 watching her.
 
 4o The Last Christian 
 
 Then, all at once, she pushed me feebly from 
 her. " Not that one," she whispered faaintly. 
 " Not that one." And at once she was off mutter- 
 ing again. 
 
 " She is counting," said the doctor. 
 
 That was it. 
 
 " Counting eternity again," he said. 
 
 " You may go now, Calvin," said my grand- 
 father. 
 
 He stood at the foot of the bed saying noth- 
 ing, doing nothing. His black eyes were fixed 
 upon the face upon the pillow. Under his black 
 beard, the muscles of his jaw worked continually. 
 
 I started out. 
 
 " We will try it now," said the doctor. " It 
 will do no harm." 
 
 I left the room. I looked, I thought, for the 
 last time upon my grandmother. If this was not 
 the end, it seemed certain that it could not be long 
 coming. 
 
 But I was wrong. That night she lived, and 
 after that she was kept living many months. 
 Something new was coming into the world. We 
 were still to learn of the power of the New Book 
 that the two women were reading.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SECRET BOOK 
 
 YOU who are New England born and bred 
 will remember, certainly, the two sharp di- 
 visions of the Earth that God gave Man 
 to live in. On the one side the province of the 
 adults, on the other the country of the young. 
 The boundary between these was by no means to 
 be crossed. But, beyond that invisible barrier, 
 we watched our elders move about their own es- 
 pecial affairs, like people in a play. We saw, but 
 were not shown; we heard, but were not told. 
 And it was so, necessarily, that I learned all that 
 I did learn of the progress and nature of this book. 
 
 For three months, or more, the two women sat, 
 every pleasant afternoon, on Miss Avery's porch, 
 alone Miss Avery smiling, and resting; Mrs. 
 Thursby, the cousin from Boston, reading aloud 
 from her book. I could hear the murmur of her 
 reading from our windows. 
 
 After that, I saw, Miss Avery waited upon the 
 porch; and Mrs. Thursby, in her close bonnet and 
 purple velvet dress, went visiting in other houses 
 carrying her book under her arm. And finally 
 I knew she was going in and out the house of the 
 41
 
 42 The Last Christian 
 
 woman with the weakened spine the black un- 
 painted house toward the end of the street, where 
 the houses trailed out into the open fields. 
 
 She went with her book in and out of that house, 
 that was so different from all our other houses. 
 It was damp and black, with rotted clapboards, 
 while all the rest were white and clean. The 
 family that lived there was very poor. But the 
 special mark upon it was the knowledge of that 
 bedroom in the second floor, in which had lain that 
 woman, bedridden now for twenty years. There 
 was never a sound from that room; never a face 
 at the window. In summer-time the windows were 
 partly open. And I glanced up quickly, as I passed 
 it, and saw, with a half shudder, a little patch of 
 the coarse ceiling at which I knew that woman, 
 motionless but alive, had been staring for longer 
 than I had lived. 
 
 But now, after Mrs. Thursby had been there, 
 this woman sat up. I saw her sitting there, 
 propped up by the window, like a great yellow 
 wax doll, with blue lips. And from that time on 
 every one was talking of Mrs. Thursby and her 
 book. 
 
 Nearly every one, I should have said. For we 
 kept silence on that subject before my grand- 
 father. I knew, from the first, that he hated it. 
 I had never seen the book. I had the vaguest of 
 ideas about it. But the thing was in the air; and
 
 The Secret Book 43 
 
 away from our house I talked of it, as the rest 
 did. I discussed it often with Celeste Griswold 
 on our way to high school in the village partly 
 in earnest, partly to see Celeste become excited 
 over it. 
 
 " Do you think she did really cure her, reading 
 from that book?" I asked Celeste. 
 
 "You know what I think! " Celeste Griswold 
 answered. " It's blasphemy and nonsense. It 
 ought to be burned up, all every copy of it! " 
 
 The color rushed to her face, and she stopped 
 talking. And I laughed. I did not take it very 
 seriously then. But it did seem to me, in my 
 heart, blasphemous that a woman should write 
 a book to take the place of the Bible. 
 
 After that, two or three more women began 
 to go to Miss Avery's, to hear the reading of the 
 book, and to repeat the special prayers they had. 
 If you watched, you could almost tell them by 
 their expression. For they all began to wear 
 that smile that odd, distant, image-like expres- 
 sion which I had seen first upon Miss Avery's 
 face while Mrs. Thursby read her book. 
 
 Miss Avery sat by Mrs. Thursby as she read, 
 and welcomed the other women as they came in. 
 I saw her do so often. And she now wore a pink 
 dress all pink, and a pink ribbon in her hair, 
 instead of that neat black gown she had always 
 worn before.
 
 44 The Last Christian 
 
 That was the first thing that I had ever heard 
 my grandfather speak of. 
 
 " It was Joe Crosby's color," my grand- 
 mother answered him. " He always liked her 
 in it." 
 
 " It makes her look a hundred years old," said 
 my grandfather. 
 
 " It is a very trying color for any one, Mr. 
 Morgan," my grandmother answered. 
 
 " Too bad he died. She'd made him a good 
 wife," said my grandfather. " Instead, look at 
 her now an old maid gone crazy on this female 
 religion." 
 
 " They say it's helped her," said my grand- 
 mother softly. 
 
 " Fol-de-rol," said my grandfather. " Wom- 
 an's nonsense." 
 
 My grandmother did not answer him. She 
 never did, when he felt about anything the way 
 he did about Mrs. Thursby and her book. 
 
 My grandmother was an invalid now, after that 
 last night when she was so sick a little better 
 sometimes; sometimes down with a relapse. She 
 sat most of her time in her bedroom beneath the 
 picture of my father. They would have taken it 
 away, I think, if they had dared. But that she 
 would not allow. But they had taken her two 
 books her Bible and her Concordance. For her 
 mind must be kept off that old excitement that
 
 The Secret Book 45 
 
 fear, which had overcome her in that year when 
 every one talked of Hell. That was done now. 
 We heard no more of it in our house, at least. 
 The Great Crisis of the Earth was gone as if it 
 never had existed, and had left not an echo be- 
 hind. 
 
 Afternoons, when school was done, Celeste 
 Griswold quite often would come over and sit 
 with my grandmother, and study or read to her. 
 Celeste was like her father in that way. She had 
 gone with him often, since she was a very little 
 girl, when he visited sick people. Now she often 
 went alone. She was a good reader clear and 
 steady. When my grandmother wanted reading, 
 she read; when she wanted quiet, Celeste would 
 study. She had a new idea now Celeste: she 
 was going to college. She had given her whole 
 soul to it. 
 
 " My father went to college, and his father. 
 Just because I am a woman, do you think I shall 
 be robbed of it?" she said. " I'd go, if I had 
 to crawl there on my hands and knees." 
 
 She made me mad, the way she studied. 
 
 " Do you know what book it is your grand- 
 mother reads and hides? " Celeste Griswold asked 
 me suddenly, one day. 
 
 That was the first hint I had. 
 
 " It's the Bible," I said, guessing. 
 
 " No," said Celeste.
 
 46 The Last Christian 
 
 " Then it's the Concordance," I said. 
 
 " No, it isn't," said Celeste positively. " It's 
 something else." 
 
 But I still thought that she was wrong. 
 
 I watched, myself, after that. It was true. 
 There was a book my grandmother was reading. 
 Once I saw it a bunch under the bedclothes in 
 the bed near her chair. Once, when I was in the 
 yard outside, I looked in and saw her plainly, with 
 a book in her lap, following the lines slowly with 
 her forefinger. So I knew she was reading again. 
 And I was anxious. For, naturally, I still thought 
 she was reading the texts on Hell again in her 
 Bible. 
 
 I don't know how long it was before I knew 
 more weeks, months perhaps. But then, one 
 afternoon, I came home, and started out to my 
 grandmother's bedroom, and there was some one 
 in there with the door closed. I stopped outside, 
 not knowing what to do; for that door was almost 
 never closed. And, as I stood there, I realized 
 that Miss Avery was inside, reading. 
 
 "My poor head!" said my grandmother, in- 
 terrupting her. " I'm afraid I am afraid I don't 
 understand it." 
 
 " Only eat of the Little Book," said Miss 
 Avery's patient voice. " Only keep eating of the 
 Little Book. Listen " I heard the sound of slip-
 
 The Secret Book 47 
 
 ping leaves. " Hear what it says." She read 
 again: 
 
 " ' St. John writes in the tenth chapter of his 
 book of Revelation: "And I saw another mighty 
 angel come down from heaven, clothed with a 
 cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his 
 face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars 
 of fire; and he had in his hand a little book open; 
 and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left 
 foot on the earth." ' 
 
 " Now see what it says," said Miss Avery, more 
 loudly, and read on: 
 
 " ' The angel or message which comes from 
 God, clothed with a cloud, prefigures divine 
 Science. To mortal sense, Science seems at first 
 obscure, abstract and dark. [Miss Avery re- 
 peated this sentence twice.] But a bright promise 
 crowns its brow. When understood, it is Truth's 
 prism and praise. 1 " 
 
 It seemed strange to me, I must say stranger 
 even than the Book of Revelation itself. For now 
 I realized, of course, that I was listening to the 
 reading of the book of the new religion, founded 
 by the woman of Boston. 
 
 " You see ! " Miss Avery went on. " And now, 
 here! " she said eagerly, and read again: 
 
 ' Then will a voice from harmony cry, " Go, 
 and take the Little Book Take it, and eat it up, 
 and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be
 
 48 The Last Christian 
 
 in thy mouth sweet as honey." Mortals, obey the 
 heavenly evangel. Take divine Science. Read 
 this book from beginning to end.' 
 
 " You see," said Miss Avery, breaking off. 
 
 " Yes," said my grandmother, " I think I do. 
 Only my poor head. Only I worry so." 
 
 " But you mustn't, dear," said Miss Avery. 
 " You mustn't worry. That's just it. You must 
 eat of the Little Book and it will cure you of 
 that false belief of your fear, as it did me." 
 
 " Does it really prove it isn't so that that 
 fear of mine? " my grandmother asked hesitantly. 
 
 "It does; it surely does. It proves that it is 
 error all false. Mortal error, and nothing else," 
 said Miss Avery. " Oh, Aunt Eunice, read it 
 read it! It wipes away your fears; it brings you 
 peace. I know. It brought me happiness I had 
 never had, not once from that time when my 
 trouble came to me." 
 
 " I know, I know," said my grandmother 
 softly. 
 
 Then there was silence. And I realized, for 
 the first time, that I was standing there motionless, 
 possessed with listening. 
 
 " You can't forget," Miss Avery was saying 
 very softly, " our Dear Leader is a woman. She 
 understands she understands how women are ! " 
 
 There was another silence. 
 
 " Only read it," said Miss Avery all at once.
 
 The Secret Book 49 
 
 "Read it; and repeat the words I gave you 
 those words that helped me so." 
 
 She was getting up to go. I must go some- 
 where myself. I dared not walk boldly in. So I 
 turned, and was outdoors in the yard when Miss 
 Avery left the house. 
 
 She had gone but a little time before I was in 
 the house again, and was reading the Bible, the 
 tenth chapter of Revelation. It was all there 
 exactly as she had read it the mighty Angel, and 
 the Little Book, and the command to eat it. Quite 
 naturally, I thought of this often, afterward. And 
 it did disturb me, in a way. 
 
 I don't know that I can quite describe the effect 
 my growing knowledge of that book had on my 
 mind. It was apprehension, chiefly apprehension 
 that it might be true. And, coupled with it, still 
 that troubled and eerie sensation always connected 
 with the Book of Revelation, with its angels, and 
 dragons, and jeweled cities. 
 
 On its face, the doctrine semed absurd to me. 
 And yet, there were various corroborations of 
 it, always rising for discussion in my mind. There, 
 certainly, in the Bible was the mention of the 
 Little Book; there was the raising of the bed- 
 ridden woman. And, very soon, across the bound- 
 ary of silence that kept us from the province of 
 our elders, I could see the disturbance and com- 
 motion the book was causing there.
 
 50 The Last Christian 
 
 The women who smiled had formed a little con- 
 gregation of their own now. There were ten or 
 twelve of them, mostly members of the White 
 Church. And on Sundays they turned in at Miss 
 Avery's as the thin stream of the old congregation 
 passed into the church across the street. It was 
 no secret, now, that Mr. Griswold was much 
 troubled by this. 
 
 For some time the minister had been in one 
 of his disturbed and gloomy moods. 
 
 You could tell. He was walking alone again 
 head down, out through the village, out often into 
 the hills. He covered miles in a day. His loose 
 stride was tremendous. And at dusk, upon a 
 country road, as I have met him, he was a fear- 
 some figure in his long black coat, striding, ges- 
 ticulating sometimes, and sometimes even talking. 
 For he made his sermons so, quite often. 
 
 His sermons for several Sundays had been se- 
 vere again, with that favorite gesture of his at 
 such times, constantly repeated the sudden pro- 
 jecting of that long admonitory forefinger, which 
 pointed to your very soul. And then he preached 
 that sermon directed frankly against the new reli- 
 gion of the women who smiled, that sermon taken 
 from the text of I Timothy 4:7: 
 
 " But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and 
 exercise thyself rather unto godliness." 
 
 "That was an old-timer that sermon," said
 
 The Secret Book 51 
 
 Mr. Tubbs, the organist, overtaking my grand- 
 father on the way from church. 
 
 My grandfather said nothing. 
 
 " It's getting toward the end of the church 
 year," said Mr. Tubbs, the organist " The an- 
 nual meeting is coming around. If you've noticed, 
 he's been that way the last few years." 
 
 " I don't know as I have," said my grand- 
 father. 
 
 " You must have," said Mr. Tubbs. " You re- 
 member that year, two or three years back, when 
 the ministers got fighting so over Hell. And the 
 old man lost two or three families to the Brick 
 Church in the village over it. The nearer the 
 annual meeting came, and the nearer the end of 
 the year, the more he kept on preaching those 
 old-time brimstone sermons worse and worse. 
 You remember that! " 
 
 " I remember something of the kind," said my 
 grandfather. 
 
 " He wouldn't give it up, would he not if they 
 all left?" 
 
 "No. Good day," said my grandfather; for 
 we were at our gate. 
 
 It was two or three nights after that when Mr. 
 Griswold burst into our house at nine o'clock 
 at night. 
 
 " May I speak to you, Mr. Morgan? " he said. 
 "Is it too late?"
 
 52 The Last Christian 
 
 He had been tramping the country roads again. 
 His boots were splashed with mud. 
 
 " No," said my grandfather. " Sit down." 
 And he closed the door from the sitting-room to 
 the dining-room, in which, as usual, I sat study- 
 ing my lessons for the next day. Their earlier 
 conversation reached me only very little; but 
 gradually their voices rose and claimed my 
 attention. 
 
 "How many of them have gone?" I heard 
 my grandfather ask sharply. 
 
 " Three families, anyway perhaps one more," 
 said Mr. Griswold. 
 
 " Fools," said my grandfather. 
 
 I can hear them still, if I try to remember the 
 minister's big voice, the smart staccato speech of 
 my grandfather. 
 
 "We're falling back," said Mr. Griswold 
 " membership " 
 
 " Deficit " my grandfather said. 
 
 " And more than that repairs," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold. 
 
 "How much?" said my grandfather. 
 "What?" 
 
 " Everything," said Mr. Griswold. " For one 
 thing, it must be painted." 
 
 He meant the church, of course. I realized it 
 as he spoke. It was getting dingy; the paint was 
 peeling in some places. When I had been a little
 
 The Secret Book 53 
 
 boy it had always seemed so white white and 
 glistening. You saw it far down the road. 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 "Where will this stop?" asked Mr. Griswold 
 slowly. " A thousand sects, a thousand little per- 
 sonal religions are splitting up the body of the 
 church the world over. Where is this going to 
 end?" 
 
 " They're crazy," said my grandfather. " The 
 women are all going crazy." 
 
 "Well, yes," said Mr. Griswold. "Perhaps 
 that is the most charitable way to put it." 
 
 " Mad as a hatter," said my grandfather 
 " all but one: all but that old she-devil with the 
 false front. She makes money out of it. She 
 ought to be run out of town." 
 
 Mr. Griswold said something I could not hear. 
 
 " Crazy," said my grandfather. " And the 
 worst of it is, they're smuggling the thing in every- 
 where. " You can't tell when they'll bring it into 
 your house or mine." 
 
 " Scarcely that," said Mr. Griswold. 
 
 " I'd like to see them try it," said my grand- 
 father, " in my house ! " 
 
 And very soon after that Mr. Griswold went 
 back home again. 
 
 Then and many times afterward I would have 
 liked to ask some older person about this thing 
 to get some explanation. Not that I believed that
 
 54 The Last Christian 
 
 it was true. It was the fear it might be possible. 
 There were a number of things I had the same 
 feeling about, when I was that age. One of them 
 was the coming of the end of the world. But no 
 older person ever spoke of this book to me; and 
 there was no one whom I felt free to ask about it. 
 So, as it was, I discussed it with no one but Celeste 
 Griswold. 
 
 She had, as usual, an entirely different view 
 from mine on the mention of the Little Book in 
 Revelation, for example, when I spoke to her 
 about it. 
 
 " Certainly it's in the Bible," said Celeste Gris- 
 wold. " That wouldn't prevent them from steal- 
 ing it, would it? " 
 
 We never looked at matters of this kind alike. 
 I was speculating, even then, on problems of 
 various kinds. Celeste never. What was so with 
 her was so with all her heart. 
 
 We debated the matter of my grandmother and 
 her book. It was pretty difficult, we both agreed. 
 I hesitated, in the first place, to project myself into 
 the affairs of older people. For, all my life, I 
 had been trained not to " to be seen and not 
 heard." And, besides, I had overheard what I 
 knew. I couldn't play the spy on any one. If 
 there was any one thing certain in the ethics of 
 fourteen years, that was it. And yet, we were 
 both afraid of what might happen.
 
 The Secret Book 55 
 
 " It's your secret," said Celeste Griswold. " I 
 can't advise you. You've got to do what you 
 think best." 
 
 " But if she should get worse? " I said. 
 
 " That's it," said Celeste. 
 
 But, as it happened, my grandmother did not 
 grow worse. She grew better. I watched her 
 very closely. I could see her lips moving once, 
 twice, three times; and then, gradually, there 
 would start to form that peaceful smile. Day 
 after day I could see grow upon her face that 
 distant, image-like mask of peace that Miss Avery 
 and the other women wore. And day after day 
 she was muttering to herself what I knew must be 
 that formula Miss Avery had given her. I heard 
 it once, in part: 
 
 " There is no sin, there is no " Then I 
 
 lost it. But she was saying it scores and scores of 
 times a day. 
 
 It was rather strange, I have thought since, that 
 my grandfather did not notice it. He was usually 
 so quick to see everything. But there was good 
 reason. That was the year his company was put- 
 ting in the first electric street lights in the village 
 and on the street. And he thought of nothing 
 else. But all the time he grew bitterer and bitterer 
 against Mrs. Thursby and her book. 
 
 We would see her going her deliberate way out- 
 side our windows.
 
 56 The Last Christian 
 
 " The old witch," said my grandfather. " See 
 her smuggling that book around! " 
 
 He stood there watching her, his legs apart. 
 
 " By George, she'd better not bring it here! " 
 he said. 
 
 And almost as he said it, within a minute or 
 two, my grandmother was chanting to herself that 
 formula she had gotten from her and Miss 
 A very : 
 
 " There is no sin. There is no death." I did 
 not know it all yet. 
 
 My grandfather was especially excited at the 
 time the woman with the spinal trouble had a re- 
 lapse. The report was that she was dying. I 
 heard Mrs. Judd tell my grandfather of it, in her 
 pitiful voice, myself. 
 
 "Isn't it too bad?" said Mrs. Judd. "Too 
 bad! Why must they drag her up to die? " 
 
 " They ought to be in jail, eve*y one of them," 
 said my grandfather. 
 
 But the woman with the spinal trouble did not 
 die. She was up again, and once more sitting at 
 her window, like a faintly smiling corpse. But still 
 my grandfather talked no less bitterly. 
 
 " They'll kill her before they get through," he 
 said to the doctor. 
 
 " How do you know ? " the doctor said. " She's 
 better now, isn't she? " He was always joking. 
 
 " Better," said my grandfather. " She never
 
 The Secret Book 57 
 
 was sick. She had no more spinal trouble than 
 I have." 
 
 " Who knows what she had? " the doctor said. 
 
 My grandfather knit his brows. " Father- 
 Mother God ! " he exclaimed. " A female God ! 
 What blasphemy will they get up next?" 
 
 " Why not? " said the doctor. " We have had 
 a male God for some time. Now the women are 
 trying their hand at religion. I rather like it, as 
 far as they've got." 
 
 " You go too far sometimes," said my grand- 
 father curtly. 
 
 "No; I mean it," said the doctor, and smiled. 
 " See what they've done already. They've abol- 
 ished Hell, and pain, and the Earth everything 
 they didn't want and moved in a body into 
 Heaven." 
 
 " A woman's Heaven," said my grandfather. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, and he laughed. 
 " That's right a woman's Heaven no pain, no 
 death, no separation an eternal family reunion, 
 with all the children home." 
 
 " You can make up your mind that book will 
 never come into my house," my grandfather said 
 abruptly, and stopped talking. 
 
 The doctor merely smiled. I have often won- 
 dered if he didn't know then. My grandmother 
 was so changed. The hunted look was going from 
 her eyes; her hands were quieter; and on her face
 
 58 The Last Christian 
 
 now was settling permanently that mask of peace 
 of the new faith. 
 
 My grandfather was out a great many evenings 
 now at his business meetings. And my grand- 
 mother and I were alone in the house. She sat with 
 me in the dining-room, where I studied my lessons. 
 And I left her there when I went to bed. 
 
 I was abed and asleep that second time when I 
 heard Miss Avery there. The sound of their 
 voices had wakened me. For the door into the 
 dining-room at the foot of the back stairs had been 
 left ajar, and I cpuld hear perfectly what went 
 on there. 
 
 " It troubles me it troubles me still," my 
 grandmother was saying. " More than all the 
 rest." 
 
 "Tell her; instruct her," said Miss Avery. 
 Then there was a pause. 
 
 " Hell, Hades, Sheol yes, they have troubled 
 us," said another voice, calmly and deliberately. 
 I lay awake, listening intently; for it was the voice 
 of Mrs. Thursby. 
 
 " But now we know," she went on. " Hell is 
 nothing nothing but another name for Error. 
 Error, that is all supernal Error." 
 
 She paused. I could smell, even from where 
 I lay, the rather strong perfume that she always 
 wore. 
 
 "Death, too," she went on; "that is another
 
 The Secret Book 59 
 
 of our names for Error. Both are simply poor 
 mortal belief. You take that poor woman with 
 the broken spine. Twice now, mortal Error 
 what we have wrongly called death twice this 
 mortal Error has claimed her for its own. And 
 twice we have contradicted it. We have overcome 
 the false with the true." 
 
 " We cause our deaths, Aunt Eunice," said 
 Miss Avery's gentle voice. " We make our Hells, 
 thinking they are so. It is our fear." 
 
 " Read the Little Book," said Mrs. Thursby. 
 " That will show." 
 
 "Oh, I have read; I have," said my grand- 
 mother hurriedly. " And I have found peace in 
 it wonderful peace. But sometimes I think 
 my head, you know, my head. I don't quite seem 
 to understand it quite. And then that all comes 
 back on me again." 
 
 " Fear," said Mrs. Thursby loudly. " Mortal 
 fear. Contradict it." 
 
 " I do so," said my grandmother weakly. 
 
 " We have little time," said Miss Avery. 
 
 " Contradict it; contradict it; that's all! " said 
 Mrs. Thursby. " Now see ! I have marked the 
 pages so. Read them in this order." 
 
 " We'd better go now," said Miss Avery. 
 
 "Read them," said Mrs. Thursby. "And 
 when your Error arises, deny it! contradict it 
 firmly, and repeat:
 
 60 The Last Christian 
 
 ' There is no sin; there is no sickness; there is 
 no death.' " 
 
 There it was at last, Miss Avery's full formula. 
 " Ah," said my grandmother, with a sharp in- 
 
 " And no Hell," she added softly. 
 
 " And no Hell," repeated Miss Avery quickly. 
 
 " It is all false all false all but the mere evi- 
 dence of the senses. False," said Mrs. Thursby 
 loudly, " I deny it. You must do the same." 
 
 " We must be going now," said Miss Avery. 
 
 "All false," said Mrs. Thursby, getting up. 
 " All to be contradicted. There is no death; there 
 are no senses; there is no body no material world 
 of sense. It is all, all a dream, a picture painted 
 on the snow. All is God. And God is All-in-All. 
 I leave you this. God the All-in-All. Good 
 night; I shall call again." 
 
 " Good night," said my grandmother. " I wish 
 you well." 
 
 " You mustn't get up, Aunt Eunice," said Miss 
 Avery. 
 
 Not long after they were gone, I heard the 
 hoofs of my grandfather's horse driving sharply 
 back from the village back from the meeting of 
 the electric light company. 
 
 After that, day after day, that smile grew 
 steadier on my grandmother's face. Her hands
 
 The Secret Book 61 
 
 lay still upon her lap. She sat there, rocking, 
 smiling peacefully, beneath my father's .portrait 
 in her bedroom; whispering, as I saw her some- 
 times, her contradiction of death and suffering and 
 Hell. 
 
 She was better I knew that for weeks and 
 months, though she was not strong. The doctor 
 gave up coming very often. 
 
 " There's nothing particular I can do. There's 
 no medicine I know of that's of any use," he said. 
 " Feed her well; that's all." 
 
 My grandfather asked him something. 
 
 " Oh, you can't tell," said the doctor. 
 
 But still she was very weak. My grandfather 
 watched her pretty closely. 
 
 I remember we were driving home from the 
 village, my grandfather and I, and Mrs. Judd 
 stopped us from the sidewalk. Mrs. Judd, with 
 her white face and reddish eyelids and blond hair, 
 almost as light as an albino's. She walked out 
 into the roadway in her eagerness to speak to us. 
 
 "Oh, how is dear Mrs. Morgan?" she asked 
 my grandfather. " How is she to-day, Mr. Mor- 
 gan? She is so frail, so frail. Oh, I am so glad, 
 so glad to hear it. You must take care of her, 
 Mr. Morgan." 
 
 Her voice quavered sharply; her false teeth 
 gleamed brightly in an ecstasy of sympathy which 
 was very like a smile.
 
 62 The Last Christian 
 
 " That old funeral hag! " said my grandfather, 
 when we left her; and said no more before we 
 reached home. 
 
 I noticed that Mrs. Judd always asked me, after 
 that, wherever she might meet me, about my 
 grandmother, with an increasing gusto of grief. 
 
 " Such a good grandmother, such a good grand- 
 mother," she said, in the accents of a mincing sad- 
 ness. " You will recall Tier so often when all we 
 older people have passed on." 
 
 My grandfather was more at home now. And 
 often he sat in the bedroom, with my grandmother, 
 reading his newspaper a thing he had never done 
 before. Occasionally he would get up and pull 
 her shawl about her shoulders for her awkwardly, 
 rattling his paper as he sat down again. A sudden 
 flush would come into the cheeks of my grand- 
 mother. 
 
 She seemed very .little changed, I thought 
 only very short of breath. 
 
 " Oh, nobody can tell anything about it," said 
 the doctor the next time he came in. He still came 
 very little. 
 
 I understood, of course. I was old enough for 
 that. But no, I didn't really, either! No one 
 not the oldest of us can realize it before it comes; 
 and certainly not a child. 
 
 My grandfather would lay his hand occasionally 
 on her shoulder, as he came in touch her awk-
 
 The Secret Book 63 
 
 wardly and suddenly, and pass on. And then 
 the most curious change of all he began calling 
 her " my girl." 
 
 "Well, how are you to-night, my girl?" he 
 asked briskly, when he came in. 
 
 " That's good, that's good," he said brusquely, 
 when she answered him. For she said, always, 
 that she was well. 
 
 That name for her seemed so curious and in- 
 appropriate that old woman, my grandmother! 
 How many years, I have wondered since, had it 
 been since that old-time endearment had been upon 
 his lips. She recognized it, I knew, even then. 
 A sudden flush of feeling gleamed across the ever- 
 lasting peace of her face. 
 
 I was there, too, the night when my grand- 
 father came back, bringing the vase from the 
 city. 
 
 "There, my girl," he said. "Look what I 
 bought you." 
 
 It was a big red vase with an Italian singing 
 girl painted on it. 
 
 " Oh, it's beautiful," said my grandmother, 
 taking it in her trembling hands. " Beautiful." 
 
 We had very few ornaments in the house, and 
 none so new and stylish. He took it from her 
 and placed it on a stand where she could see it. 
 
 And suddenly, as he turned back, with an abrupt 
 and awkward motion he stooped and kissed her.
 
 64 The Last Christian 
 
 Never in my life had I seen him kiss my grand- 
 mother before. He started stiffly and self-con- 
 sciously to straighten up again. But my grand- 
 mother clung to his arm with both her hands. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Morgan," she said" oh, Calvin ! " 
 calling him by his first name for the first time in 
 my memory. " Calvin dear, can't we have a good 
 long talk together sometime? " 
 
 She clung to him like a child. 
 
 " Yes, yes, Eunice," said my grandfather, em- 
 barrassed by his position. " Sometime, when you 
 are stronger." 
 
 " Sometime sometime when you are not quite 
 so busy my Mr. Morgan," said my grand- 
 mother, and her hands slid weakly down his arm 
 into her lap. 
 
 "Yes, yes, my girl; we certainly shall," my 
 grandfather said heartily. 
 
 I knew what she wanted. She was going to 
 tell him of the Secret Book when she had the 
 courage. She wanted very much to do so. I 
 could see her eyes following him about, often. 
 But it required a good deal of effort from her. 
 And my grandfather was very busy and preoccu- 
 pied. And he was so very bitter against it. 
 
 So my grandmother said nothing more. I 
 never really saw her reading the book, myself. 
 She sat there in her bedroom, with her perpetual 
 mask of peace upon her face. Over her head was
 
 The Secret Book 65 
 
 the picture of my father that dark, intense face, 
 those eyes that followed you about the room. My 
 grandmother sat there by herself afternoons, al- 
 ways, where she could see it easily by looking up. 
 It was odd; it seemed exactly as if the 
 two were exchanging confidences. She looked at 
 the picture and smiled happily. And it stared 
 back, it seemed sometimes, almost with an expres- 
 sion of knowledge in its eyes. 
 
 Over across our lawn, at the home of Mr. 
 Tubbs, the organist, you heard them practising 
 their music before services and funerals, quite 
 often. They were practising there one night, I 
 remember. There was to be a funeral the next 
 day. And I remember very well my grandfather 
 getting up he was in the sitting-room and 
 slamming down the window. Then he walked 
 back and sat down in the bedroom with my grand- 
 mother, reading his paper.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COMING OF MORTAL ERROR 
 
 THAT was the year, as I said, that they put 
 the first electric lights on the street those 
 first blue, hissing, stammering arc lights. It 
 was wonderful, in a way that brilliant light flow- 
 ing through that slender wire; and death, too, if 
 you should touch it. Just one touch that was all. 
 It killed you. I lay there in my bed quite a little, 
 when the lights first came on, and watched the 
 sharp-cut shadows of the elm leaves upon the side 
 of the White Church clean white now, where be- 
 fore it had been faint blue-white, just visible across 
 the darkness. It certainly did seem wonderful 
 at that early time. It was a time of great changes. 
 I was getting older now. I was fifteen. And 
 already I could see, with clearer understanding 
 than before, across the unseen but impassable bar- 
 rier that separated the young from the old. There 
 were many changes there in that other world of 
 older people changes and commotion. I had 
 sensed it more and more clearly since that year of 
 controversy over Hell that year I had joined 
 the White Church. It didn't trouble me, though 
 
 66
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 67 
 
 not much. It was one of the concerns of my 
 elders. 
 
 I was unconcerned enough; but it did seem to 
 me that Celeste Griswold was rather glum and 
 silent lately. And, for some reason, I associated 
 this with the changes in the church with the worry 
 of her father. 
 
 I asked her what it was, several times, on our 
 way to school. 
 
 " It's nothing," said Celeste Griswold. 
 
 " No; really, what is it? " I asked her. " Are 
 you sick? " For she certainly did not look well. 
 
 " It's nothing, I tell you ! " said Celeste Gris- 
 wold a little sharply, and would not speak for the 
 rest of the way to school. 
 
 But I knew there was something, by the way she 
 acted her silence, if nothing else. She was hard 
 hit by something. But she wouldn't speak of it. 
 I knew that. That was her way, always. 
 
 It was her father, I made up my mind both 
 from her actions and his. But I didn't realize just 
 what had happened to them until that second night 
 Mr. Griswold came in to see my grandfather, and 
 I heard them, from my place in the dining-room, 
 as they talked it over. 
 
 Mr. Griswold came in that night very differ- 
 ently from on the one before. He seemed tired 
 and slow as he shut the door behind him. It was 
 some time before he spoke.
 
 68 The Last Christian 
 
 " I want to consult you, Mr. Morgan," he said, 
 finally, " on financial matters. You are a man of 
 business experience and training. I value your 
 opinion highly." 
 
 " Go ahead," said my grandfather. 
 
 " It is somewhat embarrassing," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold, hesitating, " to speak of your family affairs, 
 Mr. Morgan. I have never done so, as you 
 know." 
 
 " No," said my grandfather. 
 
 " But to-day," went on the minister, stumbling, 
 " there were a number of personal bills received 
 unexpectedly. And I had no money for them." 
 
 " What salary are they supposed to pay you now 
 twelve hundred?" my grandfather asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Griswold. " And, you see, the 
 sickness of my wife " 
 
 "How is she now?" asked my grandfather. 
 "Is she better?" 
 
 "Not much, I am afraid," replied Mr. Gris- 
 wold. 
 
 "Too bad; I'm sorry," said my grandfather 
 changing the subject back again. " Are they pay- 
 ing it to you regularly? " 
 
 " That's it," said Mr. Griswold, speaking a little 
 faster. " That's what I wanted " 
 
 "How much do they owe you?" my grand- 
 father interrupted him.
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 69 
 
 " It is some five or six hundred dollars, I think, 
 now," said the minister. 
 
 " What! " exclaimed my grandfather sharply. 
 
 Mr. Griswold did not speak. 
 
 " That's a shame," my grandfather said. " A 
 shame!" 
 
 " No not that, either," said Mr. Griswold. 
 " That is not just. It was my own doing, partly. 
 There were those repairs that had to be made, 
 you know those few. I told them I could wait. 
 But now " 
 
 " You had no right to do that," said my grand- 
 father. " No right whatever, with your family 
 as it is." 
 
 " Yes, we could do it," answered Mr. Griswold. 
 " We have cut down our expenses. We live very 
 simply. I had hoped," he said, coughing a little, 
 " that I could send my girl to college. But now, 
 of course, I can't in any case. I have just told 
 her so." He paused again. " That, of course, 
 made some little savings that I had available for 
 us , but " 
 
 " You shall have it, and you shall have it right 
 ^away," my grandfather said. 
 
 " Of course," said Mr. Griswold, " I had no 
 intention, when I came here of asking for it all 
 now. That isn't necessary." 
 
 " You shall have it," repeated my grandfather.
 
 70 The Last Christian 
 
 " And you shall have it now I I'll see to that my- 
 self." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Griswold, after a little while, 
 " well I will leave it with you." He paused 
 again. " Thank you ! " he said abruptly, and got 
 up and went out the front door. 
 
 Now I knew what was the matter with Celeste 
 Griswold. I had overheard it, and I couldn't speak 
 of it to her very well though several times I al- 
 most did so. And she said nothing to me. She 
 was fighting it out by herself, in her own way. 
 
 We were working out our two week-day creeds 
 for life then both of us. That is more than half 
 of the requirement of childhood, you remember. 
 The boys, I know, were busily engaged pounding 
 into me the creed of a man honesty and courage 
 and disregard for physical pain. Celeste Griswold 
 was acquiring the creed of a woman. I did not 
 know it then. I am not sure that I know it all 
 now. Yet she was learning it, I knew, and, I now 
 know, in that hardest of schools for women old 
 New England. And one cardinal point in it with 
 her was always silence under pain and trouble. It 
 was merely by chance that I ever knew what she 
 was going through. 
 
 I was in our yard one day, after school, work- 
 ing at the lawn (for every day I had my work to 
 do about the place), when all at once, as I was 
 standing near the side of the White Church, I
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 71 
 
 heard a curious noise in it, repeated twice, three 
 times. There was a window open, just a crack for 
 air. Urged by curiosity, I turned and went into 
 the back entrance of the church. Unexpect- 
 edly enough, I found the door had been left un- 
 locked. 
 
 I stood inside the doorway first, listening. The 
 oppressive sense of the place closed around me 
 the mysterious hush of the empty house of God, 
 the close air of the shut place, the dusty smell of 
 carpets and upholstery and books, the echoes start- 
 ing sharply at the slightest stir. 
 
 There was nothing moving in the vestry. There 
 was nothing there except the chairs of various 
 sizes, the light-colored hymn-books on the seats, 
 the blackboard with the text on it and a star in 
 colored crayon, and the cabinet organ nothing 
 there but an expectant silence. It looked bare and 
 dingy in its emptiness. The carpet was quite badly 
 worn. 
 
 I would have gone out then discretion slyly 
 plucking valor by the sleeve if I had not heard 
 the slightest of sounds upstairs, a sound like some 
 one whispering. With trepidation entirely un- 
 worthy of my years, I crept carefully along up the 
 narrow stairs to the back of the pulpit platform. 
 I looked down through the crack in the door into 
 the great, half lighted, vacant room. 
 
 There, in her father's pew, crouched by the side
 
 72 The Last Christian 
 
 wall, was Celeste Griswold her head down, mo- 
 tionless. I watched. Her shoulders moved once 
 or twice convulsively but she cried almost noise- 
 lessly, with a sound scarcely to be heard in that 
 general silence. She raised her head and looked 
 straight forward at the pulpit arch at the place 
 where I was standing. I shrank back. 
 
 " Oh, make me willing, make me willing, make 
 me willing ! " she was saying in a fierce and half 
 broken whisper. 
 
 I tiptoed down the stairs, out of the silence, into 
 the cool fresh air of outdoors. 
 
 Celeste Griswold grew more natural after that 
 gradually less quiet, more into her own frank, 
 determined, outspoken manner; but still she 
 seemed rather pale. 
 
 " What's the matter with the child? " my grand- 
 father asked. 
 
 " She's at the time they grow so very fast," my 
 grandmother said. 
 
 " She's generally so full of life," said my grand- 
 father. 
 
 " Yes," said my grandmother. 
 
 No one really knew but myself. 
 
 Celeste was with my grandmother quite often, 
 afternoons, reading studying just the same as if 
 nothing had happened to her. When it was pleas- 
 ant now, they sat with the French windows open 
 upon the porch, just inside my grandmother's bed-
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 73 
 
 room. Celeste was with her through that spring 
 clear to that last day. 
 
 I was in a shrub on the lawn, I remember can 
 I ever forget? pruning it. The knife was in the 
 air; I can see it still. And suddenly, with that 
 strange, sharp edge of fear upon it, Celeste Gris- 
 wold's voice : 
 
 "Calvin!" 
 
 The two women across the street on Miss 
 Avery's porch let drop their book and started to 
 their feet. I dropped my shears. 
 
 "Calvin! The doctor!" 
 
 That was all she called. But at her voice end- 
 less reaches of cold and terror rose before me. 
 My knees loosened under me. I knew. And 
 automatically I started, and was running down 
 the street, toward the doctor's. I was numb; I 
 ran as if I were floating in the air. And as I 
 passed out of our yard I saw the two women start- 
 ing across the street toward our house. 
 
 I ran down the street, over to the house of the 
 doctor. My hat was gone, my hair was blowing 
 in the air. And every now and then I stumbled. 
 The doctor was out they did not know where. I 
 ran on toward the village, asking for him. No 
 one had seen him. Then some one told me look- 
 ing at me very strangely, I remember that he 
 had already gone to our house. I stumbled back
 
 74 The Last Christian 
 
 again, some time after I had left, exhausted, nau- 
 seated from running. 
 
 When I arrived, they were already there in the 
 sitting-room, all standing Mr. Griswold and my 
 grandfather on one side; on the other the two 
 women, Miss Avery and Mrs. Thursby. All their 
 faces were strained and drawn, the men's stern, 
 the women's eager. Celeste Griswold stood be- 
 tween them, looking at my grandfather. She had 
 a little paper in her hand. 
 
 " It was in her dress," she said distinctly and a 
 little loudly. " She took it out, quickly, like this, 
 and she said: 'Mr. Morgan, Celeste, my Mr. 
 Mr. Calvin.' And then then," said Celeste 
 Griswold, faltering a little, and looking toward 
 her father, " she didn't speak again." 
 
 u Give it to me," said my grandfather quickly. 
 
 I had come in the back way, and I stood like an 
 image, watching. No one noticed me. 
 
 My grandfather stood there, staring at the 
 paper. No one moved or said a word. 
 
 " What's this? " he said at last " I can't seem 
 to read it! " 
 
 " Take it, read it," he said, passing it suddenly 
 to Celeste. 
 
 She took it, stretching it between her hands, 
 and started reading it. Her voice was perfectly 
 steady again. 
 
 " There is no sin," Celeste Griswold said in
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 75 
 
 her clear reading voice; "there is no sickness; 
 there is no death. Read page two hundred and " 
 She stopped. " I can't,' she said, " quite " 
 
 Mrs. Thursby, standing opposite my grand- 
 father, stepped forward quickly pushing Celeste 
 aside. She had her book all open in her hand. 
 
 "This is it; this is what she means," she said 
 eagerly, and started reading. 
 
 Mr. Griswold stepped out from beside my 
 grandfather and prevented her. 
 
 " This is no time," he said, and authority spoke 
 in his voice. 
 
 "It is just the time; splendid, wonderful, a 
 message of great peace," said Mrs. Thursby. 
 
 Then Miss Avery spoke. " No," she said, and 
 put her hand steadily on Mrs. Thursby's arm. 
 Her voice was firm, but gentle still. " No ! Only 
 this, Mr. Morgan," she said softly. " This. She 
 tells you by her message : there is no death, there 
 is no death. It is Error all our mortal Error. 
 Oh, can't you see, Mr. Morgan, nothing has hap- 
 pened here. Nothing! Nothing but our Error 
 nothing but our mortal Error! " 
 
 She grasped my grandfather by the sleeve, and 
 her pale, eager, pitying face looked up to his. Her 
 pink dress showed against the solemn black of Mr. 
 Griswold's coat. 
 
 My grandfather did not move. He stood there 
 with the paper in his hand.
 
 76 The Last Christian 
 
 " How long has this been going on? " he said. 
 His voice was as dry as ashes. 
 
 " For months. She has been one of us for 
 months ! " exclaimed Mrs. Thursby. 
 
 Miss Avery dropped my grandfather's sleeve. 
 
 " Come; we must go now," she said, and took 
 Mrs. Thursby with her. 
 
 The two men were left alone in the room, 
 staring. 
 
 Celeste Griswold, pushed aside, had turned and 
 looked at me. She was forgotten. Now, as al- 
 ways, we saw our elders moving in their own 
 world, upon their own concerns, without us. And, 
 put aside by them, Celeste's eyes fell naturally, I 
 suppose, on me. She came out toward me. We 
 were in our own world again, they in theirs. I 
 sat down, as she came near the dining-table. All 
 at once I felt exhausted. 
 
 It was not sorrow with me. It was not fear, at 
 first though there was fear, a great fear. But 
 principally it was disbelief in what had happened. 
 It was not so. It could not be ! Such things as 
 this did not happen. This tangible real being, that 
 moved beside me and spoke the realest thing in 
 all the world gone, nothing! It wasn't true. 
 Far more plausible that I should see, all at once, a 
 mountain back of the town tip suddenly across the 
 valley. 
 
 And all the time I had run, and all the time I
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 77 
 
 had stood there, I thought nothing of religion, 
 nothing of my well-learned land of heaven, nothing 
 of God excepting for one thing. I was praying 
 frantically to Him. But all I asked Him was to 
 tell me that it wasn't so that this nightmare 
 wasn't true! 
 
 Celeste Griswold sat in a chair beside me, and 
 took my hand in hers. As she touched me, for 
 some reason, my whole emotion changed. Sorrow 
 fell upon me like a great flood. And I fell for- 
 ward with my forehead upon the cool, smooth 
 table. 
 
 "Don't," said Celeste Griswold; "don't." 
 
 Her hand held steadily in mine. 
 
 I did not weep then though, after that, 
 Heaven knows the gates were loosed. But then 
 there was no time for weeping. The grief 
 was too strong for that. It took me and shook 
 me in its sudden violence but not into 
 weeping. 
 
 Of the two old men I can remember little. 
 They stood there, I believe, with few if any 
 words. What they said I do not know. I was 
 absorbed by my own grief. But I do remember 
 Mr. Griswold saying at last: 
 
 " God be with you, Calvin Morgan," and com- 
 ing to the door. 
 
 " I shall be back again," he said to my grand- 
 father. " Come, little daughter," he called softly.
 
 78 The Last Christian 
 
 Celeste Griswold pressed my hand and stood 
 up as he called her. 
 
 " You must come now," said Mr. Griswold. 
 " Yes. Later we will come back for him." For 
 she had evidently motioned to him about taking 
 me. 
 
 They went out into the hall. I felt suddenly a 
 sense of great loneliness and fear. I sprang up and 
 stood looking at them through the hall door. 
 Neither of them, I knew, could see me. 
 
 The minister stared straight ahead absorbed 
 in his own thoughts by the sharp crises in his 
 own world. His face was set and hardened. Ac- 
 cording to his habit, he was muttering to him- 
 self. 
 
 " Change," I thought that he was saying. 
 " Change a thousand changes everywhere." 
 
 Celeste walked silently beside him. She was 
 used to his talking to himself. And then by 
 chance, perhaps he turned and looked down at 
 her. 
 
 " Celeste, my girl," he said, " what is it? Are 
 you faint? " 
 
 She caught him by his sleeve. 
 
 " No, no," she said. " I'm not." But she 
 huddled closer to him as she spoke. 
 
 "You are very white. What is it?" he said 
 sharply. " You must tell me." 
 
 " Oh, Father," she said, and clutched his sleeve
 
 The Coming of Mortal Error 79 
 
 again convulsively, like a little child in fear of 
 the dark. " I saw I saw her die ! " 
 
 The great figure of the minister stooped. He 
 lifted her lightly into his arms and strode out the 
 door. I ran and closed it after him. 
 
 I turned. My grandfather still stood in the 
 sitting-room, with that paper in his hand. In the 
 bedroom I could hear some one. Those People 
 were in there those Other People, already at 
 work. 
 
 And as I stood there, listening, all at once I 
 felt cold and strangled. That vagrant fear, which 
 had come to me at intervals in the past, and was 
 to change my world in the future came upon me 
 again full force.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE VAGRANT FEAR 
 
 I STOOD still where it caught me that fear 
 of mine for a few seconds, half a dozen 
 heart-beats, motionless. 
 
 Two hours ago my grandmother had been there 
 in that room, and we had been with her. Now she 
 was alone, silent, without us; and those strangers 
 were there with her those Other People. I could 
 hear them talking softly at their work. 
 
 " She isn't there at all," my scared lips told me, 
 whispering. " She is an immortal soul in 
 Heaven." 
 
 "What immortal soul?" said my fear. 
 "What Heaven? Just what do you mean when 
 you say that? " 
 
 And, quick with long practice, I answered in 
 the old familiar words: " I mean what everybody 
 else means the Heaven that God revealed to us 
 in the Bible." 
 
 There I stopped. I refused to go one step 
 further. For I knew my fear had changed and 
 was on the verge of reappearing in another shape. 
 It did so continually. I could never grasp it, and 
 throw it, and hold it still. It turned, and twisted, 
 80
 
 The Vagrant Fear 81 
 
 and slipped out of my fingers continually, a new 
 and different thing. Thank God, it came only 
 rarely, spasmodically and disappeared again. 
 
 There was a time it seemed already a long way 
 past when I lived in perfect peace and security 
 in the Universe God had revealed to us. Its two 
 parts stretched together in perfect harmony and 
 reasonableness the Heaven that the women sang 
 of, with its angels and seraphim and golden streets, 
 as clear and certain as the Earth itself. All this 
 was a part of accepted knowledge before that day 
 when my fear first came. 
 
 I can remember it as if it were yesterday. It 
 was a rainy afternoon, in the attic. I was not 
 very old, yet not a little child old enough to read 
 quite well, I remember. 
 
 The rain drummed upon the roof. A pale 
 slate-colored light shone through the thick glass 
 skylight, and died into darkness under the eaves. 
 There was the warm, dry, pungent smell of the 
 place, the perfect silence, broken very rarely by 
 the faintest creaking in the rafters or the flooring. 
 And everywhere were things hanging from the 
 sloping roof dark, limp objects hanging in the 
 half light. 
 
 The stairway, the one entrance to the attic, 
 was at one side. In the center was a great chim- 
 ney, and, as you walked out around it, there was 
 no exit on the other side merely a blind end,
 
 82 The Last Christian 
 
 quite black under the eaves. You felt there some- 
 times that some one, coming from behind, might 
 possibly touch you, very softly, on the flesh. And 
 you must run, if you could; if you were not trapped 
 blindly, around the chimney, to the only en- 
 trance. 
 
 I stood there, searching for something just 
 what I have forgotten long ago when my eyes 
 fell upon the clothing hanging from the roof. 
 Odd, grotesque, it always seemed to me the 
 queer-shaped, discarded fancies of a generation 
 that was gone. I had seen it hanging there, with a 
 sense of half wonder and half amusement, all my 
 life. 
 
 My eyes passed over it again the rows, the 
 groups, the little squads of empty clothing on the 
 nails. There was a gay little bonnet quite near 
 me, and a curious little silken wrap beaded and 
 scalloped. Beyond it a little way hung a suit of 
 men's clothing gray clothes, of thin cloth. They 
 hung straight down, limp and long, in folds which 
 had fixed themselves in the fabric. It was the 
 clothing of a tall man. It was my dead father's. 
 Yes, that was it ! And the gay little bonnet must 
 have belonged to my dead mother ! 
 
 I stopped, still staring. For all at once the 
 thought came over me: 
 
 " They were living people once alive in that 
 clothing ! Here in this house, as I am now !
 
 The Vagrant Fear 83 
 
 " Yes," I said, answering myself, in vague dis- 
 comfort, not yet fear. 
 
 Without a second's wait, that fear rushed on 
 me then. 
 
 "Where are they?" it asked. "Where are 
 they now? " 
 
 It was a clear, sharp, peremptory question 
 almost as if a voice had spoken in that 
 silence. My fear had overtaken me that fear 
 that never again in all my life was entirely to 
 leave me. 
 
 I was not a little child; I was old enough to have 
 some personal dignity to defend in face of danger. 
 But this thing was a panic a cry to run. The per- 
 spiration started on my forehead. I held myself 
 from leaping forward by main force, but I went 
 at once stiffly, rigidly from the blind end of the 
 attic, past the limply hanging clothes, around the 
 chimney, under the pale blue skylight and out at 
 last, and down the stairs. 
 
 After I had gone downstairs, I sat upon a little 
 tufted ottoman I used to have in my grandmother's 
 room. I was alone in the house; for some reason, 
 every one was out. And, as I rested there, half 
 relieved and half ashamed, the question came at 
 once again, peremptory and sharp, just where it 
 had been dropped before. 
 
 " Well, where are they? " 
 
 " In Heaven," I repeated promptly according
 
 84 The Last Christian 
 
 ot my life-long knowledge. " It says so in the 
 Bible time and time again." 
 
 "Does it? Where does it say so?" It was 
 like the voice of another being speaking to me, 
 that question like Martin Luther's Adversary, 
 exactly, as I had read of him in some book. 
 
 " Everywhere," I said, answering. 
 
 " That's no answer ! " said my Adversary. 
 
 My pulse raced at this a little, for I did not 
 remember immediately what the Bible said. I rose 
 abruptly, and took up my grandmother's Bible. 
 And, as I did so, almost by inspiration I thought 
 of the text Mr. Griswold read so often the reve- 
 lation of the Holy City which John saw in his 
 vision on the Isle of Patmos. I turned to it at 
 once, for I knew it was almost the last thing in 
 the Bible; and, in the space of a few seconds, I 
 was whispering over to myself the verses that I 
 half knew by heart already: 
 
 " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : 
 for the first heaven and the first earth were passed 
 away; and there was no more sea. 
 
 " And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, 
 coming down from God out of heaven, prepared 
 as a bride adorned for her husband. 
 
 " And I heard a great voice out of heaven say- 
 ing: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, 
 and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his
 
 The Vagrant Fear 85 
 
 people, and God himself will be with them, and 
 be their God. 
 
 " And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes; and there shall be no more death " 
 
 I stopped, looking far away. Oh, what relief! 
 A great surge of emotion passed over me. There 
 it was, plainly, not to be denied in the Bible 
 itself. The Heaven of my earliest childhood, the 
 Heaven of which I heard the women sing, came 
 back to me again, as clear and real as ever. I 
 raised my eyes instinctively toward the sky where 
 it was. How good, how wonderful, that God 
 had definitely revealed this to us! 
 
 And yet even then, I knew that fear was not 
 gone entirely. It stood aside, just a little aside 
 that was all. The world had become, on that 
 rainy afternoon, a different place, somehow less 
 stable, less secure. 
 
 It came that fear of mine after that, not 
 often, but most unexpectedly, on strange occasions, 
 in lonely places, at night, at twilight, at times 
 when the animation of the living world seemed 
 suspended, a sudden, irresponsible depression. I 
 never knew just when it would come over me. The 
 oddest hints would call it out. 
 
 I remember our doctor they said he was an 
 atheist. I can't just describe my feeling toward 
 him. He was a very educated man, very kind and
 
 86 The Last Christian 
 
 always joking. There was always a strange glint 
 of mirth and knowledge in his eyes. Somehow 
 I always thought of Mephistopheles, later when I 
 heard of him, as like our doctor. Always smiling, 
 with a knowledge of good and evil in his eyes. And 
 always when I met him on the street, I had a touch 
 of that fear in mine that curious depression. 
 
 But, every time it came, I could conquer it and 
 dismiss it then. I knew my authorities by heart; 
 I knew now many passages in the Bible that bore 
 upon it. And I drew them up before me, when- 
 ever that questioning came. The Bible stood al- 
 ways there before me a solid barrier holding 
 back a dark, immeasurable sea. 
 
 So it was not until that year of the Great 
 Crisis for the Earth that this fear came upon me 
 again very strongly the year that Mr. Griswold 
 and the others talked so continuously and so ve- 
 hemently of Hell. Mr. Means, the missionary, 
 was in the village all that summer. I heard him 
 and Mr. Griswold often at my grandfather's. 
 While I heard them arguing, discomfort grew 
 upon me. Then, one day, it was no longer discom- 
 fort. I knew that fear was roused again. 
 
 " Let us not mince phrases," said Mr. Gris- 
 world loudly (they were discussing an article in 
 the Congregationalist. " They are to-day attack- 
 ing the whole doctrine of the Hereafter. They 
 can not attack one part of the divine scheme of sal-
 
 The Vagrant Fear 87 
 
 vation without the other. There is exactly the 
 same authority for Hell as there is for Heaven." 
 
 " Exactly," said Mr. Means. " They are 
 abolishing the Hereafter, one part with the 
 other." 
 
 " If this world were all, without hope of punish- 
 ment or salvation," said Mr. Griswold, " how 
 could there be Christianity at all? " 
 
 " There could not be," said Mr. Means. 
 
 My heart sank as I heard them in a way that 
 I knew well now. My old fear was on me again 
 but in a very different form as I first heard of 
 these attacks. They were attacking the Hereafter 
 the very Bible itself. And, from that time on, 
 I listened carefully to that discussion openly, if 
 possible; if not, secretly, behind doors. 
 
 It was secret, this fear of mine, always. We 
 in that day were not encouraged to give con- 
 fidences to our elders. And, in this case, it would 
 have been impossible. They, I felt, had no fears 
 of this kind. They lived as certain of Heaven as 
 of the Earth, and went forward confidently from 
 one division to the other of the Universe which 
 God had revealed to us, of which Mr. Griswold 
 preached in the White Church. It seemed to me 
 very clear that this fear of mine was a strange, 
 unnatural thing, peculiar to myself a shameful 
 personal weakness. I took care that there was not 
 a human being who knew of it excepting, finally,
 
 88 The Last Christian 
 
 Celeste GriswoldL But not she, either, for a long 
 time. 
 
 But, shameful as it was, I could not overcome 
 my old depression in that year when they were 
 attacking the Bible. I listened days and weeks for 
 what the old clergyman and missionary had to say. 
 It was Mr. Griswold's confidence that finally re- 
 assured me. Steadily and without changing, he 
 held to the exact and literal inspiration of the Bible 
 by God against its enemies. 
 
 " That book," I heard him say one day to Presi- 
 dent Mercer of the Christian College, " that book 
 is your foundation." 
 
 He struck the great Bible on our center table 
 violently with his open hand. 
 
 " Take it away, and you have nothing left." 
 
 " There can be no doubt of it generally speak- 
 ing," said the president of the Christian College. 
 
 " It is the bulwark of the ages," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold. " These men who are tampering with it 
 now, undermining, picking it to pieces we may 
 laugh at them! Let them try let them go on! 
 Thy will have their trouble for their pains. They 
 will pass, and there will still remain, exactly where 
 it stood, the Everlasting Gospel in its entirety. It 
 is an immovable rock upon which this Church of 
 two thousand years has found and must always 
 find its foundation." 
 
 My spirit leaped to hear him. It was a day
 
 The Vagrant Fear 89 
 
 of great relief to me. For my doubt, in its new 
 form, was crushed by what he said. The Bible was 
 true, certainly, exactly as it was written. Other- 
 wise Christianity would fall. And certainly no 
 one claimed that no one of consequence. A flood 
 of happy and relieved emotion followed my great 
 suspense. 
 
 It was an added sense of security to me, almost 
 like that of my earliest childish days, when I joined 
 the Church. I might myself be guilty of that pecu- 
 liar weakness that never-resting fear. But be- 
 hind me was the Church, the great Christian 
 Church, embracing or soon to embrace all man- 
 kind thousands and tens of thousands and mil- 
 lions of older men who believed, and who knew 
 that what they believed was true. Each Sunday 
 I could imagine them gathering, in decent Sun- 
 day garb, into white churches over the entire 
 world. 
 
 And yet, that old fear, that sense of insecurity, 
 was not gone entirely. It came again at odd inter- 
 vals, at peculiar hints. 
 
 They taught in school, I remember, that there 
 were nearly two billion people in the world. For 
 some reason, that knowledge depressed me heavily 
 for several days. 
 
 " Two billion souls," I said to Celeste Gris- 
 wold. "Think of it!" 
 
 " Why? " she asked me, looking up.
 
 90 The Last Christian 
 
 "Doesn't it seem awful to you, somehow? I 
 can't quite explain it." 
 
 " Well, yes, it does," she said slowly, after a 
 little. 
 
 " Billions," I said. " And billions and billions 
 before that!" 
 
 " How strange you are, Calvin," she said, look- 
 ing into my eyes with that puzzled, direct glance, 
 which I remember so clearly of her. " Why do 
 you always have to think up such things? " 
 
 But it was not so very often, after all, that I had 
 these thoughts then, and they were rarely acute 
 and pressing except at special and unusual times. 
 
 The vehemence of the time of the Great Crisis 
 of the Earth subsided; the strange theories of the 
 Women who Smile and their Secret Book suc- 
 ceeded to perplex and worry me not a little. And 
 there were many other things, many changes that 
 I saw in the world of my elders. There was a 
 lessening sense of security, somehow, and a feeling 
 that perhaps my elders were themselves touched 
 sometimes by that fear of mine. 
 
 But now, that night my grandmother was dead, 
 the fear was on me again, as it had never been 
 before. 
 
 I was alone in the white guest-chamber in the 
 Griswolds' house that night. Celeste had come to 
 get me from our house, while Mr. Griswold 
 stopped there for the night with my grandfather.
 
 The Vagrant Fear 91 
 
 And now, after the long, slow evening, I was alone 
 turning and turning that day's disaster in my 
 mind. 
 
 A sinister and unbreakable oppression was upon 
 me, and the sense of the unreality, the impossibility 
 of the thing that had happened. The feeling grew 
 upon me; I encouraged it. No, it had not hap- 
 pened! My grandmother was not dead! I had 
 almost lost myself; I was all but asleep! Sud- 
 denly I was awake again, my mind as clear and 
 alert as a hawk's eye. My fear was on me again 
 in a new form. I thought of my grandmother's 
 body, alone in the great bed beneath the grim steel 
 engraving of the crucifixion. 
 
 "Where is she?" said my fear, returning, as 
 always, to the point where I had left it. " Where 
 is she now, if you know ! " 
 
 I started and sat upright in the bed, gasping. 
 
 " In Heaven," I said again, perfunctorily. 
 And, as I said it, I knew that it was useless. It 
 sounded insincere and hollow. 
 
 " None of that! " said my Adversary roughly. 
 " You'll go that road yourself sometime. If you 
 should go to-night, would you expect to pass to 
 that strange place above you in the sky those 
 jeweled towns and glassy seas? " 
 
 " Men all the world around, much wiser than 
 I am, all believe it," I answered. 
 
 And, as I said this to myself, there rose in-
 
 92 , The Last Christian 
 
 voluntarily before me the picture of that after- 
 noon of my grandfather and the two women. I 
 heard Miss Avery's voice again, saying: "It is 
 nothing; It is Error. Nothing has happened 
 here " ; and saw again the expression upon my 
 grandfather's face. 
 
 A new understanding flashed across me. I knew 
 all at once that it was all confusion and change 
 in the world of older people so many beliefs 
 where formerly there had been one; complexity 
 in place of the old simplicity, everywhere. 
 
 "But what is your belief your own?" de- 
 manded my fear. " That's the question." 
 
 I could not think for a minute; I was numb. 
 
 There was a brass candlestick on the white man- 
 telpiece a small brass shepherdess within a fence 
 of glass prisms. The light from the street lamp 
 caught upon one of these. My eye fixed itself 
 upon that little, brilliant point of light. It was still 
 everywhere almost magically still. 
 
 I tried to answer; I tried to think, to revive 
 my earlier, surer visions of the Heaven of which 
 I heard the women sing, of which my grandmother 
 had taught me. They sang those songs of Heaven 
 seldom now on the street of white houses. My 
 grandmother was gone, with a different faith than 
 that one she had taught to me. And my own 
 imagination of Heaven had faded. I tried in vain 
 to revive the old images in my mind. The Heaven
 
 The Vagrant Fear 93 
 
 of my childhood was gone, and never after that 
 time did it seem conceivable to me. 
 
 But that effort of my memory reminded me of 
 the Bible; of that text of Mr. Griswold's concern- 
 ing the Celestial City that I read the first time 
 that my fear had come to me. I rose at once, and 
 took the guest-room Bible from where it lay upon 
 the table by the bed. I carried it to the window 
 to the light from the street lamp beneath, and 
 turned again to the last pages of the book, to the 
 Vision of the Holy City that came down upon 
 the earth. I read it all again as I had before the 
 passing of the sea, the brilliant and detailed in- 
 ventory of the city that lieth four-square. 
 
 It seemed unreal. 
 
 " Surely," said my Adversary, " you can't be- 
 lieve that as it stands." 
 
 I sat cramped and cold, leaning the book 
 toward the street light. And finally I stopped 
 reading it, in trouble and depression. It meant 
 absolutely nothing to me nothing that was 
 real! 
 
 I went back to bed again. I was cold, much 
 colder than the summer night warranted. And I 
 lay alone, as I always had before, and fought 
 my fear in its new and triumphant form. 
 
 Two o'clock came, and three. There were occa- 
 sional stirrings. Once Mrs. Griswold had one of 
 her paroxysms of coughing. I heard Celeste mov-
 
 94 The Last Christian 
 
 ing about, helping her, in her room. But mostly 
 silence broken by the hissing of the arc-light on 
 the street. 
 
 But then, at last, it came to me. It was nearly 
 four o'clock, I remember; the first drowsy robins 
 were waking in the trees. 
 
 " Whatever it may mean, it must mean some- 
 thing spiritual," I said to myself. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said my soul, with sudden great 
 delight. 
 
 " We are spirits," I went on reasoning. " No 
 one can deny that." 
 
 " No," said my Adversary grudgingly. 
 
 "And God is spirit, isn't he? That is certain, 
 too. There is certainly no doubt of that." 
 
 " No, there is none," my fear admitted. 
 
 I had found my answer at last. I passed my 
 eye carefully back and forth over the whole thing, 
 over my new defenses. They were all sound and 
 flawless. The Bible, that great barrier, still stood 
 between me and my fear a perfect protection still, 
 although I had not understood it. And again a 
 great wave of happy emotion came over me, as it 
 always did when I had found my defense. My 
 childish Heaven had gone forever; but a new 
 and better one was come in its place. And I 
 raised my eyes, as my grandmother had taught 
 me when a little child, but to a new Heaven, filled 
 with the great mystery of the spiritual presence of
 
 The Vagrant Fear 95 
 
 almighty God. A sense of relaxation and security 
 followed. I fell into a deep, unbroken sleep. 
 
 For many years this new Heaven was to remain 
 with me. I spoke of it very little to any one. It 
 was not a matter one spoke of easily. But on that 
 morning, under the impulse of my great emotion, I 
 did express my new ideas to Celeste Griswold. 
 
 " I have always thought of it in that way," she 
 said. 
 
 I remember just where we stood. It was in 
 the old-fashioned garden behind their house. It 
 was still early morning. The sun was bright. A 
 clear blue sky rose back of the white houses of the 
 Street. 
 
 I was about to go back again to our own house; 
 but, before I did so, I felt that I ought to thank 
 Celeste Griswold for all that she had done 
 that they had all done for me at that awful 
 time. But I did not know just how to begin. 
 
 " Thank you, Celeste for everything," I 
 blurted out finally, and shocks hands with her vio- 
 lently. Then I turned and hurried back to our 
 house. 
 
 My new understanding of religion seemed very 
 sure and real to me then. And yet, even then, that 
 fear was not out of the world entirely. It still 
 came upon me now and then, and still at curious 
 hints. 
 
 There was George Eliot, for example. I could
 
 96 The Last Christian 
 
 not have explained exactly, if I had been asked, the 
 strange effect the thought of her had upon me. I 
 read a great deal more now. At home, the secre- 
 tary, with its books founded upon Bible facts, was 
 still practically all the library that we had. But 
 I rarely opened its glass doors. We had our 
 books from the circulating library now, both 
 Celeste and I. We had long ago come into fiction 
 by the common way of " Ivanhoe." And we had 
 read several of the novels of George Eliot before 
 Mr. Griswold and my grandfather noticed and 
 stopped it. 
 
 "What, reading that woman's books?" said 
 my grandfather. " I guess you can be in 
 better business ! " and took the novel away from 
 me. 
 
 Then there was a sermon by a visiting clergy- 
 man, I remember very well, upon " The Sad Les- 
 son of George Eliot's End." How could a person 
 so brilliant, so wonderful in intellect, willingly deny 
 the truths that made life worth living? Not 
 for pleasure or bravado, but in sadness and 
 regret! How could she die denying the well 
 known historical facts of the resurrection 
 of Christ? 
 
 I did not dwell upon this thought. There were 
 suggestions there, chances for speculation, which 
 troubled me. I stifled it as thoroughly as I could. 
 For now I Understood a new thing about this
 
 The Vagrant Fear 97 
 
 fear of mine. It was not only irresponsible ; it was 
 changing its form continually as it recurred. 
 
 I seemed to see changes everywhere now. I 
 could not help but notice those which were coming 
 upon Mr. Griswold and the old White Church. 
 
 We sat again, I remember, the first year I was 
 in the Christian College, in my grandfather's sit- 
 ting-room exactly the same group as on that 
 day I remembered so well, in the year of the Great 
 Crisis of the Earth all except Mr. Means. 
 
 " I see that Mr. Means is dead," said my grand- 
 father. 
 
 " I had not heard," said President Mercer, in- 
 clining his head politely. 
 
 " It was in the last Congregationalist" said my 
 grandfather. 
 
 " He is dead in Marobi of Nephalobia," said 
 Mr. Griswold. " Dead " 
 
 His speech was interrupted. The trolley car 
 thumped and jarred by our house upon its ill- 
 laid rails. They had put them down on the street 
 that year for the first time. 
 
 " JDead in the thick of the battle," continued 
 Mr. Griswold's sonorous voice, when it had 
 passed. " A soldier of the Most High God." 
 
 " He was a strong, energetic figure," said Presi- 
 dent Mercer. 
 
 " There are not many of them left," my grand- 
 father remarked.
 
 98 The Last Christian 
 
 " No," said Mr. Griswold and stopped think- 
 ing. 
 
 " In his last years I believe he was greatly trou- 
 bled by these new tendencies in the church," said 
 President Mercer. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Griswold; " and well he may 
 have been! " 
 
 Then there was silence. 
 
 " I am anxious to ask you, Mr. Mercer," Mr. 
 Griswold went on, " what has been your observa- 
 tion in the field? What are the signs upon the 
 horizon in our missions? " 
 
 The year before, President Mercer, not being 
 well, had traveled in Palestine, and visited the 
 missionary churches in Asia Minor. 
 
 "There is advance, I think," said President 
 Mercer, " but slow." 
 
 " Slow," said Mr. Griswold, his voice rising. 
 "How could it be otherwise in this time? How 
 can we expect our missionaries to fight the battles 
 of our faith in the mission field, with these sap- 
 pers and miners at work continually in their rear 
 digging and undermining at the Gospel day and 
 night?" 
 
 " I sometimes think we take too serious a view 
 of it," said President Mercer very quietly. 
 
 Mr. Griswold did not answer; but very soon 
 he asked another question of an entirely different 
 kind.
 
 The Vagrant Fear 99 
 
 " I want to ask you," said Mr. Griswold. 
 " This Darwinism this theory is it not the fact 
 that it has had a good deal of a setback at the 
 hands of scientists lately?" 
 
 He asked his question with sudden eagerness, 
 his eyes shining under his thick eyebrows. 
 
 " I was not aware of it," said Mr. Mercer; " not 
 especially." 
 
 His manner was a little different with Mr. 
 Griswold than it had been. A gap seemed to have 
 widened perceptibly between them. 
 
 Mr. Griswold's face showed obvious disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 " I had so understood from what I read," he 
 said. 
 
 " There are many of its hypotheses still to be 
 confirmed," said President Mercer. 
 
 " Do you teach it in your institution?" asked 
 Mr. Griswold aggressively. 
 
 " To a limited extent we do," answered Presi- 
 dent Mercer with dignity. 
 
 " It is a mistake," said Mr. Griswold sternly, 
 " and you will live to see it. The theory is false; 
 untenable. I venture to believe that in ten years 
 it will be utterly exploded. In the meanwhile, 
 there is nothing so unsettling to belief especially 
 in the young that has appeared in our time." 
 
 "Not that," said President Mercer. "Not 
 that. We must not excite ourselves unnecessarily,
 
 ioo The Last Christian 
 
 Mr. Griswold. There is nothing essential, in my 
 opinion, that cannot be reconciled with Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 The bright color of excitement grew on Mr. 
 Griswold's pale face. 
 
 "Are we all becoming blind?" he said in a 
 tremendous voice. " Can't any of us see where 
 they are tending? In the last ten years there 
 has been a general advance against the Bible. 
 They have torn the Old Testament to pieces in 
 the public print. They are advancing against the 
 New. I tell you, if you do not take care, in a few 
 years now they will be at your very citadel at the 
 Resurrection itself." 
 
 He stood up. His hands trembled; there were 
 great drops of perspiration upon his forehead. 
 And I noticed with surprise that he was out of 
 breath. Very soon afterward he excused himself 
 and went home. 
 
 " I would rather see my boy, if I had one, dead 
 before me," said Mr. Griswold, going, " than 
 taught this thing." 
 
 There was a little silence after his departure. 
 To me his outbreak had been most impressive, and, 
 to tell the truth, a little startling. The Resurrec- 
 tion, that historical fact, in danger! Grown boy 
 as I was, my heart sank momentarily as he said 
 it. There seemed no end to the changes that were 
 going on around me.
 
 The Vagrant Fear 101 
 
 " He holds to the old beliefs as fiercely as he 
 ever did," said President Mercer. 
 
 " Yes," my grandfather answered. 
 
 " A lonely figure," said Mr. Mercer. 
 
 " Yes," said my grandfather, again. 
 
 " The last of his kind; I don't know any one else 
 quite like him." 
 
 " They are nearly all gone," said my grand- 
 father. 
 
 " And he himself looks much older now," re- 
 marked President Mercer. 
 
 " We are none of us getting younger," re- 
 sponded my grandfather. 
 
 Their conversation jolted hesitantly along. 
 They both seemed to be thinking. They did seem 
 older all of them. 
 
 " Is his church somewhat declining? " asked the 
 college president finally. 
 
 " Yes," answered my grandfather. 
 
 " I am sorry for him," said President Mercer. 
 
 " I am," said my grandfather. " Mr. Griswold 
 is not a great preacher; but he is a very upright 
 man. I like him the best of any minister I ever 
 knew. You could always-tie to him." 
 
 " And his church will it remain self-support- 
 ing? " 
 
 " We hope so," said my grandfather and 
 stopped a moment. " I would hate to see it go. 
 My father went there," said my grandfather,
 
 IO2 The Last Christian 
 
 " and his father's father." His voice rose a little 
 as he said it. 
 
 The trolley car, coming back from the village, 
 bumped and sizzled by again. 
 
 " I understand," said President Mercer. 
 " Well, it will no doubt eventuate for the best. 
 But for Mr. Griswold I am truly sorry. He can 
 not seem to adapt himself to the times." 
 
 " No," said my grandfather. 
 
 " We can not escape it," said President Mercer. 
 "The times change; and we change with them." 
 
 " Yes," assented my grandfather. 
 
 " In the light of modern research, we can not 
 do otherwise," said President Mercer. " But men 
 like him are unnecessarily alarmed. If modern sci- 
 ence seems at times to take away, it also often 
 adds. And many of the discoveries of our archae- 
 ologists in the East strengthen in a decided way the 
 contentions of our Bible scholars." 
 
 " I see," my grandfather said. 
 
 " But of one thing we may be sure," said Presi- 
 dent Mercer. " They will never, under any cir- 
 cumstances, invalidate the certainty of the Resur- 
 rection. It is as strong to-day as it was twenty 
 years ago." 
 
 He was right. I felt it. And my familiar emo- 
 tion of glad security swept back again, to cover 
 the recession of my spirits which had come to me 
 during the discussion.
 
 The Vagrant Fear 103 
 
 And yet, after all, there was a certain feeling 
 of regret, of insecurity, of apprehension. After 
 all, I remembered them when they all seemed so 
 much younger and more vigorous. There was still 
 that feeling of change and change, too, I seemed 
 to feel, always in one direction. 
 
 It was two or three years then, before my old 
 fear came back to me again so strongly. I was at 
 college, in new surroundings, with new ambitions 
 away from the atmosphere of the old white Street 
 and its Church. 
 
 The old disquiet came over me at times, of 
 course still at queer hints. And then, in my 
 junior year it came again, suddenly, fiercely, from 
 a very odd suggestion. 
 
 I was reading that night Lubbock's book on 
 ants their domestic animals, their harvests, their 
 slaves; their battles and their bridges; their tribes 
 and towns and states. A wonderful, unmerciful 
 book. My eyes held to it, fascinated. And, as I 
 read, a great depression fastened itself upon me. 
 I recognized it at once. I read on until I came to 
 one of the book's rare comments. 
 
 " Thus there seem to be three principal types," 
 the text read, " offering a curious analogy to the 
 three great phases the hunting, pastoral, and 
 agricultural stages in the history of human de- 
 velopment." 
 
 I dropped the book. It was late at night the
 
 104 The Last Christian 
 
 chimes were striking a quarter hour in the tower 
 of the chapel. And I faced myself once more to 
 my old Adversary. 
 
 Insects myriads inconceivable! What were 
 the few billions of the human race who had come 
 and passed upon the earth to these innumerable, 
 manlike intelligences inhabiting the grass? In- 
 telligences yes; undoubtedly. Then why not 
 souls? 
 
 " Yes," said my fear; " why not? Souls just as 
 real as yours." 
 
 It was back again in its full vigor that old 
 fear. No ; started with a tenfold vigor, from its 
 long neglect. 
 
 It was late winter. I was tired, stuffy from 
 indoor life, cramped from my lack of exercise. I 
 broke out, when I could, for hunting in the moun- 
 tains shooting the white hares that lived at the 
 top of the hills. 
 
 You climbed upon snow-shoes up to the spruce 
 woods, a black crown upon the summit. It was 
 wonderfully still when you passed in there. All 
 sounds fell dead, muffled; your voice, even the 
 explosion of your gun one dull report, that was 
 all. The black foliage and the snow muted every- 
 thing. It was like a chamber hung with black, 
 heavy tapestry against all the world that distant 
 world of living men far down the mountain-side. 
 
 The hound in the hard woods, outside the
 
 The Vagrant Fear 105 
 
 spruces, went following the great circle of the 
 running of the hare. You heard his baying dis- 
 connectedly soft, gone in the hollows, passing 
 away; then louder, a little louder as he turned 
 toward you but always muted, dull, unreal. 
 
 I remember how I stood there, that late winter 
 afternoon, in that little break in the spruce woods. 
 The dead trees were down behind me, blown in a 
 tangled mat of trunks and brush, like corn lodged 
 by the wind. The semi-arctic wind whispered in 
 the black branches a faint, intermittent touch 
 and died. The voice of the dog sounded, far 
 away. And suddenly the hare, absolutely noiseless 
 upon its soft feet, like a quick white ghost, just 
 visible, went flitting by across the blue-white snow. 
 
 I fired. I got the thing. It leaped, fell straight, 
 crumpled, a loose, warm mass of fur upon the 
 snow and died. That crumpled thing and I were 
 alone in the darkening clearing of the black spruce. 
 
 I stood there absolutely still. The sound of the 
 shot was dead as soon as it was fired. The wind 
 lisped in the spruce trees and failed. There was 
 nothing new except that small warm ball of fur 
 upon the snow. And yet, the world had changed 
 around me. There was a new heaven, and a new 
 earth. For my fear had leaped back upon me as 
 it had never yet since that first time it had over- 
 taken me in the attic. 
 
 There was a new world, without pity, or re-
 
 io6 The Last Christian 
 
 morse, or interest a million, million creatures 
 passing shrieking on their way to the indifference 
 of death. And I with them. There was no escape. 
 
 " But you are exempt from this," my doubt said 
 sneeringly, " by special revelation of immortality." 
 
 " I believe I am," I tried to say. 
 
 " A special revelation," said my Adversary, 
 " testified to by unlettered Asiatic peasants two 
 thousand ago." 
 
 " It is amply verified," I said, and quickly shut 
 off the discussion. 
 
 It was already growing dusk; the circle of the 
 spruces showed their spires against the old blue 
 sky of the cloudy winter evening. I took the other 
 cartridge from my gun, caught up the warm hare 
 by its legs, and hurried down the mountain-side. 
 
 But the issue was alive now; I could not beat 
 it down. It was not always fear. I had thrown 
 myself upon the thing with the energy of twenty 
 the time when you still have faith that you can find 
 the Absolute, that there is an Absolute, of beauty, 
 of courage, of right or wrong. If it had been 
 nothing else but a search for this, entirely aside 
 from fear or hope, it would still have been an 
 obsession with me. But it was more: it was the 
 thing of greatest consequence in all the world. 
 
 I ranged my old defenses out before me once 
 again. I tried to see again that old Celestial City 
 of the vision of St. John. It was all beautiful
 
 The Vagrant Fear 107 
 
 a promise very beautiful still to the ear. But 
 what did it mean? Did I honestly, fairly place 
 the slightest confidence in such revelations when 
 the times came which tested my belief? 
 
 " No. But still the Resurrection stands a his- 
 torical fact," I said doggedly. 
 
 " Does it? " said my fear. 
 
 I flung myself, in the crude way of a boy, upon 
 my problem. I had no help of consequence. It 
 had been my habit always to meet these thoughts 
 alone. 
 
 I was at home that Easter vacation, and several 
 times I met Mr. Griswold upon the street. He 
 seemed changed to me, leaner, whiter, and not so 
 strong. A strange, old, anxious figure, driving up 
 and down the Street, in a shining old frock-coat. 
 He spoke to me several times, in passing, of the 
 Christian College. He had been a graduate there 
 himself. 
 
 " They are still teaching you this Darwinism, 
 I presume," he said. 
 
 " Yes," I answered. 
 
 " And you accept it, I presume," he said. 
 
 " Why, yes," I said, with some concern. But 
 he passed by me without further comment. 
 
 I met him once again, upon the Street. 
 
 " I am told," he said, stopping me, " that sev- 
 eral times, of late, the pulpit of the college church 
 has been occupied by Unitarians men who openly
 
 io8 The Last Christian 
 
 profess their disbelief in the Resurrection, who 
 state openly that the whole Bible is a myth, the 
 history of Christ a pretty fairy tale. How can 
 they allow this thing? How can they? Are they 
 working to destroy the faith that created the 
 institution? " 
 
 His unrest was so violent, so continual, so 
 disquieting to me. The Resurrection a fairy 
 tale folk-lore! The very sight of the old man 
 accelerated the fever that was working in my- 
 self. 
 
 I read and read, doggedly encouraged, dis- 
 couraged; gaining, losing; working more and more 
 feverishly. For now I thought I saw another 
 characteristic of this fear of mine. Never once 
 had I ever held it back. Steadily, from my first 
 childhood, it had always gained and gained upon 
 me. And yet, I said, making my last stand: 
 " Christianity, that greatest of human institutions, 
 that structure of twenty centuries untrue ! Impos- 
 sible; incredible." 
 
 I dwelt especially, of course, upon that familiar 
 story of the New Testament the story of that 
 wonderful white figure to which, from earliest 
 consciousness, my best emotions had been directed. 
 I read with confidence first, almost certainty. But 
 gradually I lost it. , Piece after piece, it crumbled 
 under my fingers as I caught at it. Try as I might, 
 I could not believe the miraculous story the
 
 The Vagrant Fear 109 
 
 revelation of the Chief of Miracles as history. 
 I knew, at last. The great barrier of the Bible, 
 thinning and thinning, year after year, had gone 
 down utterly before me. And my fear was now 
 upon me in its final form, overwhelming me. 
 
 The recognition of the fact came to me, finally, 
 in a sudden flash. I was going home from col- 
 lege at the end of my junior year. The train was 
 late. I failed to make my last connection at the 
 little junction point and I sat there through the 
 night in that sordid little station. Seats with 
 smooth iron arms and greasy backs. A faintly 
 burning oil lamp before a specked glass reflector 
 threw a half-light over the dark place. 
 
 The great freight engines went crashing by, 
 across the switches, their driving wheels level with 
 my eyes great, sinister creatures dragging their 
 long, rattling loads behind them. 
 
 Two men in smutty overalls, faces smudged, 
 hands brown with grease, came in, lighted their 
 black pipes, and sat there, their tin lunch-pails 
 beside them. 
 
 " Number seventeen just got Jim Dorgan up the 
 line," said one of them. 
 
 " So they was tellin' me." 
 
 " They're bringing him along down now." 
 
 There was a silence. " So Jim got his? " said 
 the other one, at last. " Too bad. What will 
 become of the kids?"
 
 no The Last Christian 
 
 " I dunno," said the first man, and spat upon 
 the floor. 
 
 The dirty station was a trap, a prison. I rose 
 and walked out to the door. For I knew now 
 not only knew, but understood. My last barrier 
 was gone. 
 
 Outside it was an overcast summer night. A 
 round high hill lay black against the sky. Along 
 its base there was the hushed sound of a little 
 river. And between it and me a small flat meadow 
 a faint, light green plain, with the fire-flies 
 weaving in and out above it. Far up the road, 
 the hollow whistle of an engine. 
 
 It was all gone all the foundation of my old 
 Universe, the teaching of those earlier days. 
 
 No, not all. I raised my eyes instinctively, by 
 habit bred into my last fiber, to the sky above me. 
 And a great peace came over me again. I was 
 nothing. I would pass, vanish, and be forgotten. 
 But God was still there, immutable, eternal. 
 
 Tears came into my eyes; and my lips formed, 
 almost unconsciously, in the long familiar words: 
 
 " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GOD OF MY FATHERS 
 
 IT was the middle of the morning when I came 
 through the Street of white houses Sunday 
 morning. The church bell was ringing, loud 
 on the general silence. Mr. Tubbs, the organist, 
 was on the Street, walking slowly toward the 
 church, coming from the village, a Sunday paper in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Well, how are you? " asked Mr. Tubbs, giv- 
 ing me his fat hand. " Glad to see you." 
 
 " Fine," I said. " How is everything here at 
 home?" 
 
 " Always just the same," said Mr. Tubbs. 
 " Just as you see it; just as you see it now." 
 
 The same! Could anything have changed 
 more? It was all changed, all shrunken. These 
 little houses with the white pillars, that little box 
 of a church, were the White Street and the great 
 White Church of my childhood! 
 
 " Say," Mr. Tubbs called after me, " you'll be 
 getting through college next year, won't you? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I got something I want to talk to you
 
 112 The Last Christian 
 
 about sometime," said Mr. Tubbs mysteriously, 
 and passed along. 
 
 Shrunken! The place was not only shrunken, 
 but strange to me this quiet little place, this old 
 New England Sabbath, this strange world-old rite 
 of the seventh day. The church-going folk in their 
 stiff, decent clothes were starting out upon the 
 Street, moving slowly toward the White Church. 
 I saw, from down the Street, Miss Avery in her 
 pink dress, opening the door for one of the con- 
 gregation of the Women who Smiled. It came 
 across me, in a flash, what a queer corner of the 
 world I had sprung from. How singular that I 
 had never seen it so before ! 
 
 And just as I went by the Griswolds' house, 
 hurrying, for I must get to church myself, the 
 door opened, and out came Celeste, immaculate, 
 with that sense of freshness and cleanliness that 
 always marked her. 
 
 We were both a little surprised, I think. 
 
 " Hello, Celeste," I said, dropping my valise 
 upon the walk. Instinctively I held out both my 
 hands to her. Instinctively she gave me both of 
 hers. 
 
 She was a woman grown. It seemed very 
 strange to me. 
 
 I am quite a tall man, much taller than most 
 women ; but her eyes were nearly on a level with 
 my own. They looked at me again with that same
 
 The God of My Fathers 113 
 
 old straight, frank, fearless expression just for 
 the fraction of a second. Then she dropped my 
 hands as suddenly as she had taken them. 
 
 " Gee, I am glad to see you, Celeste," I 
 said. 
 
 I don't think that she answered anything. 
 
 But there had come to me, when my eyes met 
 hers, that old sense of friendliness and staunch- 
 ness and comradeship. How many people, after 
 all, have we in our lives whose eyes we can meet 
 frankly, confidently, without some few with- 
 drawals or reticences ? One or two ? Not three 
 impossible 1 
 
 " You'd better hurry," Celeste Griswold was 
 saying, " or you'll be late for church." It seemed 
 to me her voice was a little low and unsteady. 
 
 I hurried. My grandfather was just going out 
 when I reached the house. But I followed him at 
 once. And there, again, I was in our pew in the 
 old White Church in time for divine service my 
 grandfather still sitting by the door. 
 
 It still seemed very old and odd to me. The 
 little organ sounded tremulous and scratchy in the 
 hymns; the voices of the congregation weak and 
 diffident and old. And over the arch of the pulpit 
 a faint line of discoloration a trickle of yellow 
 water-stain, apparently from some slight leak in the 
 roof reached down and almost touched the old 
 inscription in the Gothic letters :
 
 H4 The Last Christian 
 
 ie Hone tber but tbe Douse of <5oo 
 
 Sometimes, very often now, I was rebellious 
 during services at church. To sit in silence, held 
 in unanswering submission to statements you 
 thought to be untrue not only untrue; far worse, 
 banal ! It was too much. But it was not so now. 
 I heard again, with wistful kindness and regret, 
 the voice of Mr. Griswold giving his old-fashioned 
 discourse in the old church of my childhood. 
 
 He preached, as I had often heard him preach 
 before, on the many mercies of the God of the 
 Covenant, using this time the text of Deuteronomy : 
 
 " For the Lord thy God is a merciful God; He 
 will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor for- 
 get the covenant of thy fathers, which He sware 
 unto them." 
 
 The covenant of thy fathers ! It was a call to 
 emotion, not debate. Across the old half empty 
 church, I saw, in my imagination, all those kindly, 
 earnest people who had worshiped there our fa- 
 thers carrying out the covenant of their fathers 
 with Jehovah, the Most High God. 
 
 Mr. Griswold came down and spoke to me 
 warmly at the closing of the service. He seemed 
 still more changed to me. His skull showed more 
 plainly than ever through the flesh of his thin face. 
 There was perspiration on his forehead, and I saw, 
 with much surprise, that he was panting.
 
 The God of My Fathers 115 
 
 " Yes, that was right," said my grandfather on 
 our way home. " He spends himself entirely on 
 Sunday services. He lies in bed all day long on 
 Monday. He is wearing himself out." 
 
 The afternoon of the next day I went in to 
 see Celeste Griswold. She received me in her 
 father's study that old library of the theologian. 
 I looked around it again the brown-backed books, 
 the prints of sacred ruins on the walls. How it, 
 too, had shrunk from that old, awful sanctuary of 
 supernatural knowledge of my boyhood! 
 
 Celeste, I thought, was rather grave and pale. 
 It certainly seemed strange to me to think of her 
 as a grown woman; a tall, slight woman, with 
 vigorous russet hair and a skin very pale and 
 clear. 
 
 I had not thought, at first, to speak to her of 
 what chiefly held my mind that destruction of 
 my old world. But it was not long before I found 
 myself telling her. 
 
 " Calvin," she said, and her voice rang with 
 a sharp undertone of pain, " it can't have gone 
 as far as that." For she knew already something 
 of my reading I had written her. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh, why must you always hunt and hunt for 
 trouble?" said Celeste. 
 
 " Do I, Celeste? " I asked her. " I don't feel 
 that I do."
 
 n6 The Last Christian 
 
 She looked at me steadily, curiously, with that 
 attitude of judgment, of kindly appraisal, that 
 women often give to men. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " you always did. How can 
 you say you don't believe, when all these men 
 these thousands of men who have given their 
 lives to studying it prove it all to their entire 
 satisfaction? The men, for instance, who have 
 written all these books." 
 
 She motioned with her long hand toward the 
 book-shelves the brown, level lines of the 
 treatises of the dead Doctors of Divinity about the 
 walls. 
 
 " They're all obsolete," I said, without thinking 
 it might hurt her " every one of them. This 
 library all of it is obsolete." 
 
 " That is not so," said Celeste, standing up 
 suddenly. 
 
 " There is not a book here," I went on regard- 
 less for we were very frank with each other, al- 
 ways, "that has been written since 1865." 
 
 " Even so, what difference would that make? " 
 she said warmly. " What are thirty years in all 
 these thousands? " 
 
 " There is a new world in these thirty years," 
 I said. " More changes than in all the time be- 
 fore since the days of the Pharaohs." 
 
 She was the same as she always had been 
 graver, a little pale, not so eagerly demonstrative,
 
 The God of My Fathers 117 
 
 but, once aroused, she burned with the same white 
 fire. 
 
 I went back with her across the field of the 
 debate. She had read many of the same books 
 that I had in the past, but not that recent read- 
 ing of mine. She readily agreed to take it up. 
 
 " I am not afraid," she said. " And I am not 
 afraid for you, except for one thing that you will 
 be too hasty." 
 
 " I will not," I said. And I promised her, when 
 she asked me, to go over the whole matter again. 
 
 " You will come to me, not I to you," said 
 Celeste Griswold. 
 
 "You think that?" I asked. 
 
 " I do not think," said Celeste Griswold 
 proudly. " I know ! If Christianity were not true, 
 why should we want to live? " 
 
 My spirits rose a little at her tense sincerity. 
 After all, there certainly must be a God. At least 
 "That power not ourselves " (I was reading 
 Matthew Arnold) " that makes for righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 The summer was before me; there was time 
 enough. And so I took up again that old, cruel 
 treadmill of my argument. But I did not regain 
 my old ground; I fell away continually. Re- 
 treat always and everywhere retreat ! 
 
 I could see it now, as I looked back, clear 
 back to my childhood the steady and unhalted
 
 n8 The Last Christian 
 
 gain of that fear of mine upon me, from one 
 point to another, never going back. And now it 
 came to me, just as clearly and certainly: that 
 fear, that falling of the barriers which faith had 
 thrown up against it, was just as constantly advanc- 
 ing everywhere about me even in the quiet back- 
 waters of the old Street. 
 
 I walked much in the hills that summer. I had 
 been in and out of them always since I was old 
 enough to hold a fishing-rod across the brooks. 
 But now my unrest drove me in and out across 
 the mountains, thinking sometimes, sometimes 
 trying to forget. 
 
 I was far up one day in a high mountain pas- 
 ture when a sudden thunderstorm rolled up, tre- 
 mendous, white and blue, across the valley under- 
 neath. I stepped into an old black ruin of a 
 haybarn you find them still sometimes in these 
 deserted hills. The warm, dry fragrance of the 
 coarse hay enveloped me. I felt the grateful sen- 
 sation of shelter in a bad storm. 
 
 Then, outside, in the steaming summer rain, 
 I saw a figure coming, a great figure, pounding the 
 grass-grown road, its clothes drenched to a glossy 
 limpness. It was Mr. Griswold. 
 
 I started to call out to him. Then I stopped. 
 He was talking to himself, smiting his big left 
 palm with his clenched right hand. His eyes were 
 absent, staring straight ahead.
 
 The God of My Fathers 119 
 
 " No, no," Mr. Griswold was saying. " Salva- 
 tion. That's the only answer; the one solution. 
 The one and only thing that makes it rational." 
 
 He passed by, striding down the storm, gesticu- 
 lating. 
 
 Strange, I said to myself. Two of us here ! 
 For I saw that exactly the same unrest that was 
 obsessing me was driving him seen in a different 
 form. Continual change, never once turned back, 
 still always gaining in the same direction. 
 
 I did not speak to Mr. Griswold of my own 
 struggles. We were too far apart. Not only I, 
 but his own daughter, saw that clearly. 
 
 " Yes, I understand, Calvin," she said, when 
 I spoke of it. " You can't. 
 
 " Poor father ! " she went on softly. " He 
 seems rough and vigorous still. But he isn't well, 
 not very. It seems as if he were never quiet. He 
 doesn't sleep. He is just wearing himself out. 
 And we can do nothing but sit and watch him." 
 
 I didn't discuss the reason with her. She knew 
 I knew. It was his failing church, of course; the 
 general agitation of his mind by those religious 
 controversies. 
 
 " Have you read the books I've given you? " I 
 asked Celeste Griswold several times. She had 
 one after another; but she would not comment on 
 them. 
 
 " What do you think of them? " I asked her.
 
 I2O The Last Christian 
 
 " I'd rather not talk of them, Calvin," she 
 would say, " until I have read them all more 
 thoroughly." 
 
 " You can't say that they are vindictive or 
 malicious or bad-tempered, can you?" I insisted. 
 
 " Some of them are not," she said. 
 
 " They are as reverent and sincere in their way 
 as the Bible is," I said warmly. I believed that 
 thoroughly. That was the time of the New Ref- 
 ormation you may remember: the rise of seri- 
 ous, determined figures in science and philosophy 
 into the discussion of the Christian faith. 
 
 It was evening, I remember, the time we had 
 that talk summer evening, just after the lighting 
 of the lamps. We sat alone in the old theological 
 library. For several minutes neither of us spoke. 
 
 " I believe," said Celeste Griswold at last 
 her speech was dry and halting, as if it cost her 
 a painful effort to frame the words " I believe," 
 she said, " there is one thing such men as these 
 have never known." She stopped. " Never taken 
 into account." She stopped again. The rhythmic 
 droning of the August night throbbed through the 
 pauses in her speech. 
 
 She sat part way across the room from me 
 a dim white figure on the border of the lamp- 
 light. There was sewing in her lap she was never 
 without work of some kind by her. 
 
 " I mean the knowledge that real Christians
 
 The God of My Fathers 121 
 
 have," she said again. "It isn't reason, is it? 
 We can't prove it. But, oh, Calvin ! I don't think 
 I know ! I have known ever since I was a little 
 girl. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Calvin," she said finally, 
 " that I can't express myself better. I talk so 
 badly with so much difficulty on things like 
 this. It is one way in which I miss the education 
 that I hoped for." Her voice receded into silence. 
 
 There were deep reticences in her always girl 
 and woman; hidden, silent, personal shrines, whose 
 lights showed from without only at the rare dis- 
 turbance of some great emotion. 
 
 And what she said might easily be true. In- 
 deed, the train of argument was already directing 
 itself along those lines in the more abstruse lan- 
 guage of the psychologists to the " subconscious 
 self." The exploration was already well begun 
 of that new, murky country of the instincts and 
 emotions. No one, certainly, who thought, could 
 deny the possibilities of this new field. It came 
 to me, with another uprush of emotion, that here 
 might possibly be a way out that I had not seen. 
 I tried and tried sincerely to sense again the at- 
 mosphere of religion. I even went in to the prayer 
 meetings on Thursday nights. 
 
 How strange they seemed to me after all those 
 years that handful of aging people in the bare 
 vestry; those sad-faced women in black; the bowed
 
 122 The Last Christian 
 
 octogenarian, with the rattling cough; the lean, set- 
 faced man, with the brown beard upon his stringy 
 neck that man with the gift of prayer, who burst 
 forth on every Thursday evening, after the long 
 week's silence, in the rolling phrases of the 
 Apocalypse; and Mrs. Judd, with her white blond 
 hair and red eyes. They were old, all of them. 
 There was but one young person there regularly 
 besides Celeste Griswold and myself the pale 
 and diffident girl who played the cabinet organ. 
 
 I felt sure of one thing I could not help it, as 
 I watched them : I had not been alone in that old 
 fear of mine. Death, the destroyer, the divider 
 of souls the fear of him, the blind hope to escape, 
 was written obviously on too many of those faces. 
 
 I was welcomed very warmly, almost eagerly. 
 Even Mr. Griswold's severe face seemed to lighten 
 up a little when I came in. 
 
 " I am glad you went, if for nothing else. You 
 will never know how much it meant to him," said 
 Celeste. 
 
 But, after all, I saw that it made but little 
 impression on me, that attendance of mine upon 
 those prayer meetings. I could not doubt, at last, 
 that it oppressed me. It started a most depressing 
 train of thought. 
 
 I picked up, one day, it was nearly at the end 
 of my vacation, an old text-book of mine upon 
 the Greeks of the time of Aristophanes. My eye
 
 The God of My Fathers 123 
 
 droned down the dull pages till suddenly they 
 stopped at a paragraph which read, as I rememb.er 
 it, about like this: 
 
 " The religion of the Greeks at this period was 
 well on its decline. The masses of the population 
 accepted it, it is true; but to the educated classes 
 it was grotesque already obsolescent. Neverthe- 
 less, they not only tolerated but supported it for 
 its ceremonial and its disciplinary value upon the 
 populace. The time was yet to come when Attic 
 civilization, freed from the salutary influences ex- 
 erted by religion, however false, would plunge 
 down like an extinguished torch until it died en- 
 tirely, at last, in the gross darkness of the Middle 
 Ages." 
 
 Commonplace enough a sentiment a thousand 
 times repeated ! But it cut into me suddenly like 
 a knife. 
 
 The Universe of my childhood, the strange 
 old cosmic theory of those Asiatic shepherds three 
 thousand years ago ; those gray and sturdy myths, 
 with their roots far down in the foundation of 
 human thought and speech; that wonderful but 
 i curious treasure-house of the spiritual emotions 
 and precepts of dead peoples; the Scriptures; the 
 White Church; the fine white flower of a spiritual, 
 emotional race, so suited for the comfort and the 
 discipline of the rough and brutal and uncultivated 
 ages that succeeded it. But now how strange!
 
 124 The Last Christian 
 
 how inconceivable ! Was some great cycle in the 
 history of man swung around again to the death 
 of another religion? I shuddered when that 
 thought came to me. 
 
 I attended one more prayer meeting before I 
 went back again to college. It was the monthly 
 missionary meeting. The tall, pale girl who played 
 the cabinet organ read an annual review written on 
 old-fashioned bluish-white note-paper. 
 
 " The past year has seen an advance, if not 
 marked, yet noticeable in the field of foreign mis- 
 sions," she began. 
 
 I heard but little more. The imagination of 
 the great reaches of the world untouched as yet 
 by this especial faith came to me ; the twenty cen- 
 turies of hope and effort and endeavor for the 
 saving of mankind. And here in New England 
 its stronghold, this gathering! 
 
 Mr. Griswold spoke to me when I went out, 
 expressing his approval for the first time since I 
 had come there. I was going back to college next 
 morning. 
 
 " We have been very glad to have you with 
 us here, Calvin," said Mr. Griswold simply, and 
 shook my hand. 
 
 I felt a quick regret at the falseness of my 
 position. 
 
 He was stopping, after service, with one of his 
 parishioners an aged woman who caught his arm
 
 The God of My Fathers 125 
 
 continually, and held him to her anxious inquiries 
 over the exact status of the soul in the hereafter. 
 
 Celeste Griswold and I walked out together, 
 across the grass-plot to her house. It was a still 
 summer evening. There was an orange after-light, 
 barred with motionless blue clouds, behind the elm 
 trees. A robin, disturbed, gave one last sharp 
 cry in some tree-top. .Then silence rest. 
 
 " Oh, I can't, Celeste," I said at last" I can't 
 keep up this acting eternally. Sometime or other 
 I must say what I believe. I must leave the church. 
 It isn't right; it isn't honest for me to stay there." 
 
 " No," said Celeste. " Not yet, not yet ! " 
 
 "Can't you see my position?" I asked. 
 "You've read the books I gave you. Can't you 
 see, can't you understand what I mean a little? " 
 
 For I could never get her to discuss those books 
 with me. She had read them all, I knew sitting 
 in her bedroom late at night, reading. I could 
 see her lighted windows. It was the only time 
 she had; she was busy all the day. 
 
 " I understand," she said quietly. 
 
 Then there was silence. 
 
 " But not yet, Calvin," said Celeste Griswold 
 again, suddenly. " Not yet. You know how im- 
 petuous you are. Wait a little longer." 
 
 " How much longer? " I asked her. 
 
 " Not much, now," she said. " You will come 
 back at last. Only wait. It can do no harm. Wait
 
 126 The Last Christian 
 
 if for nothing else," she said finally, " but for 
 the sake of my poor father. You can never know 
 what this has meant to him, Calvin what you 
 have done this summer. Don't trouble him now." 
 
 Strange old man! I thought. He had scarcely 
 said a word to me. 
 
 We were silent again. 
 
 " You are going in the morning," said Celeste 
 Griswold. 
 
 " Yes," I answered. 
 
 She tried to speak several times, I think. 
 
 " You will come back to us, Calvin," she said at 
 last, in a low, level voice. " I shall pray for you. 
 I shall pray " she said and stopped. 
 
 She was very pale a tall figure in a white gown 
 rather old-fashioned. I liked her in those im- 
 maculate gowns she wore and made herself. She 
 was as fine as a tall flower in an old-fashioned 
 garden. 
 
 " I shall pray," she said, and hesitated again, 
 " a little for myself." 
 
 And, as I looked at her in the darkening even- 
 ing, a great sense of all that she had been to me 
 of her honesty, and cleanness, and high courage 
 swept over me. 
 
 " Celeste, God bless you," I said to her. 
 " There has never been a time of weariness or 
 trouble, in all my life, when you were not doing 
 me some great kindness."
 
 The God of My Fathers 127 
 
 And suddenly, without thinking at all, I stooped 
 and kissed her hand, and let it fall again. Never 
 in all our lives together had I attempted such a 
 thing before. Yet, curiously enough, we seemed 
 not to notice it, either of us, as strange, or new, 
 or unexpected. We stood exactly as we had stood 
 before, silent, motionless. 
 
 " You are going in the morning," said Celeste 
 Griswold huskily at last. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 Her white figure passed through the dusk in 
 through the doorway of the old white house.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 MY OWN PEOPLE 
 
 1 TURNED away at last walked slowly back 
 to our own house. I passed up the walk to 
 the side door. And there, across the lawn, 
 was Mr. Tubbs on his piazza, in his old rocking- 
 chair. He usually sat there on pleasant evenings, 
 moving stiffly back and forth like a fat rocking- 
 horse, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes looking 
 straight out into the dark, his feet regularly 
 thump, thump, thumping on the piazza floor. 
 
 He waved his fat hand at me as I went in our 
 door. 
 
 " I'm going to see you some day about that 
 thing I want to talk to you about," he called. 
 
 " All right," I said, and passed in. 
 
 My grandfather was in the sitting-room. How 
 clearly I remember it, even now! How sharply 
 it all sprang before me that day two months later 
 the day that my telegram came ! 
 
 He sat stretched out in his green velvet easy- 
 chair, beside his green-shaded lamp, reading his 
 newspaper. As I came in he looked at me sharply 
 over the rims of his reading-glasses. 
 ia8
 
 My Own People 129 
 
 " Been out to prayer meeting?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. 
 
 If I had lived with him until middle age, I 
 think I would never have answered him without 
 the " sir " that stiff New England symbol of 
 respect drilled into me from babyhood. It was 
 an essential part of our relation. 
 
 " Sit down," said my grandfather, and I knew 
 that he wanted to talk with me. 
 
 I seated myself on one of the lean, slippery hair- 
 cloth chairs. 
 
 " Your religion been bothering you? " asked my 
 grandfather abruptly, laying his glasses upon the 
 marble top of the center table. 
 
 It was an unexpected shock. He had never 
 mentioned the subject before. He had given ab- 
 solutely no sign of noticing my agitation over the 
 decline of my faith. But now that he knew, I 
 could expect only one outcome trouble. 
 
 "Yes, sir," I said; "it has." 
 
 Whatever came must come. I could not deny 
 what I believed or disbelieved. 
 
 " I thought so," said my grandfather. 
 
 I moved a little in my chair, not knowing what 
 to say, or what to expect from him but surely 
 something serious. 
 
 " And so you went to prayer meeting," said my 
 grandfather, " to see what they could offer you. 
 That it?"
 
 130 The Last Christian 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said, wondering at the accuracy of 
 his observation. 
 
 " Did you get any help out of it? " 
 
 "No, sir; I did not," I said a little loudly, 
 with a hastening of my pulse. 
 
 What would he do? He might stop my educa- 
 tion when he knew; throw me upon my own re- 
 sources; cut off my support entirely. I braced 
 myself for what was coming. 
 
 " I see," said my grandfather, his black eyes 
 fixed steadily on my face and stopped there. 
 And still I sat, waiting the strain of attack. 
 
 " I see," he repeated reflectively. 
 
 I looked up at the unexpected tone of his voice. 
 
 " Well, I used to go a good deal," he said, 
 " when your grandmother was alive before she 
 took up that new religion. But lately I've kind 
 of given it up." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I've noticed," I replied and waited. 
 I was puzzled by the trend of his talk. 
 
 "So you've lost your religion?" said my 
 grandfather, " and they can't give it back to you 
 again? " 
 
 " No, sir," I said, my tongue loosened by his 
 unexpected tolerance. " I've tried as hard as I 
 could. I've read; I've listened. I can't do it, 
 sir I can't believe it." 
 
 "You can't believe what?" he asked sharply. 
 The storm had come I
 
 My Own People 131 
 
 " I can't believe " I started. 
 
 " You can't believe what the ministers say," 
 concluded my grandfather. 
 
 "No, sir; I can not." 
 
 " They don't know much about it," remarked 
 my grandfather dryly; " do they? " 
 
 "No, sir," I managed to stammer; "I think 
 not" 
 
 Never, I think, have I gone through so sudden 
 a revulsion of feeling. My grandfather the pil- 
 lar of the White Church, that chief representative 
 of the faith in a world of men! 
 
 " It seems strange," said my grandfather, half 
 musing. " When I was a boy everything was 
 church Sundays and weekdays. Now they seem 
 to be all drifting the other way. The whole thing 
 seems to be kind of running down everywhere, 
 don't it?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," I replied faintly, not yet certain of 
 myself that I understood him. 
 
 " I can remember," he said, " when the White 
 Church was filled full Sunday after Sunday. Now 
 they're trolley-riding, reading the Sunday papers 
 on Sunday anything but church. And the min- 
 isters can't get them back again. 
 
 " No, the ministers don't know much about it," 
 my grandfather continued and was silent, while 
 I tried my best to readjust myself to my new situa- 
 tion.
 
 132 The Last Christian 
 
 I was in a new world. All at once, without 
 the slightest ceremony, this silent superior of mine, 
 this taskmaster and dictator of my childhood, had 
 swung back the gate. I stood for the first time 
 face to face with him, two equals in the world 
 of older men, without reticence or fear or inter- 
 position of authority between us. 
 
 " You say your reading didn't get you any fur- 
 ther? " my grandfather was asking me. 
 
 "No, sir; it led me the other way." 
 
 I looked up as I said it, straight into his eyes. 
 They startled me. Never, before or since, have 
 I seen quite such a look in a man's eyes of hun- 
 ger and eagerness. It focused just for a second 
 on my eyes, and then was averted. 
 
 " I didn't know but what they might have found 
 something, all these educated men something 
 you could really fasten to a little," he said. 
 
 " If they have," I said, " I haven't seen it." 
 
 "No," said my grandfather in a dull voice. 
 " No. I suppose it's too much to expect. But, you 
 see, I'm not an educated man; I have to take 
 what they tell me and think it over." 
 
 He had been asking my advice. Now he was 
 apologizing to me ! I could not fully realize it. 
 
 " It is a good thing, I've found," he said finally, 
 " to keep your mind busy keep occupied. Then 
 you don't get to thinking about it. That's what I 
 find as I get older."
 
 My Own People 133 
 
 Then, as if following his own advice, he changed 
 the subject: 
 
 " Have you made up your mind what you want 
 to do when you get out of college?" asked my 
 grandfather, drawing himself up a little in his 
 chair. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I answered, detaching my mind as 
 best I could from the other train of thought. " I 
 had intended lately I had thought that I would 
 take up biology or organic chemistry." 
 
 I had thought over it a good deal, as a matter 
 of fact, in the last two weeks. It appealed to me 
 at first in this way: after all, if we were to know 
 anything about the matter that was worrying me 
 so, about that most wonderful and important of 
 all things, life, wouldn't the way be eventually 
 to start at the beginning, and study, in the simplest, 
 most direct way, what actual knowledge we had 
 gained of it? Just what it is. Besides, I was 
 naturally interested in biology. It seemed such a 
 big thing, someway. 
 
 " Biology ? " repeated my grandfather. " Some- 
 thing like doctoring. It might lead to that, I 
 mean." He always took the practical view. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said; " it might very easily." 
 
 " I see," said my grandfather, and we lapsed 
 into silence. 
 
 Finally he roused himself and sat straighten 
 
 " There was something I wanted to say to you
 
 134 The Last Christian 
 
 to-night, before you go back to school," he said. 
 
 His voice was dry and level; but there was not 
 a hitch or cough or hesitation that impeded it. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said, waiting. 
 
 " They tell me I'm not so well as I was," said 
 my grandfather. " They tell me I've got a heart 
 trouble." 
 
 I felt cold and scared when he said it. He would 
 never have spoken without some serious reason. 
 
 " Angina pectoris they call it," said my grand- 
 father. " I've had several spells of it this last 
 year. They tell me it gets worse as time 
 goes on." 
 
 " Oh, sir," I said, starting up, " I'm I'm sorry! 
 I hope- 
 It was wicked not a word more could I say. 
 If I could only have taken his hand ! If I could 
 only have had some any expression of my 
 feeling ! I hadn't one. All those years of silence 
 and obedience, all that iron schooling of reticence, 
 stood between us. 
 
 But the strangest thing of all was that I saw 
 I had -no name, even, to address him by. The 
 first name that I had had, the childish " grandpa," 
 had become impossible long before; "grand- 
 father " I found stiff and unnatural. I really be- 
 lieve, by instinct, I would have done as my grand- 
 mother had done called him " Mr. Morgan." 
 But that, too, was impossible. For several years I
 
 My Own People 135 
 
 had avoided addressing him at all by anything but 
 the rigid " sir " to which he had always trained me. 
 
 My grandfather stood up. 
 
 " I thought you ought to know," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said awkwardly, following him 
 and rising to my feet. 
 
 " If anything happens, of course, what I've got 
 is yours," he went on crisply. 
 
 And even after that I could only stammer, con- 
 fusion confounded with emotion, that I hoped and 
 believed that it would be many years before it 
 came to me. 
 
 We talked with great embarrassment; our eyes 
 avoided each other's as we spoke. 
 
 " But you can't tell anything about what these 
 doctors say," said my grandfather dryly. 
 " They're wrong half the time." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I won't see you again," he 
 added. For I would take the early morning train 
 before he would be up again. " Good-by." 
 
 u Good-by, sir," I said. 
 
 We didn't as much as shake hands that night. 
 It was awkwardness on both sides, I suppose; but 
 principally withdrawal on his, I think, after his 
 unusual confidences. 
 
 " By the way," said my grandfather, " that 
 doctor of ours is a good fellow, I always thought 
 don't you? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," I said.
 
 136 The Last Christian 
 
 " If you decide to go into doctoring, or any- 
 thing like that," said my grandfather, " I believe 
 he'd be a good man for you to talk to and get 
 better acquainted with. He's been a good friend 
 of our family." And his sharp eyes dwelt on mine 
 again as he said it. 
 
 "Yes, sir," I answered; " I will." 
 
 " You know, you haven't many relations." 
 
 " No, sir," I said, wishing I could say more 
 of the deep tie that bound us, the last two of our 
 race. But, as it was, I said nothing, finally. 
 
 He went into the dining-room and lighted his 
 kerosene lamp. In spite of the fact that he him- 
 self had brought the electric lights into the village, 
 he still carried his old glass kerosene lamp to his 
 bedroom. It was more economical. 
 
 " Good-by," said my grandfather again. 
 
 His figure went down the passageway with his 
 lamp to his lonely bedchamber at the side of the 
 dining-room. He was whiter than he had been; a 
 little less smart and definite in his movements; his 
 black beard was well grayed over now. But his 
 eye was as black and keen and his carriage as self- 
 confident and determined as it ever was. He 
 passed on through the corridor without turning 
 back. If I could only have stopped him have 
 said some little thing given some little expres- 
 sion of what I felt. But I could not. I had no 
 form to put it in. What dumb fools we are,
 
 My Own People 137 
 
 aren't we we Anglo-Saxon men, in our emo- 
 tions toward one another? 
 
 My grandfather closed his door. Outside, 
 across the road from our silent house, I heard 
 once more the slow, regular thump, thump, thump 
 of Mr. Tubbs rocking upon his piazza. 
 
 I took the early train at two o'clock. And as I 
 went up the street I looked up and saw a light in 
 Celeste Griswold's bedroom, where I knew she 
 still sat reading those books of mine. I thought 
 with regret of the fever and unrest I had brought 
 to her, of the trouble and pain I had caused her. 
 But once the light from her room had left my 
 eye, my mind was back again, ringing with the 
 echoes of the sharp, crisp speech of my grand- 
 father. 
 
 In those next few weeks I thought so many 
 times of him, alone in the old house, with our one 
 old deaf servant, facing by himself what might 
 come to him at any time in one great flash of awful 
 pain, without a tremor in those sharp eyes, without 
 a sound, without faith essentially as faithless as 
 myself. 
 
 It was a grim and unpleasant picture. But in a 
 way, too, it was clarifying and strengthening. 
 Whatever happened, there was one asset you could 
 reserve for yourself your own courage and self- 
 respect. Courage, by all means if the world 
 rattled to pieces about your ears ! He had taught
 
 138 The Last Christian 
 
 me that always, but that night more than ever be- 
 fore. And Heaven knows I needed it just then. 
 For now the vestiges of my old Universe were 
 crumbling fast. 
 
 It was not Christianity now as a supernatural 
 revelation that I even attempted to defend. It 
 was its whole explanation and philosophy of the 
 Universe. I saw clearly that the last and great- 
 est factor in my old belief was going that deep, 
 almost instinctive sense of a personal God, a 
 benevolent, manlike deity, bound to us by ties of 
 affection, conducting His universe with constant 
 care for the individual man, according to the 
 law of love. Revelation and old authority once 
 put aside, what was there to justify such a 
 view? Was it true in actual experience or ob- 
 servation of life, human or animal? Was it 
 even conceivable ? Was it not, the whole idea, con- 
 sidered broadly, just the naive, grotesque, imma- 
 ture notion which would naturally spring up in the 
 childhood of a race one race, of one particular 
 species of life, among who knows how many other 
 million species, known or unknown, living or dead 
 or still to be born in the universe? Gradually, 
 though I still instinctively looked up to Him in 
 time of stress or trouble, God was fading from 
 the sky above me, where He had been watching 
 over me since the dawning of my consciousness. 
 
 When my telegram came, I knew before I
 
 My Own People 139 
 
 opened it. It was signed, as I expected, by Celeste 
 Griswold. In half a dozen hours I was back again 
 in the lonely white house with the pillars. Celeste 
 and her father were waiting for me there. I saw 
 again the stern-faced master of the house, silent, 
 in the great bed beneath the dark steel engraving 
 of the crucifixion. 
 
 I slept again that night, as on the night after 
 my grandmother's death, in the white guest-cham- 
 ber of the Griswolds. It seemed so utterly un- 
 changed in its precise arrangement the immacu- 
 late high bed, the white curtains, the sense of 
 fragrant cleanness. The street light, even, shone 
 exactly as it had shone before in the glass prisms 
 that fenced the little brass shepherdess on the can- 
 dlestick, and flashed the brilliant little point of 
 light upon which my eye focused as I lay there 
 and thought. 
 
 It was all the same but I was changed, abso- 
 lutely. My thoughts were entirely different now. 
 My old fear of death was upon me still. But it 
 was no longer that fierce, boyish emotion, holding 
 in its very fierceness its own eager expectance of 
 relief. Now it was dull acceptance and despair be- 
 fore a final and inevitable judgment of nature. It 
 was, in a way, worse than the earlier emotion 
 more oppressive. But after a while one could 
 sleep. I did sleep. 
 
 There was the usual melancholy pressure of
 
 140 The Last Christian 
 
 the time during those next few days the sense of 
 unreality, of intolerable idleness and reflection, 
 crossed by petty details of household arrangement. 
 It was Celeste Griswold principally who took 
 charge of affairs for me of the management and 
 direction of the house. She looked thinner, a little 
 tired. With her mother's increasing sickness she 
 was under a constant strain. 
 
 And next to Celeste and her father in unusual 
 kindness and support to me came very unexpect- 
 edly the doctor. His face, with its kindly, mock- 
 ing smile, its old expression of the knowledge of 
 good and evil, was drawn and sobered. He was 
 hard hit by what had happened; for there had 
 been an odd feeling of friendship and respect be- 
 tween him and my grandfather. With me, my 
 grandfather had made him an executor of his 
 estate, left as he had promised, entirely to me. I 
 was glad to have the doctor with me. His in- 
 telligence and understanding became almost a 
 necessity. We talked considerably together about 
 my biology about my future plans. 
 
 But, of all that happened in that week, the 
 event I most remember was the last the memorial 
 prayer meeting in the vestry of the White Church. 
 My grandfather was a public figure, in his way; 
 a pillar of support for the White Church; a kind 
 of local magnate of religion. Some expression of 
 public sentiment was demanded.
 
 My Own People 141 
 
 It was quite an occasion, of its kind. Many 
 people attended from outside the church from 
 the village and from the countryside for miles 
 around; for my grandfather had many friends in 
 the country. There were several clergymen pres- 
 ent: President Mercer of the Christian College; 
 Dr. Spurdle, the new minister of the Brick Church 
 in the village, whom my grandfather disliked so. 
 It all seemed strange to me, of course stranger 
 and more old-fashioned than ever. What inter- 
 ested me most of all were those men from the 
 country, those sharp-eyed, grizzled farmers. 
 
 The services were led, naturally, by Mr. Gris- 
 wold. He was much moved. There was the 
 same old extraordinary emotional quality in his 
 vibrant voice. And in his memories of my grand- 
 father, and especially in his prayer for " Thy serv- 
 ant that is gone, and Thy young servant who re- 
 mains to succeed him," he very nearly broke me 
 down. 
 
 There were grief, regret, and rebellion in my 
 heart as I sat there in the worn, familiar place 
 the old church vestry. For twenty centuries men 
 had had this emotional support, this belief in 
 supernatural aid especially at times like this. 
 Now I and men like me everywhere were sud- 
 denly deprived of it. Not by any act or initiative 
 of our own, but by force of the knowledge and 
 the atmosphere of the age we were born into. It
 
 142 The Last Christian 
 
 was, emotionally at least, as Mr. Griswold had so 
 often said, a curse, an actual curse of education. 
 
 My eyes looked about, as I thought it, to those 
 men from the country, those lean, bearded farm- 
 ers with their sharp eyes, their faces crisscrossed 
 by New England weather, their hands gnarled and 
 stained like roots by New England soil as they 
 sat looking straight ahead, their frail, thin, wiry 
 wives, in their best black dresses, beside them. 
 What did those men believe in their heart those 
 men who sat there stiffly, thinking their own 
 thoughts, but never speaking them? What did 
 they believe, really this hard, secretive, skeptical 
 race from which I and mine were sprung my 
 own people? What did they believe? Who 
 would ever know? What is the belief of the adult 
 man? Who knows? Does he know himself? 
 
 And, naturally, as I thought of that, my mind 
 turned back again, as it had through all that serv- 
 ice, to the strange irony of the real situation that 
 formal and pretentious ceremony over the church 
 magnate, the man who at heart was as skeptical, 
 almost, as I myself. 
 
 The service was nearly over now. Many things 
 had been said that should not have been awk- 
 ward, fulsome, grotesque, in bad taste. But I 
 saw my grandfather only as I saw him last, with 
 his lamp, going down the passage way to his empty 
 bedroom. A wave of pride and admiration swept
 
 My Own People 143 
 
 over me, for the silence and grim courage of the 
 man. 
 
 " Whatever you believe, wherever he may be or 
 may not be now, stand up and bow your head to 
 him," I said to myself. " He was a man! " 
 
 And I knew that at heart all those hard-featured 
 people felt exactly the same way. 
 
 There was an awkward pause when the cere- 
 mony was done, and very soon I realized that I 
 myself was the center of unusual curiosity and re- 
 spect. I did not fully sense it at the beginning. 
 
 It was Mrs. Judd who greeted me first, her eye- 
 lids, in her dull white face, raw with another 
 festival of weeping. 
 
 " 'Your grandfather has gone, Calvin. This is 
 now your work your responsibility." 
 
 In my haste to break from her I didn't quite 
 catch her meaning. 
 
 Others followed, to shake my hand : Mr. Doty, 
 with his white vest, his continual smile, led me 
 aside. 
 
 " Some time," he said with deep significance, 
 while I listened blankly, " you and I must have 
 a talk together about what it is best to do concern- 
 ing the future of this church of ours." 
 
 The group of subdued men and women with 
 whom I had met at the prayer meetings in the 
 summer were particularly warm in their greet- 
 ings and their comfort. The man with the beard
 
 144 The Last Christian 
 
 and rigid face and the gift of prayer pressed up 
 to me. 
 
 " Yet we are most thankful to our God," he ex- 
 claimed dramatically, as he grasped my hand. 
 " He has raised up among us a David who shall 
 threefold take the place of Saul." 
 
 Finally, I saw. It was a sequel to my attendance 
 on the prayer meetings with them in the summer 
 a most natural misunderstanding of my action. It 
 was their belief that I, at my grandfather's death, 
 with my grandfather's resources, would be a pillar 
 of their church. I got away as soon as I could. I 
 saw that it was time for me to act. I was in an 
 intolerably false position, and I must end it at the 
 earliest possible moment. I must give up my mem- 
 bership in the White Church. I was no longer a 
 Christian. I certainly could not pose as a pillar 
 of a church!
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE ROAD INTO THE DARK 
 
 THAT night I was to leave again for col- 
 lege, on the early morning train. It was 
 the best train for me, all things considered. 
 And again I was to wait at my own house until 
 train-time. 
 
 That evening, for the first time in that empty, 
 busy week, Celeste Griswold and I were alone, 
 with leisure to talk to each other. 
 
 " I must be going home pretty soon," I said. 
 " You are tired tired to death." 
 
 She had had the management of both house- 
 holds on her shoulders mine and her father's 
 that whole long week. And her mother was a 
 constant care upon her, day and night. 
 
 " Oh, no, not so very," said Celeste. " Stay, 
 please. I want you to stay." 
 
 For a wonder, she wasn't doing any work. 
 She leaned back, her hands in her lap, in an easy- 
 chair. 
 
 " Your mother," I said, reminded of her, " how 
 is she any better?" 
 
 " Not much not much changed," she said. 
 145
 
 146 The Last Christian 
 
 " It's my father now. My father worries more 
 than my mother does, just now." 
 
 " He isn't sick? " I asked her. 
 
 " No not exactly," said Celeste. " I wish 
 sometimes he were. Sick in his bed, I mean, so 
 that we could make him rest. He won't be still 
 now; he can't. He's like a restless spirit, wander- 
 ing about the hills." 
 
 She stopped, and I waited. She was talking 
 low; soliloquizing, almost. 
 
 " Those walks of his if we could only keep 
 him from them," she went on " those tramps of 
 his about the hills. But we can't; we can't do 
 anything with him. Day and night, any time, he is 
 likely to start up and go out. Day or night it's 
 all the same to him. He sleeps so badly now so 
 badly," she said, half musing, half thinking aloud. 
 " And then he comes back, bathed in perspira- 
 tion, trembling, out of breath. With that and his 
 services on Sundays he loses every ounce of 
 strength he has. Oh, you don't know how I 
 worry about him ! " 
 
 " Yes, I do a little," I said. 
 
 " Suppose something should happen to him out 
 there in one of those lonely places," she went 
 on. " He's an old man now, Calvin. His arteries 
 his heart aren't so young as they were. But 
 you can't make him see that. You can't make 
 him take care of himself. He's so careless, so
 
 The Road into the Dark 147 
 
 impetuous, and so troubled now especially since 
 your grandfather died. 
 
 " It's struck him your grandfather's death," 
 she explained, " so much harder than we know, or 
 can know. It's such a shock, a change for him 
 personally, and in the church. He always relied 
 so much upon your grandfather there." 
 
 " Yes," I said, and was silent. 
 
 " These old people," said Celeste slowly, 
 " father, especially, we can't understand how 
 things are changing for them, passing away 
 everything! They change fast enough for us 
 but for them ! " 
 
 " It must be horrible," I said, sensing it. 
 
 " It has been very hard for you, Calvin this 
 week," said Celeste Griswold finally, changing the 
 subject, " with your new faith your change. It 
 has been very hard, hasn't it? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " I have wanted to to ask you," she said hesi- 
 tantly. " Have you come back at all to what you 
 used to believe? " 
 
 " No," I answered. 
 
 " I thought not," said Celeste, and paused. 
 
 " Had you still thought I would? " I asked. 
 
 " No," said Celeste slowly, " not lately I 
 haven't. I have changed somewhat, I think, my- 
 self. I wanted to tell you that, too. It is only 
 fair. I've changed I'm not quite sure how
 
 148 The Last Christian 
 
 much. But some things, I know, I'm not so certain 
 about. Miracles, for instance. Very likely you 
 may be right; very likely they didn't happen." 
 
 " They didn't," I said. 
 
 " But, oh," said Celeste Griswold, " what dif- 
 ference if they didn't? What difference does it 
 make? We still have the real belief the real 
 essence of Christianity. We know that the kind- 
 ness of God watches continually over us, His 
 children." 
 
 Her eyes kindled as she spoke. 
 
 "We can't help but believe that," she said, 
 " while we live. Can we? Can we? " she asked 
 again, for I did not answer. 
 
 " I don't believe that now," I said at last. 
 
 She stared at me for a moment. 
 
 " Not even that ! " she said. " Not even 
 that? " The life had left her voice. 
 
 "Not even that!" I told her. 
 
 She fell back in her chair, with an exclamation 
 of regret. 
 
 " Why a personal God more than a personal 
 devil?" I asked. 
 
 " Don't," she said curtly; " that's blasphemy." 
 
 For several moments neither of us spoke. 
 
 Then I showed her how false my position had 
 become in relation to the White Church, and 
 the absolute necessity of my leaving it. She ac- 
 quiesced dully at first, as if her mind were not
 
 The Road into the Dark 149 
 
 really reached by what I was saying. But very 
 soon she was aroused again a new and differ- 
 ent interest in her eyes. 
 
 " Not to-night," she said decidedly, when I 
 proposed that I should tell her father. " Not to- 
 night! You don't know you don't see him as I 
 do. The last two nights, ever since your grand- 
 father died, he's scarcely slept at all. He was out 
 last night walking. And now again to-night. 
 He'll come in exhausted, entirely worn out. The 
 best way will be to write him a little later," she 
 continued, " after I've tried to prepare him a little 
 for it." 
 
 I promised her I would wait. 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't have him have that strain 
 not to-night for all the world! You see, or 
 possibly you don't see, after last summer, after 
 you went so often to his prayer meetings, he has 
 misunderstood. He's counted so entirely on you." 
 
 " Yes," I said. I saw, of course, that she was 
 right. 
 
 " Now," she said slowly, " it's got to come, I 
 suppose. You know what you must do. But I 
 must save him all I can. That's my part. Oh, 
 I wouldn't have him know about me that I had 
 changed at all." She thought a moment, then 
 went on again: "I couldn't; I couldn't take the 
 risk. I couldn't! That's all. I wouldn't have 
 him even suspect "
 
 150 The Last Christian 
 
 She stopped and grasped my arm. " Here he is 
 now," she said, and Mr. Griswold came into the 
 hall. 
 
 I was surprised, after what she had expected, 
 at the old man's mood when I saw him enter. 
 
 He seemed almost buoyant, in spite of the worn 
 look upon his face. 
 
 " Let me take them, father," said Celeste, 
 springing up and reaching for his hat and cane. 
 For he had walked straight in to where we sat 
 with his hat still upon his head. 
 
 " You see, Calvin," said the old man to me, 
 as he handed them to her, " what goes on here 
 day after day. This girl has charge of everything 
 here. You don't realize what a domestic tyrant 
 she has become since you knew her. Her mother 
 and I have not a word to say about what we shall 
 do in our own household. She manages us both 
 like a pair of great children." 
 
 " Certainly I do," said Celeste, smiling. 
 " Somebody has to." 
 
 He smiled back at her, and reached out and 
 patted her hand from where he had seated himself 
 beside her. 
 
 " I was just about leaving, Mr. Griswold, when 
 you came. I am going out on the morning train," 
 I said, getting up. For I thought it would be 
 safer not to stay and talk with him. 
 
 " Not quite yet, Calvin, my boy," said Mr.
 
 The Road into the Dark 151 
 
 Griswold. " You can stop with us a little while, 
 I think." 
 
 I said perhaps, a little longer. And I saw then, 
 I thought, Celeste's disapproval. 
 
 " I was thinking of your grandfather, Calvin, 
 as I came in of all your race," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold, after a silence. " They have been plain, 
 honest, God-fearing people, all of them. It is 
 something something never to be estimated to 
 have a Godly inheritance such as yours." 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said uneasily. 
 
 " Your grandfather," mused Mr. Griswold 
 " a silent man, not given to words or promises. 
 But what a man he was what a Christian man ! 
 I can not tell what he meant to me, my boy. Of 
 all the men I ever knew, there was no one no 
 one that you could tie to as you could to Calvin 
 Morgan. Of all the men I ever knew, I think, I 
 liked him best." 
 
 The old man's voice grew slow and husky. He 
 was silent, busy with old thoughts. Our eyes were 
 on him Celeste's and mine as we sat silent, 
 waiting, both a little uneasy. I started up, 
 once, to go away. But he still sat musing. I 
 could not get the courage to break in and disturb 
 him. 
 
 " And now you, Calvin I believe God means 
 that you should take his place," he said, rousing 
 himself.
 
 152 The Last Christian 
 
 "Yes, sir?" I said a little awkwardly. "I 
 want to try." 
 
 Celeste Griswold's eyes were on me sharply 
 now. 
 
 " In his business," said Mr. Griswold, " with 
 men with the church." 
 
 I could not quite say yes to that. 
 
 "With the church," said Mr. Griswold, look- 
 ing up quickly when I did not answer; "espe- 
 cially with our church." 
 
 I saw Celeste Griswold's tense look. I could 
 not think of exactly what to say. She started to 
 say something then herself; but her father an- 
 ticipated her. 
 
 " You do not answer," said Mr. Griswold, 
 looking sharply at my face. " But you certainly 
 will not fail us. You are a man now. You will 
 take up, will you not, when you return, the duties 
 of your membership in the Church of Christ? " 
 he asked severely. 
 
 I sat confused, not wanting to answer, un- 
 willing to injure him. But now it was impos- 
 sible to escape. His suspicions were well 
 roused. 
 
 " No, sir," I stammered out at last. " I'm 
 afraid I can't ! " 
 
 "Can't! "said Mr. Griswold. "Can't! Why 
 not?" 
 
 He rose to his feet. Celeste and I followed
 
 The Road into the Dark 153 
 
 him. Celeste was pale and speechless. I myself 
 stood silent. 
 
 " I think I don't quite understand, Calvin," said 
 Mr. Griswold, passing his hand across his face. 
 
 " I am not a Christian I don't believe any 
 longer, sir," I said, plunging. " I can't. So I'll 
 have to give up my membership in the church. 
 So I'll have to leave," I ended lamely. 
 
 "What change is this!" cried Mr. Griswold 
 fiercely. " You told me you told us You came 
 to our prayer meetings all of last summer ! " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Why, sir?" demanded Mr. Griswold. 
 "Were you jeering at us? Were you flouting 
 us?" 
 
 " God knows, I never jeered, Mr. Griswold," 
 I said. " God knows, I wish it were not so." 
 Beside him I saw the white, strained face of his 
 daughter. 
 
 " I see, sir, I see," said Mr. Griswold. " You 
 are one of these modern educated men! You are 
 an infidel, sir an atheist. You are an enemy of 
 the Church of Christ." 
 
 His whole manner of address was stiff and 
 formal. Never before, of course, had he ever 
 addressed me as " sir " or as anything but my 
 familiar boyish name. He never called me by my 
 Christian name again. I had removed myself to 
 another world than his.
 
 154 The Last Christian 
 
 " No, Mr. Griswold; I am not an atheist nor 
 an enemy," I said. " I merely feel I feel that 
 to be honest I must leave the church." 
 
 " Please ! Don't go any further now, father 
 please ! " said Celeste, casting a quick and re- 
 proachful glance at me. 
 
 " No," he answered her, and turned to me 
 again. 
 
 " No," he said to me. " On the threshold, at 
 the edge of manhood, you desert us." 
 
 " I must go, Mr. Griswold," I said. " Can't 
 you see," I went on, "I'm not the only one? 
 There are " 
 
 "No, sir; you are right," said the old man 
 quickly, as if listening for that very thing. " Not 
 in our church. I know, sir. I understand you. 
 We are losing members constantly, I know. But 
 there is a particular reason here in this church. 
 Its pastor is an old man. He can not hold them. 
 He has lost the gift." 
 
 " No," I said quickly, for his self-humiliation 
 was a shocking thing to see. He was trembling 
 as he spoke. " I don't mean that at all. It is the 
 same everywhere in all the churches. Member- 
 ship may increase in places, but the interest is 
 dying everywhere." 
 
 The more I talked the more I blundered. 
 
 " How dare you say that, sir ! " said Mr. Gris-
 
 The Road into the Dark 155 
 
 wold. " How dare you say that of the Church of 
 Christ!" 
 
 " Isn't it the truth? " I asked him for I was 
 excited now. 
 
 11 Must I stand here," said Mr. Griswold 
 sternly, " and listen to such statements from a 
 wayward boy? " 
 
 And almost as he said it he clapped his hand 
 before his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, my God, my God! " he said. " What is 
 upon us? What is upon us? " And he staggered 
 back and crumpled down upon the old sofa by the 
 wall. 
 
 " Calvin ! Help me ! " cried Celeste's voice 
 sharply to me. 
 
 We both sprang forward to support him. 
 
 He sat up almost immediately again. 
 
 " You will excuse me, sir," he said. " I have 
 these dizzy spells occasionally." 
 
 But he kept his hand to his eyes still. 
 
 Celeste sat beside him. I stood awkwardly be- 
 fore them, waiting. 
 
 " But not you, Celeste," said Mr. Griswold 
 suddenly. " Not you, my girl ! You have not 
 changed? I still can trust in you." 
 
 " Have you ever found you could not trust me, 
 father? " said Celeste. 
 
 Another question, not an answer ! I noticed it 
 even then. But he did not.
 
 156 The Last Christian 
 
 " Never, little daughter," he said. " Never. 
 And never will." And he took her hand and laid 
 it against his cheek. 
 
 " And now I think," said Mr. Griswold, slowly 
 rising, " I will say good night. Good night, sir," 
 he said to me. " No, I thank you, I do not re- 
 quire your assistance; I can walk perfectly well 
 now." 
 
 He climbed upstairs slowly and unaided, steady- 
 ing himself by the mahogany railing of the steep 
 old staircase. 
 
 Celeste Griswold and I were silent when we 
 were alone again. There was the strain of great 
 grief in her face; and, more than that, the hard- 
 ness of anger. 
 
 " You could have avoided that," she said. 
 
 I acknowledged that I had been awkward. 
 
 She turned away from me and walked toward 
 the white mantelpiece. 
 
 " Oh," she cried bitterly, " what harm have 
 we ever done you, Calvin Morgan, that you should 
 hurt him so? " 
 
 " Oh, for God's sake, Celeste " I said, pro- 
 testing. 
 
 For it wasn't fair; it was preposterous. The 
 last thing I would willingly have done was to 
 hurt those two people. They were almost the 
 last two friends I had on earth. 
 
 She kept her face still turned from me.
 
 The Road into the Dark 157 
 
 " Oh, what have you done ! " she said. " What 
 have you done ! " 
 
 " I am sorry, Celeste," I said awkwardly. " I 
 am very sorry." 
 
 She did not answer me. 
 
 " You aren't fair," I said, and moved toward 
 her. She shrank away from me without a 
 word. 
 
 " Later when you think it over," I went on, 
 embarrassed, stumbling along to say something, 
 " I will write 
 
 At the word she turned suddenly. 
 
 " You will not write me," she said sharply 
 "ever!" 
 
 " Not write you ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " No, not now," she answered. 
 
 I stood staring at her, for we had written each 
 other always since I had been away at college. 
 
 " Did you think that, after to-night " she was 
 saying. 
 
 " Don't, Celeste ! " I broke in. 
 
 The whole thing seemed so bitterly unjust. 
 
 " Haven't you any eyes for other people, 
 ever?" asked Celeste Griswold. "Don't they 
 exist for you? 
 
 " What do you think would happen to my fa- 
 ther if he thought I was leaving him that I was 
 going away, as you have, to-night?" 
 
 I did not answer.
 
 158 The Last Christian 
 
 " It would kill him," she said. " I believe it! 
 It would kill him." 
 
 We were whispering so that her father would 
 not hear. 
 
 She came closer to me, looking cautiously 
 up the stairway, speaking in a tense, fierce 
 whisper: 
 
 " Do you suppose, now, that I will ever let 
 him have the least suspicion that I would leave 
 him that way? The slightest hint that you had 
 taken me with you even as far as you have taken 
 me? Do you think I could let him see you write 
 me now week after week? " 
 
 "Do you call that honest, Celeste?" I said 
 angrily. 
 
 "Honest!" retorted Celeste Griswold. Her 
 eyes blazed into mine and held there. Mine 
 dropped first. 
 
 " It will be hard enough now, when he thinks 
 it over," she went on after a silence. " If we 
 should write again, how could he help suspect- 
 ing? No, we won't write," she said, concluding, 
 " either of us. That's all over." 
 
 " Celeste " I began. It seemed so unneces- 
 sary, so absurd. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You don't understand," she said. " You 
 can't. You're not that kind; you haven't any 
 imagination that way. Men haven't, anyway.
 
 The Road into the Dark 159 
 
 All gone every one: your grandfather you 
 all left him every one ! " 
 
 She stopped, facing me again; then went on in 
 her fierce, eager whisper: "And now I do you 
 think I would strike him that last blow ! Do you 
 think I would give him one thought one hint 
 of a thing that might torture him to death? " 
 
 She faced me a little longer, while I tried to 
 speak then turned wearily away. 
 
 " No, we won't write again, Calvin," she said. 
 " Good night." She moved back once more to- 
 ward the mantel. 
 
 " Please go," she said very quietly. " Please 
 go. I wish you would go now." 
 
 She laid her arms upon the mantelpiece, her 
 face upon her arms. She was not crying. She 
 stood, her shoulders motionless, perfectly still. 
 
 I started toward her tried to speak. She 
 shrank away. 
 
 "Don't," she said dully. "Don't! Please 
 go." 
 
 I stopped, considered a moment, turned toward 
 the outer door. I thought perhaps she might 
 speak to me. But there was not a word from her 
 not a sound. And so I left the Griswolds' house. 
 I broke finally the last tie to the old White Church 
 of my fathers. 
 
 Outside, the stars shone blurred in a murky 
 sky. I smiled bitterly when I looked up at it. The
 
 i6o The Last Christian 
 
 end had come, a great turning-point in my life. 
 That faith of my little childhood that ancient 
 Hebrew sky, peopled with strange presences 
 with God! All gone; all passed away for me 
 like some dead mythology! No doubt, some- 
 where, God existed. But what could we know of 
 Him? How could we know? 
 
 It was warm still an unseasonably warm night 
 for October. As I passed up the walk to my 
 vacant house, I became conscious of the presence 
 of Mr. Tubbs rocking upon his piazza. 
 
 " Say," called Mr. Tubbs. " Come over here 
 a minute, will you? 
 
 " Say, you know that thing I've been going to 
 speak to you about? " he said to me when I had 
 gone over. " Well, this is what it is I wanted to 
 ask you. Did you ever think of joining the Odd 
 Fellows? You ought to. They're a great, big, 
 strong organization. Any man who can ought to 
 consider it anyhow. 
 
 " Think it over," said Mr. Tubbs, when I left 
 him. " Think it over." 
 
 He was saying it as I passed into my empty 
 house. He stopped as I closed the door. But I 
 could still hear the thump, thump, thumping of 
 his feet as he rocked on nowhere, through the 
 dark.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE VALE OF PEACE 
 
 1 SHALL never forget the strange and com- 
 plex emotions of those next few months. In- 
 deed, they persist in me still though natu- 
 rally less fresh and poignant. 
 
 I had given up my belief in Christianity; nor 
 have I ever since regained it. Intellectually I 
 held, and still hold, that the old Universe I was 
 born into is inconceivable to-day that our pres- 
 ent knowledge shows that it does not exist. 
 Emotionally, by habit almost as deep as instinct, 
 it still persisted. Still, instinctively, under emo- 
 tional stress, I raised my eyes upward to a per- 
 sonal God seated in the heavens ; still, instinctively, 
 I hoped that somewhere those other human beings 
 whom I had loved and lost existed yet were not 
 extinguished at their death, as were the countless 
 multitudes of other living things. 
 
 And so, for months at least, I was in this curi- 
 ous situation: The old Universe, which I had 
 given up because of its non-existence, still existed 
 for me in my instincts and emotions. I was an 
 exile, a self-banished, spiritual exile into another 
 
 161
 
 1 62 The Last Christian 
 
 Universe which my intellect said was real, but 
 which my whole heart revolted against. 
 
 I know that there is an immature, rather pa- 
 thetic form of bravado which affects to leave 
 Christianity with joy, and goes off whistling into 
 the dark. But it is not really so, I believe, with 
 the thousands and thousands of men who, openly 
 or secretly, are going now the way I went. They 
 have gone all of them, I think with great re- 
 gret. Why should it be otherwise? Why should 
 the individual human being go out willingly from 
 that old Universe of Christianity, nicely fitted up 
 by the dearest, deepest hopes and longings of the 
 race to be the home of Man, into a new, hostile, 
 and unaccustomed Universe a vast, unexplored 
 space of warring forces, in which the human in- 
 dividual is as negligible as an ant. 
 
 But it is more than regret that remains or 
 it was with me. You can not turn off a man's 
 belief, like water from a faucet nor any other 
 deep habit of mind, I suppose. Old trains of 
 thought, old emotions, old longings remain and 
 old viewpoints, curious and illogical, but perfectly 
 sincere. 
 
 Occasionally there came back to me again that 
 speculation of the summer. Was I witnessing the 
 disintegration of another great faith the first 
 rapid progress of the fading away of the Chris- 
 tian religion from the earth? The idea still
 
 The Vale of Peace 163 
 
 shocked me terrified me in a way, despite the 
 fact that I myself had just formally renounced my 
 belief. 
 
 I had had acknowledgments of my withdrawal 
 from the White Church soon after my last inter- 
 view with Mr. Griswold, sent both by the clerk 
 of the church and by Mr. Griswold himself. Be- 
 sides these, I had no letters from the Street of 
 white houses with the sole exception of two from 
 the doctor. From Celeste Griswold I had not 
 heard at all. It was as if a heavy door had closed 
 between me and all my past. I was alone left to 
 work out, essentially by myself, a way into the 
 new and uncertain Universe where my loss of 
 faith had left me. 
 
 I was lonely, rebellious, melancholy, with the ro- 
 mantic, melodramatic melancholy of youth. But, 
 after all, I had the life and hope of twenty-one; 
 and I had, too, a restless and eager curiosity 
 which I know now has always been unusual, per- 
 haps abnormal, with me. My apprentice work in 
 the science of life held me more and more: I spent 
 my two short vacations of that last college year 
 at it, and I now planned definitely to carry it fur- 
 ther by studying in Germany. 
 
 And so it was the next summer after my gradu- 
 ation before I returned to the Street of white 
 houses again and then only preparatory to my 
 start abroad.
 
 164 The Last Christian 
 
 It seemed very still the afternoon I returned 
 there still with the silence of a dozing, aging 
 country town. The pitiless scrutiny of a sum- 
 mer afternoon sun shone upon the dusty street. 
 There was no doubt of it the place grew shabby. 
 
 The trolley car that had brought me thumped 
 and jarred its way into the distance. There was 
 a woman somewhere, singing in an old, cracked 
 voice that favorite, mysterious song of my child- 
 hood: 
 
 "Shall we gather at the river?" 
 
 I stopped and listened. I had not heard that 
 song before in years. 
 
 An old cat lay stretched out, cooling upon a 
 stone in the shadow of our house; a horse 
 stamped ; somewhere from the elm trees the song 
 of the vireo came to me again through the hot, 
 still air. But nowhere was any one in sight. 
 
 I went into the old house with the white pil- 
 lars my house now. Our old servant, the deaf 
 old " hired girl " who kept it open, greeted me. 
 She lived alone in the kitchen. The old house was 
 closed in front, like so many houses in old New 
 England, apparently all dark and dead, but still 
 with just one spark of old life at the back. 
 
 I came out again, oppressed; and there, at 
 last, was a human being. Mr. Tubbs, the organ- 
 ist, sat on his porch, across the lawn, his carpet
 
 The Vale of Peace 165 
 
 slippers on his feet. I went over to sit down with 
 him. 
 
 " Well, well, how are you? " said Mr. Tubbs, 
 rising slowly from his old rocker. 
 
 "Fine," I said. "How's everything here?" 
 
 " Just the same just the same," said Mr. 
 Tubbs. " Nothing new." 
 
 " That's good," I said. 
 
 "No excitement; no excitement at all," said 
 Mr. Tubbs, " since the time you nearly closed 
 up the White Church." 
 
 " Closed up the White Church ! " I said. " I ? " 
 
 " That's what they tell me," said Mr. Tubbs 
 imperturbably. 
 
 "How?" I asked. 
 
 " Your grandfather just about supported it, 
 didn't he?" asked Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 " He gave a good deal, I suppose," I an- 
 swered, beginning to understand. 
 
 " Well, I suppose they counted on you to do 
 the same," said Mr. Tubbs. " Of course, I don't 
 know anything about it," he hastened to explain. 
 " I just take what they tell me." 
 
 My mind was occupied with the possibilities 
 he had suggested. 
 
 " There was a good deal of talk about it," 
 said Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 "Was there?" I said absently. 
 
 " Yes ; there was a lot of it, when you left.
 
 1 66 The Last Christian 
 
 I don't believe I ever got the straight of it. Did 
 you resign? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Tubbs. " So you re- 
 signed from the church. What did you resign 
 for, when you were once in? " 
 
 "They're all right now, are they?" I asked, 
 rousing myself. "The church, I mean?" 
 
 " Oh, I guess so," said Mr. Tubbs. " I'm get- 
 ting my money regular from them; I know that." 
 
 " That's good," I said. 
 
 " And they're going to have the ordination of 
 the new minister next week." 
 
 "The new minister!" I said. 
 
 "Why, yes," said Mr. Tubbs. "Old Gris- 
 wold resigned, and they've got a new one now. 
 The old man is going to be a kind of assistant 
 kind of retired on a pension, you might say. They 
 call him some name emeritus; that's it, ain't it? 
 pastor emeritus. Why, you knew that, didn't 
 you?" asked Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 " No," I said. It certainly was strange that I 
 had not heard it, in some way. 
 
 " Is that so? " said Mr. Tubbs, with the natu- 
 ral satisfaction of one who bears important news. 
 
 " Yes," he went on, enlarging it. " You ought 
 to have seen the old man at the first of it. He 
 almost went crazy when they talked about closing 
 up his church, at the start there. Crazy tramping
 
 The Vale of Peace 167 
 
 up and down the town like a lunatic. Queer old 
 codger, ain't he? I like him, too. But he's a 
 kind of a crank, aint he? " 
 
 "What are they living on his family?" I 
 asked quickly. 
 
 " I guess it was pretty hard sleddin' for a while 
 for him and his sick wife and that girl of his," 
 said Mr. Tubbs. " They were poorer'n poverty. 
 I guess the girl took the brunt of it; she had to. 
 The old man's a child in money matters. He al- 
 ways gave away everything he could lay his hands 
 on. But she's smart a smart girl," said Mr. 
 Tubbs, winking broadly at me. "Ain't she, eh? 
 I guess I don't have to tell you. 
 
 " She kept them going some way," he went on, 
 when he received no response from me " patchin' 
 and darnin' and fixin' them up. I don't believe 
 they've got anything on that ain't been turned 
 three times. But now I suppose it'll be different; 
 I suppose they'll have a little ready money." 
 
 I got up and left him and went home. I wanted 
 to be alone. What had I been responsible for 
 how much? What had I done to the White 
 Church to its minister to Celeste Griswold? 
 Had I, for all these months, been an unconscious 
 instrument in the hands of fate for their destruc- 
 tion? 
 
 So that first afternoon, although it was already 
 quite late, I found myself in the office of Mr.
 
 1 68 The Last Christian 
 
 Doty, the new chief magnate of the White Church, 
 in his growing and ever more prosperous stomach 
 bitters factory. 
 
 "Come right in; sit right down," said Mr. 
 Doty heartily taking my hand into both of his 
 white, soft palms. His big face, his white tie and 
 waistcoat, his close, iron-gray side-whiskers even, 
 radiated prosperity and an almost wanton good 
 will. His left hand traveled to my shoulder while 
 his right still heartily shook mine. 
 
 " Well, yes," he said, when the first excess of 
 greetings had passed away and I had asked my 
 question. " Your going, or your grandfather's 
 going whichever way you put it almost closed 
 us up." 
 
 His manner changed entirely as we came down 
 to talking business. His eyes were shrewd and 
 confident ; his speech was terse and to the point 
 stripped at once of all superfluous ornament. 
 
 " Yes, it did look pretty dark for a while there 
 after you left us," said Mr. Doty. " What did 
 you do it for, young man? " he said, interrupting 
 himself. "What did you do it for? I never 
 could understand." 
 
 I murmured something. 
 
 "Well, anyway," went on Mr. Doty, after 
 listening attentively to it apparently in vain 
 " anyway, you almost closed us up. The first 
 thing I knew was Mr. Griswold coming to me to
 
 The Vale of Peace 169 
 
 resign just after you went back to college. Why, 
 it was the morning after you left!" said Mr. 
 Doty, remembering. 
 
 " * I'm too old,' he said. ' I should have gone 
 long ago. God's judgment is on me for remain- 
 ing. New blood, new blood ! ' he kept saying. 
 * You've got to have a younger man.' 
 
 "I saw I couldn't talk to him then. I never 
 saw a man in such a state. He was shaking all 
 over. His skin was as yellow as saffron. So, 
 finally, I sent him away, and said we would con- 
 sider it. We all thought that he would stay on 
 and finish out his thirty years, anyway. 
 
 " But when we came to look into it," said Mr. 
 Doty, settling down into his chair and putting his 
 finger-tips together before his face, " the old man 
 was right: something had to be done. I'll tell 
 you," said Mr. Doty. " It looked so bad there, 
 first off, that we just about settled it that there 
 was nothing to do but shut up the old church. 
 Shut it up and all go over to the Brick Church 
 in the village over to Dr. Spurdle's." 
 
 He stopped and looked at me. 
 
 " Now, there's the man you ought to have seen 
 about those doubts and qualms of yours," said 
 Mr. Doty. " He'd have straightened you out 
 quicker than scat. He'd put you on firm founda- 
 tions again. There's a man that's educated with 
 the best of them."
 
 170 The Last Christian 
 
 He stopped again. To my surprise, he began 
 to laugh. " Excuse me," he said. 
 
 "What is it?" I asked him. 
 
 " I was thinking of something your grand- 
 father said about him once about that lecture of 
 his, * The Message of Sordello.' 
 
 " * Who is this Sordello he keeps talking 
 about?' said your grandfather. 'Some Italian, 
 eh? Well, what's that got to do with religion? ' 
 Your grandfather didn't like Spurdle," explained 
 Mr. Doty, " because he wore a ring, and parted 
 his hair in the middle. But, just the same, Dr. 
 Spurdle's a coming man," affirmed Mr. Doty 
 again. " And I've seen a good many ministers. 
 I know them. I've been on a good many com- 
 mittees to choose them before I came here." 
 
 All I knew of the Rev. Dr. H. Wingate Spur- 
 dle were his Browning lectures. 
 
 " Now you know what the sensible thing for us 
 to do was," said Mr. Doty, " just as well as I do. 
 It was just as I said : to close up this church close 
 it up and cut down your overhead charges. There's 
 room enough for us all in Spurdle's church, and 
 to spare. What's the use of two plants, when one 
 will do? Cut down your overhead charges," said 
 Mr. Doty; " that's what I believe in everywhere. 
 It's good business; it's good common sense." 
 
 " But the question was," went on Mr. Doty, 
 "what were we going to do with the old man?
 
 The Vale of Peace 171 
 
 You couldn't turn him out not after all those 
 years, could you? Especially when everybody 
 knew he hadn't got a dollar. You couldn't, could 
 you?" 
 
 " No," I said emphatically. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Doty. " It didn't seem right 
 Nor closing up the old church, either when you 
 came right down to it. That's one of the oldest 
 churches in the State; did you know it?" 
 
 I said I had thought so. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Doty. " Oh, it wasn't easy. 
 But we thought we'd have to do it. But then, all 
 at once, the old man started out himself. We 
 didn't tell him about our idea at first; but he got 
 hold of it somewhere, and he came right over to 
 my house to see me about it before breakfast. 
 He didn't give me time to get up. 
 
 " He was like a madman that morning," said 
 Mr. Doty, smiling reminiscently. 
 
 " ' No, Mr. Doty, never! ' he said to me. ' As 
 God is my witness, never ! You shall not close up 
 our church.' 
 
 II He was just as headstrong about Dr. Spurdle. 
 He couldn't talk about him, even, without shout- 
 ing. 'My people under that man?' he said. 
 ' No ! ' He doesn't like him any more than your 
 grandfather did. He says he preaches Robert 
 Browning instead of Christ crucified," explained 
 Mr. Doty, smiling again.
 
 172 The Last Christian 
 
 I could almost hear Mr. Griswold saying it. 
 
 " ' What'll you do? ' I asked him," Mr. Doty 
 continued. " ' We've got to have money and 
 quite a lot of it.' 
 
 " ' Money ! ' said the old man. * What is money 
 to our God? We can do it,' said the old man. 
 
 " He used to come around to see me every 
 morning, repeating it : ' We can do it, Mr. Doty. 
 We can do it. It'll all come right.' 
 
 " Well, we did," said Mr. Doty, " finally. But 
 we never would have without the old man. He 
 must have been a strong, powerful man in his 
 day," commented Mr. Doty. " I never saw any- 
 body like him. He wore us all out getting that 
 money. He was at it night and day till finally it 
 came. But it 'most killed him getting it. Toward 
 the last of it he trembled so, I thought he must 
 have the palsy. But he kept right at it. He got 
 money out of people who never gave a dollar be- 
 fore in their lives." 
 
 " He didn't ask me," I said. 
 
 " Well, no," said Mr. Doty. " No. We spoke 
 of that. But Mr. Griswold wouldn't have it. He 
 said the Church of Christ couldn't take the money 
 of an infidel. Those are his words, you under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Yes, I understand," I assured him. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Doty; "finally we raised it. 
 We raised quite a good deal by subscription, and
 
 The Vale of Peace 173 
 
 then some of us took a mortgage on the church 
 property. Well, we got the debts pretty well 
 cleared up. And then then the old man was go- 
 ing to step down and out, anyway. 
 
 " * Young blood; that's what you got to 
 have,' he kept saying. * I'm too old ; my time 
 is past.' 
 
 " But, of course, we couldn't hear to his leav- 
 ing us entirely," said Mr. Doty. " That wouldn't 
 do not after all he had been doing. So then, 
 finally, we fixed it up this way: we took his old 
 salary, twelve hundred dollars, and gave him five 
 hundred dollars of it. And the rest we took and 
 got a young minister just out of theological 
 seminary." 
 
 " Can the Griswolds live on five hundred dol- 
 lars a year? " I asked. 
 
 " He says they can," said Mr. Doty. 
 
 " What kind of a man is the new minister? " 
 I asked, after a little wait. 
 
 "Mr. Millett?" said Mr. Doty. "Oh, he's 
 a good young man. But, when you think of it, 
 what can you get for seven hundred dollars a 
 year? You can't get much of a preacher nowa- 
 days for that money, can you ? " 
 
 " No," I replied. 
 
 " No. And you don't seem," he said reflec- 
 tively, " to have so much to pick from, anyhow, 
 as you used to. They don't seem to get such good
 
 174 The Last Christian 
 
 stock into the ministry as they did. Do you think 
 so?" 
 
 " No," I said, " I do not." 
 
 " No; I tell you," continued Mr. Doty, getting 
 up and closing his desk, " about all we can expect 
 now is to keep the old church going while Mr. 
 Griswold lasts. 
 
 "Well, shall we walk along home together?" 
 asked Mr. Doty then. His manner was changed 
 once more from the business to the personal. 
 He was fixing the collar of my coat. 
 
 " I want you two men to get together, my boy 
 you and Dr. Spurdle," he said solicitously. " I 
 want you to have a talk with him some time. He'll 
 fix you up; he'll fix you up in two shakes of a 
 lamb's tail. You'll be back with us yet." 
 
 He left me, with this hope, at my gate. I went 
 in, and up to my own old room ; and sat down to 
 try and think the situation out. It was supper- 
 time before I had got anywhere. 
 
 After supper Mr. Tubbs called me over to 
 his porch across the lawn. His sociability grew 
 already a little oppressive. For he was more 
 than agreeable ; he was hungry for companionship 
 in his vigil up on his porch and an opportunity 
 to talk. He conversed equably and endlessly 
 on local history, from the text of occasional 
 passers-by. 
 
 ,The bell of the White Church began to ring, as
 
 The Vale of Peace 175 
 
 he talked arousing again a thousand memories, 
 bringing back again the whole atmosphere of my 
 childhood. I realized that it was prayer meeting 
 night. And soon we saw passing the few attend- 
 ants the women in black gowns, the three or 
 four bent old men the same old, slow, black- 
 clothed flock of Mr. Griswold's Thursday evening 
 meetings, but smaller, a little smaller, always 
 dwindling year by year. 
 
 " The old man still keeps going," said Mr. 
 Tubbs. 
 
 I looked down the street, and saw Mr. Gris- 
 wold, with his Bible in his hand. He seemed a 
 little less steady in his walk. 
 
 " He's getting kind of wabbly," said Mr. 
 Tubbs. " He's aged a lot these last six months." 
 
 And, as he spoke, it struck me that I had 
 not seen Celeste Griswold going in to the 
 service. 
 
 "No; she stays at home with her mother," 
 said Mr. Tubbs, to my question. 
 
 " I believe," I said, more or less transparently, 
 a little later, " I'll walk down the street a while." 
 
 Mr. Tubbs took my departure as something to 
 be expected. But when I was half way down his 
 walk he recalled something. 
 
 " Say, you ain't forgot about the Odd Fellows, 
 have you?" called Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 " No," I said, stopping and turning around.
 
 176 The Last Christian 
 
 44 We're gettin' stronger'n ever in this town," 
 said Mr. Tubbs. 44 Some day and it ain't so far 
 off, either we're going to have our own hall here, 
 so we'll have an agreeable meetin'-place for every- 
 body." 
 
 I walked along. 
 
 I had not known what I should do about seeing 
 Celeste Griswold, after that long silence of hers. 
 I had debated it many times. But now it was no 
 longer a matter of debate. Now that I was here, 
 an impulse stronger than myself moved and con- 
 trolled me. I remember well the crunch of my 
 feet upon the gravel walk of the parsonage the 
 curious little catch in my breath as I went up the 
 steps. Through the low window of the old house 
 I could see Celeste inside, sewing. 
 
 I knocked, stepped up, and stood in the open 
 doorway. She rose, unconscious of my presence 
 there or in the town, and came toward me. There 
 were a number of greetings I had practised in 
 my mind before our next meeting bitter, gener- 
 ous, flippant. All that I really said was u Celeste " 
 a little hoarsely. 
 
 She said nothing at all. Her hand came up 
 before her face with a sudden motion of warding 
 me away. 
 
 44 May I come in? "I asked. 
 
 44 Yes," answered Celeste in a low voice. 
 
 44 1 was not sure," I stammered.
 
 The Vale of Peace 177 
 
 "Sure?" she asked, in a somewhat louder 
 tone. 
 
 " That I should be welcomed." 
 
 "Please don't! " she said. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Celeste," I replied. 
 
 " We're not like that you know it," said 
 Celeste Griswold's clear voice, with a touch of 
 quick resentment. 
 
 " I could scarcely blame you if you were, 
 Celeste," I said. 
 
 We had seated ourselves, without even, as I 
 remember, shaking hands. 
 
 " The first thing I want to say," I went on hur- 
 riedly, " before anything else, I want to tell you: 
 I did not know I hadn't the slightest idea of 
 what had happened here until I came this after- 
 noon. I didn't even know your father had 
 resigned." 
 
 She glanced up. Her eyes, clear and direct, 
 met mine then looked down again. 
 
 " How is your father, Celeste? " I asked. 
 
 " Pretty tired," she answered. She had taken 
 her sewing into her lap again. 
 
 " Celeste," I said, " I can't tell you how sorry I 
 am how disgusted with myself for causing him 
 all that trouble." 
 
 " You didn't cause it," said Celeste. She had 
 begun to sew now. 
 
 " I set it going," I said.
 
 f7$ The Last Christian 
 
 " No," said Celeste, letting her work drop into 
 her lap again. " I thought so at first. But it 
 wasn't so. If anything, I should beg your pardon 
 for my quickness that night. But you know how 
 I am. When you hurt my father so, I couldn't 
 bear it. I can't ever bear to see him hurt at all. 
 And when he fell " 
 
 " I know," I said. 
 
 " But it wasn't your fault," she went on; "I 
 saw that long ago. Nor " 
 
 " Yet you didn't write," I said quickly. 
 
 "I couldn't write; you know that," said Ce- 
 leste Griswold, looking up at me again. " I can't 
 write you now." 
 
 " The church is still to go on? " I asked, after 
 a silence. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " It will never be the same to me," I said, 
 " without your father." 
 
 I never could, as a matter of fact, think of one 
 without the other. But then I thought how 
 strange that might sound from me now. 
 
 " For I do think a great deal of the church 
 and of your father, Celeste," I added. 
 
 " I know you do, Calvin," she said quietly. 
 
 " I want to ask you something," I said at last. 
 " You know, I've got my grandfather's money now 
 all of it. And since I've had it the church hasn't 
 had any the way it used to with him. That's
 
 The Vale of Peace 179 
 
 what I've done that's what happened. Isn't it? 
 I didn't understand not until to-day. But it is 
 as if I had taken it away from the church, and 
 from your father " 
 
 Celeste had stopped sewing and was looking at 
 me keenly. She did not speak; she waited. I 
 stumbled on, embarrassed. 
 
 " And his work, I mean," I added. " Now, Ce- 
 leste, what I thought was this that is, perhaps 
 you would do it, I mean. Now, can't you think 
 up some way for some of that money to go to the 
 White Church? That your father would let them 
 take it, I mean to say. 
 
 " Yes," I said, hurrying, " and that some of it 
 would come to him, too. It's a shame, the way it 
 is," I went on, getting more excited and confused. 
 " It isn't fair, the way it is. They haven't given 
 him anything much the church. And here I have 
 this more than I want. And I thought " 
 
 " We are not beggars," said Celeste Griswold, 
 flushing. 
 
 "Oh, Celeste!" I said. 
 
 She was so quick, always. 
 
 " He wouldn't take it. Nor the church, either," 
 she said and stopped. 
 
 Then suddenly she laughed seeing my face, 
 I suppose. 
 
 " The same boy," she said. " The same old 
 dreaming, impractical boy. Look, Calvin. How
 
 i8o The Last Christian 
 
 could we take your money? Put yourself in our 
 place." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Celeste," I said. 
 
 " Don't," she said " don't do that again. I 
 am afraid it is I again who ought to beg yours. 
 You are generous. You always were." 
 
 " No," I said. " I was responsible, in a way, 
 for everything." 
 
 " No," said Celeste Griswold. " I've thought 
 it over a great many times. It is not your fault, 
 nor mine nor any one's. It's something else 
 something bigger than ourselves." 
 
 " It's inevitable," I said, suddenly sensing it. 
 " It's the times the spirit of the times." 
 
 She gave a little start; I asked her why. 
 
 " Nothing," she said; " nothing, except that you 
 said it in exactly the same words that came to me. 
 It is inevitable. It isn't ourselves; it is every- 
 thing that surrounds us. It carries us along 
 with it. 
 
 " No," she said, musing; " it's no one's fault 
 neither yours nor mine. It's inevitable; that's it. 
 Life takes people that way, doesn't it ? And turns 
 them in different directions? You and I are on en- 
 tirely opposite paths; that's all." 
 
 " No," I said quickly. 
 
 " Could they be more different? " she asked. 
 " You're going to Germany, they say, to study that 
 new thing, that last new knowledge of the world
 
 The Vale of Peace 181 
 
 of which I shall know nothing, ever, I suppose. I 
 shall stay here with my father and his church." 
 
 "No; I don't believe it," I said. 
 
 " Excuse me," said Celeste and got up. 
 
 .There was some one at the door, a woman 
 whispering, I gathered, about her mother's 
 health : " How is she feeling to-night? Is she hap- 
 pier? No, I won't come in, thank you. I just 
 thought I would ask." 
 
 It seemed to me, as I listened, that it was Miss 
 Avery's voice speaking. Celeste came back again 
 when she was gone. She seemed a little troubled 
 disturbed. 
 
 " Your mother is no better? " I asked. 
 
 " No," she answered. 
 
 I had thought not. I had heard her coughing 
 while we talked; and once, at a particularly bad 
 paroxysm, I saw Celeste Griswold's hands clench 
 themselves, and noticed, when they were un- 
 clenched, the red marks of the nails, where they 
 had been buried in her palm. 
 
 " Don't you get frightfully tired sometimes, Ce- 
 leste ? " I asked her. " All this care your 
 mother! It's too much." 
 
 "Too much! " said Celeste Griswold sharply. 
 "My mother!" 
 
 I went away soon after that. It was nearly 
 time for closing the prayer meeting. 
 
 " My father will want to see you later, Calvin,"
 
 1 82 The Last Christian 
 
 Celeste said, sending me away. " But not to- 
 night, I think. He's too tired, too excited over 
 the ordination next week. After that " 
 
 " Oh, all right," I said. 
 
 '"Twenty-seven years," said Celeste. 
 
 " Is it so long as that? " I asked, fully realiz- 
 ing it for the first time. 
 
 "Yes," she repeated; "twenty-seven years. 
 It's like death to him, I know this time now. 
 He's scarcely mentioned it once to me; scarcely 
 once. He couldn't, I think he couldn't. I think 
 I understand." 
 
 11 Yes," I said, nodding. 
 
 " It is his life," she went on, " the old church. 
 If anything should happen to it now if, after all, 
 they should fail, he couldn't survive it, I think; 
 he couldn't bear it." 
 
 " No," I said. " I don't believe he could." 
 
 I was none too soon in leaving. The slow, 
 old, black-dressed flock were coming out again 
 from prayer meeting. I saw them as I passed 
 Mrs. Judd; the tall old woman who was in con- 
 stant anxiety about the Hereafter; the bearded 
 man with the gift of prayer. Only the last came 
 by me head down, Bible in hand. He hesitated 
 a moment, and a gleam lighted in his eye. I 
 thought he would certainly stop and denounce me. 
 Then he bowed stiffly and we passed each other. 
 
 So, in these next few days before the ordina-
 
 The Vale of Peace 183 
 
 tion, I saw Celeste Griswold and her father only 
 as they passed by on the street. I spent some time 
 with the doctor, planning for my study abroad. I 
 set up the continuation of a minor experiment of 
 my own in an old shed in the rear of the lawn, 
 for I could not keep my hands off my work then, 
 even for a few weeks. And, meanwhile, I saw the 
 preparation for the ordination. 
 
 It was an observance of some consequence 
 locally. For the White Church was quite a famous 
 old landmark now, and the length of service of 
 the retiring pastor was most unusual. It was 
 really Mr. Griswold who was the figure in the new 
 minister's ordination and installing. 
 
 When the afternoon came, at last, I saw the 
 exercises from beginning to end, seated in our old 
 pew. It was mine still legally, in spite of my 
 severance from the church. It had been the prop- 
 erty of my people for five generations. 
 
 It was June, and the old church was dressed 
 with the flowers of the season old-fashioned 
 flowers : pale pink roses, yellow lilies, and syringas ; 
 decked out, the thought struck me as I looked 
 around, like the withered bride at a golden wed- 
 ding. Behind the decorations, the place stood 
 worn and faded and old. 
 
 On the platform were Mr. Griswold, several 
 other figures that I knew, and Mr. Millett, the 
 new man. I saw him then for the first time. He
 
 1 84 The Last Christian 
 
 seemed, at first glance, very young and very slight 
 and pale. 
 
 It was Dr. Mercer, president of the Christian 
 College, who began the speaking. He dwelt most 
 gracefully upon the pleasure of the occasion the 
 vigorous joy of the younger man girding up his 
 loins for his life-work; on the happiness and calm 
 of his dear old friend, who was passing so pleas- 
 antly, his labors well accomplished, into the vale 
 of peace. 
 
 The figure of the new minister, it seemed to me, 
 did not warrant the comparison with the eager 
 athlete. He seemed anemic, rather; his face had 
 a look, a peculiar look, as if he were frightened. 
 Beside him the stern and haggard face of Mr. 
 Griswold suggested very little the aged servant 
 about to rest peacefully from his labors. 
 
 Mr. Griswold himself spoke next, giving the 
 sermon of the day. His underlying theme was the 
 church the temple of God. He gave his text, 
 and repeated it, according to his old custom. 
 It was from Habakkuk a verse long familiar 
 to my childhood: " But the Lord is in his holy 
 temple: let all the earth keep silence before 
 him." 
 
 His voice shook just a little, I thought, as he 
 read it. He paused for a moment afterward. His 
 hand lay, palm up, upon the great open Bible. 
 I remember I could see his big thumb trembling
 
 The Vale of Peace 185 
 
 with weakness and excitement. Otherwise he was 
 motionless. 
 
 Had any figure in my life, I was asking myself, 
 ever made such a mark upon my imagination? 
 Was any memory of my childhood so impressive? 
 There was a touch of the supernatural in my re- 
 membrance of him : Divine Authority personified, 
 almost divinity it-self, in those first dim years ; the 
 man of God, the prophet of the faith. And now, 
 I saw, his coat was very shiny at the shoulders; 
 one of his immaculate cuffs had been over-worn. 
 A thin, weary, aged man nothing more. 
 
 " You and I have met together," he began, 
 " here in the silence of the shadow of the Al- 
 mighty, how many times how many times? [To- 
 morrow no more, no more not as we have been." 
 
 I watched him closely we all did. His solemn 
 voice filled the auditorium, as in my childhood. 
 He was rousing himself again for another sermon 
 of warning, but more eccentric, it seemed to me, 
 more broken in its language and its logic. 
 
 " Many of us are gone. There, and there, and 
 there ! " he said, darting his long forefinger from 
 one place to another in the empty pews. " We 
 see them still, you and I, as they gathered sunny 
 summer mornings here in the courts of the most 
 high God to our worship." 
 
 He stopped, his lean, wiry figure tense, his thin 
 face more skull-like than ever.
 
 1 86 The Last Christian 
 
 My memory voyaged out again across the past. 
 Its figures started back to life once more at the call 
 of that sonorous voice. My grandfather sat mo- 
 tionless, his booted legs crossed, by the pew door; 
 my grandmother, shrunk beneath her tiny shawl at 
 the other end; and I myself half-way between 
 them. And others, many others, all gone, too. 
 
 A few were left: across the aisle, Mr. Doty, 
 shining in his white vest and tie ; across the church, 
 Celeste Griswold. She sat in the posture in which 
 I remembered her even as a little girl hands 
 folded in her lap, her decorous, attentive church 
 attitude. Her eyes were fixed keenly, a little 
 anxiously, on her father's face. 
 
 " Gone, all gone," said Mr. Griswold's tre- 
 mendous voice. " Gone ! But here, we know, in 
 this sanctuary still abides, the presence of the Most 
 High God, and will abide, when we are no longer 
 even memories. Round us, round us everywhere," 
 he called solemnly, sweeping with his great hand, 
 " we feel Him, we know Him near. Do you doubt 
 it? Do any of you doubt it who all these years 
 have felt the Presence with you in this holy 
 place? 
 
 " And yet " He paused, lowering his voice. 
 " And yet, about us everywhere, questionings, 
 whisperings, and pointings in the marketplaces of 
 men in the seats of the scornful. ' Will God's 
 church survive ? ' they ask not here, but every-
 
 The Vale of Peace 187 
 
 where. Will the holy tabernacle, where you and 
 I have worshiped, survive these growing, grow- 
 ing, growing attacks upon it? Let us see." 
 
 It was an old-time exhortation. 
 
 " Let us take our knowledge of God's chosen 
 people the years that led on to the destruction of 
 the Temple." 
 
 My mind went drifting off again to memories. 
 The day was warm ; the strong, sweet, reminiscent 
 odor of the syringas filled the place. The voice of 
 the preacher came through to me at intervals, by 
 snatches, as he set forth God's vengeance on the 
 offending Jews. He called out great, roaring 
 mouthfuls from the prophets, the awful curse of 
 Jeremiah upon Judah: 
 
 " ' Such as are for death, to death; and such 
 as are for the sword, to the sword. . . . And I 
 will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord : 
 the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the 
 fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, 
 to devour and destroy.' " 
 
 I lost the thread after that, drifting caught 
 it up again. 
 
 " Such was the fate of Israel. And what of us 
 to-day? What of this generation? Doubt? " he 
 was saying. "Yes! Unbelief? That, too. New, 
 strange beliefs, indifference, our so-called educa- 
 tion? Yes." 
 
 He roused himself as of old to the height
 
 1 88 The Last Christian 
 
 of his exhortation perspiration running in 
 streams, his collar withered, a string upon his 
 neck. 
 
 " Lies, abominations all destined to quick and 
 final downfall. Destroyed, broken, on the Pre- 
 cious Corner-stone the Sure Foundation foreseen 
 by Isaiah in his prophecy. But woe to the gen- 
 eration that cherishes them ! 
 
 " The gospel of our Lord the light of all 
 men fading? Do we see it fading going from 
 us? Do we? Can we even dream of a world 
 from which that light so freely given was with- 
 drawn? Withdrawn gone! And darkness and 
 desolation and despair settled once again upon the 
 eyes and souls and understanding of men. No 
 no ! " he shouted. " Your soul recoils, and every 
 fiber of your body. And every instinct and hope 
 within you cries aloud, * No. A thousand times, 
 nono ' ! " 
 
 His climax had come and gone. It was an old 
 man's outburst of emotion unusually strong, but 
 soon expended. He passed on in a gentler voice, 
 recalling the loving-kindnesses of God manifested 
 to them always, in those years together; his salva- 
 tion, unmeasured, free to all. He spoke of the 
 passing of every man out of the heat of the day; 
 the coming of the night, when no man works ; and 
 finally tiredly, huskily of the laying down of 
 the burden upon younger, stronger shoulders. And
 
 The Vale of Peace 189 
 
 so on through his kindly, friendly introduction of 
 his successor. 
 
 They seemed rather narrow shoulders that were 
 to take the load, as they appeared in the old Gothic 
 pulpit chair. He was very frail and shrinking 
 Mr. Millett. The impression of the scared look 
 upon his face grew upon me. 
 
 Several others spoke. Dr. Spurdle, I remem- 
 ber, fashioned his address upon the meeting of 
 Paul and the men of Athens before the altar of 
 the Unknown God. He dwelt first, easily, upon 
 Spencer's Unknowable; the hesitations of the be- 
 lief of the present day answering, smoothing over 
 Mr. Griswold's fierce denunciations and fears. 
 But mostly he wove his sentences about the altars 
 of the Greeks spoke of the meeting of faith and 
 culture in our day. Palestine had given us duty: 
 Greece had brought us joy. It was not too much, 
 with our new understanding, to say that the two 
 united in the New Testament. We must not fail, 
 then, to thrill with the joys, the holy joys, of 
 duty; nor be remiss in the daily performance of 
 our joy. For, in this happy fusion of our new 
 faith, joy was duty. Duty was great joy. He 
 quoted, as he ended, a wordy, cloudy passage from 
 " The Ring and the Book." 
 
 The eyes of Mr. Griswold were on him for a 
 time. His eyebrows, I noticed, had grown more 
 shaggy lately; his eyes gleamed out from beneath
 
 190 The Last Christian 
 
 them for a time at Dr. Spurdle. But then they 
 turned wearily away. They rested mostly, drawn 
 by a compulsion he could not control, upon the 
 figure of the youth who was to succeed him. 
 
 .The end had come at last. They stood to- 
 gether the array of ministers upon the platform 
 while the new pastor pronounced the benedic- 
 tion. He seemed a nice boy, but certainly fright- 
 ened. His Adam's apple moved up and down in 
 his thin neck; his voice was uneven and aspirate. 
 I had a definite impression of him now, which 
 never left me afterward the image of a scared 
 boy, trembling before Almighty Jehovah, weighed 
 down under the tremendousness of the responsibil- 
 ity of the souls of his congregation placed under 
 his charge and guidance. Beside him stood the 
 straight, tall, bearded figure of the old minister, 
 Mr. Griswold, held erect to its full height, with 
 the last conscious muscular effort of a tired old 
 man. 
 
 They gathered, naturally, around the new min- 
 ister at the end of the service. Why not? It was 
 his day, after all. And yet, it seemed melancholy 
 to me the sight of the figure of old Mr. Griswold 
 slowly descending the pulpit stair alone. A big, 
 coarsely molded figure, made strong for the ordi- 
 nary uses of life, and worn with that usage worn, 
 and neglected finally by its users, common as an old 
 household chair. Great hands, great feet; big,
 
 The Vale of Peace 191 
 
 deep, heavy-cut features. He seemed very lonely 
 as he came down, and very weary. His eye was 
 humid ; his skin was dry. And I thought once that 
 I saw his long upper lip tremble with weariness or 
 emotion. 
 
 By impulse, I went forward to shake his 
 hand. Celeste was there before me, watching, but 
 not offering to help his slow movements. For Mr. 
 Griswold, to the last, always resented being 
 helped. 
 
 He stopped a moment when he faced me; then 
 held out his great hand. 
 
 " I saw you, sir," he said. " I was glad when 
 I saw you once again in the house of God." 
 
 I pressed his hand; but his thoughts were not 
 on me for long. 
 
 " How did he impress you, sir our new min- 
 ister?" he asked me with too much eagerness, 
 I thought. 
 
 I said what I could. 
 
 And as I spoke I felt Celeste Griswold shrink 
 back toward me. I turned and saw. It was Mrs. 
 Judd, bringing condolences to Mr. Griswold on 
 his retirement, and asking, with her grin of sym- 
 pathy, about his wife. 
 
 " I heard she had a relapse," she said. " And 
 I could not wait longer to ask for her. Oh, how 
 sad, how sad that she could not be here to-day 
 this day, this day of wonderful peace for you I "
 
 192 The Last Christian 
 
 Some one touched me on the shoulder. It was 
 Mr. Doty. 
 
 " Dr. Spurdle's over here. I want you to meet 
 him," he said, and led me away. 
 
 " This is the young man I was talking about," 
 he said to him " the young man who lost his 
 faith. I want you to get after him some day and 
 show him what's what. I want you to fix him 
 up." 
 
 Dr. Spurdle inclined his head and said he was 
 always glad to be consulted on spiritual matters. 
 He had the somewhat languid air of a woman's 
 oracle, I thought. He was dressed with careful 
 negligence. He wore a flowing tie and patent- 
 leather shoes. And I noticed on his hand the seal 
 ring my grandfather disliked; and his black, curly 
 hair parted in the middle. 
 
 Mr. Doty had his hands on both our shoulders 
 now, cementing our new union. 
 
 a I want you two to get together and talk it 
 out. I never shall be satisfied till he has had it 
 out with you, Calvin," he said. 
 
 It was rather embarrassing for both of us. Dr. 
 Spurdle, having the greater control of manner, 
 naturally ended it first by breaking away. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of him? " asked Mr. 
 Doty. 
 
 I said I was very glad to have met him. 
 
 " A coming man," said Mr. Doty " a coming
 
 The Vale of Peace 193 
 
 man. What did you think of the new man to- 
 day our Mr. Millett?" 
 
 " A nice man," I said, " but " 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Doty; " but- 
 
 " Sort of scared somehow," I said. 
 
 " That's it scared," said Mr. Doty. " That's 
 the word. If you ask me," said Mr. Doty, shak- 
 ing his head thoughtfully, " this can't last this 
 can't last. Sooner or later we'll go over to the 
 Brick Church. Sooner or later Spurdle will get 
 us. He's a coming man." 
 
 We stood at the doorway of the White Church. 
 Ahead of us, going down the street, Mrs. Judd 
 was escorting Mr. Griswold and his daughter to 
 their door. I could hear the undulating pathos 
 of her voice as she sustained and carried on the 
 conversation through the silence of her compan- 
 ions.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE VAMPIRE 
 
 ELANCHOLY, isn't it, kind of" I 
 said. 
 
 ,The doctor and I sat together on my 
 side porch. Before us went the first of the sparse 
 black file of Mr. Griswold's old prayer meeting 
 flock on the way to the evening meeting, the last 
 service of the day of ordination. The exercises 
 of the day-time had exhausted the attention and 
 interest of the great majority in the event. Only 
 the little handful held fast for the intimate gath- 
 ering of the evening. 
 
 "What?" asked the doctor absently. 
 
 "That," I said. "The old church going 
 down." 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor indifferently. " Melan- 
 choly, but not unusual." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," I said, and glanced over 
 at him as he sat looking down the street, the athe- 
 ist, the spiritual bogie-man of my childhood the 
 man who had lived in this new, material Universe 
 of unbelief, whose border I had just crossed from 
 my old supernatural Universe of belief, all his 
 194
 
 The Vampire 195 
 
 life, much longer than I could remember. How 
 did the changes that I thought I saw appear from 
 his standpoint? Did he see, as I believed I was 
 seeing, a general lapse in the Christian faith? If 
 so, how did it affect him? 
 
 " It's fading everywhere, isn't it? " I ventured. 
 
 "What is?" asked the doctor, looking curi- 
 ously at me, the wrinkles gathering in the corners 
 of his eyes those eyes of a kindly Mephistopheles, 
 wise with half a century of the knowledge of good 
 and evil. 
 
 " Religion," I said; " the vital interest in Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 " Yes, in a way," said the doctor irrespon- 
 sively. He seemed to be watching something down 
 the street. 
 
 But then he turned and looked at me. 
 
 " Have you set a date for the termination of 
 the Christian faith?" he inquired. 
 
 " Scarcely," I said, hardening into an attitude 
 of mental self-defense. For the light of mocking 
 was kindled in his eye again. " Scarcely. But it 
 is changing. Yes, disintegrating faster than it 
 ever did before, isn't it? It's got to now, hasn't 
 it, with all we know with all we are learning 
 faster and faster? " 
 
 I stopped. He was looking at me with keen 
 amusement in his eyes, the crow's-feet of laugh- 
 ter gathered in their corners.
 
 196 The Last Christian 
 
 " All the signs of disintegration are on it now," 
 I said a little hotly. " You can't deny that! " 
 
 " Youth, Calvin, youth ! " he answered me. 
 " New worlds for breakfast every morning. And 
 all the planets exploding about your ears every 
 night. One date only for all events now; if not 
 to-day, to-morrow morning! " 
 
 I kept silence before his mockery. 
 
 " My son," he said, his voice changing, " you 
 alarm yourself unnecessarily. They will be using 
 Christian rites for marriages and funerals long 
 after this New England weather rubs our names 
 off our tombstones." 
 
 He turned his eyes away from me, up the street 
 again. 
 
 " What do you think religion is, with the aver- 
 age man? " he asked me over his shoulder. "A 
 passion of the soul, a great supernatural emo- 
 tion?" 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure," I said, a little sulky 
 from his raillery. " What is it? " 
 
 " It's a social habit with most men, my boy, 
 that's all handed down from mother to son, like 
 table manners. It's only with the abnormal, with 
 the cranks, old Griswold or yourself," he said, 
 " cranks, and women sometimes that it grips the 
 soul. The rest of us " 
 
 He spoke more and more absently. Then he 
 stopped. He was watching some one, certainly.
 
 The Vampire 197 
 
 " The old ghoul," he said. 
 
 "Who?" I asked. 
 
 And then I saw a familiar figure down the 
 street. 
 
 " She's scented death again," said the Doctor. 
 
 It was Mrs. Judd. 
 
 " Watch her," said the doctor. " She's coming 
 here." 
 
 Sure enough. She stopped at the head of our 
 walk, wavered like a hound undecided upon his 
 scent, and came up toward us at last. 
 
 " I knew it," murmured the doctor, rising. 
 " She couldn't help it, as soon as she saw me 
 here." 
 
 " Good evening, doctor," came the thin, 
 lachrymose voice. " Excuse me for interrupting, 
 won't you ? But I could not go by without asking 
 you how poor Mrs. Griswold is getting on. Is she 
 as low, Doctor oh, is she as low as they say she 
 is?" 
 
 " Mrs. Judd," said the doctor very solemnly, 
 " if I tell you the exact state of this case, can I 
 count upon your aid? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the woman eagerly. 
 
 " I knew I could," the doctor answered in a 
 tone of exaggerated deference. " I knew I could. 
 She is a sick woman, Mrs. Judd." 
 
 Mrs. Judd gave a little gasp of pleasurable 
 pity.
 
 198 The Last Christian 
 
 " Your quick sympathies can aid her greatly, 
 Mrs. Judd," said the doctor. 
 
 "How, how?" asked Mrs. Judd, eager to 
 serve. 
 
 " One of the things she must have now is quiet," 
 said the doctor. " I must forbid her being seen 
 by any one even you. Will you tell that, Mrs. 
 Judd, to the neighbors to whoever asks?" 
 
 " Certainly, doctor, certainly. Oh, isn't it ter- 
 rible, Doctor?" said Mrs. Judd. 
 
 " You'll be careful to remember this," said the 
 doctor, " won't you because it is so very neces- 
 sary. Absolute quiet is essential now to keep her 
 living." 
 
 "Oh, yes oh, yes, doctor; you know I will," 
 said Mrs. Judd, passing on to prayer meeting. 
 
 " To-morrow morning she'll be there, just the 
 same," the doctor told me. 
 
 Mrs. Judd's figure disappeared into the en- 
 trance of the church. She was late. The singing 
 began at once in the vestry, and the sound of old 
 voices in prayer. 
 
 " Is she so sick? " I asked, concerning Celeste's 
 mother. 
 
 " She can't last long now," said the doctor. 
 
 " I didn't know," I said. " She's been that way 
 so long." 
 
 " Not much longer," said the doctor. 
 
 " Look," he said, with a change of voice.
 
 The Vampire 199 
 
 From across the street a pink figure was passing 
 the house of the Griswolds. 
 
 " There's another one," said the doctor. 
 
 " I didn't know she went there," I said. 
 
 Miss Avery was at the Griswolds' door. 
 
 " Only when old Griswold is out. Prayer meet- 
 ing nights always," said the doctor. " Sickness 
 is their opportunity, naturally," added the doctor 
 speaking of the " women who smiled." 
 
 " Where is that Mrs. Thursby now? " I asked. 
 We had reached the intermittent stage of conver- 
 sation of a still summer's night. 
 
 " Dead," said the doctor. " Haven't you 
 heard?" 
 
 11 No," I said. 
 
 " Cancer." 
 
 " No ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Didn't you know that? " asked the 
 Doctor. " That's what ailed her when she was 
 here. That's what got her into it." 
 
 Miss Avery came from the door again. 
 
 " Woman's business," mused the doctor, watch- 
 ing her. " Strange thing to watch, isn't it the 
 stir among the women just before the passing of 
 another life, in a little place like this? " 
 
 I had no answer. 
 
 " I've watched them years and years, now. 
 They sense it far ahead. The men never not un- 
 til it happens. Men they make me laugh, with
 
 zoo The Last Christian 
 
 their superior airs. Food-hunters, that's all! 
 Two-thirds of life is in the women's hands all 
 the real crises." 
 
 We sat silent again. 
 
 " ' From women we come forth; to women we 
 go back to die. At each gate of life sits a woman 
 waiting.' Is that it do you remember? " said the 
 doctor. 
 
 " I don't know it," I answered. 
 
 "India, I think," said the doctor; "not 
 Greece." 
 
 " I never heard it," I said. 
 
 The prayer meeting was over. The slow black 
 flock filed out of church again, Mrs. Judd among 
 them. She approached our walk. 
 
 " She's coming in again," said the doctor. 
 
 She turned as he spoke advanced self-con- 
 sciously, her eyes down, till she reached the porch's 
 side. 
 
 " Just a word," said Mrs. Judd " just a word, 
 Doctor. I wanted to ask you : If I go to the door, 
 just to the door, to call on Celeste and ask for 
 her dear mother if I can help her, it can do no 
 harm, can it?" 
 
 " Yes, it can," said the doctor brusquely. " No 
 calling whatsoever now." 
 
 "Oh, very well, very well," said Mrs. Judd, 
 somewhat injured. " I only wanted to ask; I only 
 wanted to do my duty.
 
 The Vampire 201 
 
 " Just one thing more," she went on, moisten- 
 ing her lips. " Just one thing more. I wanted to 
 ask you this. If they had been able if they had 
 had the means to send her away to another climate, 
 as they hoped would it have been different? 
 Would it have saved her? " 
 
 The street light, from where I stood, shone for 
 a second on her glassy blue eyes. 
 
 "Probably," said the Doctor; "if she had 
 been sent in time." 
 
 " Oh, isn't that terrible terrible ! " wailed 
 Mrs. Judd. " Isn't it inscrutable? Are not God's 
 ways inscrutable? That poor, dear woman, the 
 wife of God's servant, dying here, you might say, 
 from the lack of means to live. And all around 
 us so many unconsecrated lives saved. Isn't it 
 past finding out past finding out? " 
 
 She went away, intoxicated with a new grief. 
 
 " She'll be there to-morrow morning," said the 
 doctor again, " knocking at the door. She can't 
 keep away. She must handle death continually. 
 Her fingers itch for it. 
 
 "Damn her!" he said suddenly. His unac- 
 customed heat astonished me. " What can you do 
 with her? You can't shoot her. Nothing short 
 of that will keep her away. You talk of physical 
 causes for disease. Imagine it: put yourself in 
 the position dying, with that unclean thing 
 whining every morning at your door, waiting.
 
 2O2 The Last Christian 
 
 She's got my patient in such a state now that just 
 to hear her voice at the doorway starts up a 
 paroxysm of coughing." 
 
 "And nothing to be done?" I asked. 
 
 " Nothing that we can do," said the doctor. 
 " Oh, I tell you, my young materialistic friend, the 
 Christian Scientists have got you, after all. Three- 
 quarters of our deaths are mental murders " 
 
 My mind returned to my grandmother's last 
 days. 
 
 " or mental suicides," the doctor was say- 
 ing. 
 
 " No," he went on; " you and I can do nothing. 
 The defense from such attacks must be only by a 
 woman another woman. This time by that girl 
 of theirs Celeste." 
 
 His eyes looked shrewdly into mine. 
 
 "She can do it, I think," he said. "Yes; 
 she'll do it." 
 
 He stopped. 
 
 " At each gate a woman," he repeated, mus- 
 ing. " We can thank God for it, most of us 
 whatever God may be for the one woman that 
 waits for us at last. I've seen it so many, many 
 times." 
 
 We both were silent again. 
 
 " What a thing a woman is ! " he said, at last. 
 " What a vital creature ! How her instincts and 
 emotions reach down and take hold on life on
 
 The Vampire 203 
 
 the roots of it. Take that girl of the minister's. 
 She's worth just twenty of us of you and me. 
 We fuss, and speculate, and play with our little 
 shadows of life. She's a living creature. All 
 the great forces of the race live through her. 
 Think of her. She's scarcely more than a young 
 girl to-day. But I've been watching her now for 
 ten years, fighting, fighting, fighting for the pro- 
 tection of her own flesh and blood. Nature 
 instinct; that's all. But yet, we don't see, very 
 often, a specimen like that." 
 
 He started to go away. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "we can't interfere. That's 
 women's business. They'll have to fight it out 
 between themselves." 
 
 " An awful thing," I said, thinking of all he 
 had said to me of Celeste. 
 
 "What?" he asked. 
 
 " The women," I said. " All this silent strug- 
 gle for life here. A strange thing to see as it 
 really is." 
 
 "Strange?" said the doctor, leaving. "Non- 
 sense. A rule of life universal. You look out 
 of your window now, and see the women fighting 
 for their wounded and their dying and their dead, 
 exactly like the women of the Iliad exactly: there 
 in the warfare of barbarians; and here in this 
 dead place here against the slow, septic poison- 
 ing of dry-rot."
 
 204 The Last Christian 
 
 I walked with him when he went down the 
 street, and left him for a longer walk. As I 
 came back I saw again the light in Celeste's room 
 in the Griswold house. All the rest was dark. 
 How many times, it came to me, had I seen that 
 one light watching from that dark house ! 
 
 For several days, then, I saw the women going 
 back and forth from the house of the Griswolds 
 with flowers, with covered dishes. Mrs. Judd was 
 there exactly as the doctor said the earliest 
 possible moment the next morning. Twice a day, 
 for two days, she went and came making very 
 short stops. On the morning of the third day 
 she made a little longer one. When she came 
 back her face was very red; she seemed to be 
 talking to herself. 
 
 That was Thursday. I remember, because the 
 windows in the vestry of the White Church were 
 lighted again that night for the weekly prayer 
 meeting because it was that night that I saw 
 Celeste Griswold again. 
 
 I was coming through the yard that evening. 
 I had been taking a look at the small experiment 
 in my makeshift laboratory. The evening service 
 was under way. I could hear them singing. I 
 looked up, and there was a white figure before 
 me. I saw that it was Celeste Griswold. She 
 had come, apparently, by the old back path be- 
 hind the church which we had used as children.
 
 The Vampire 205 
 
 She startled me a little when I saw her she 
 seemed so pale. Her face was that dead white 
 of a frozen person's. 
 
 " Calvin," she said, in a low, aspirate whisper. 
 " Calvin ! " 
 
 " Yes, Celeste," I said, hurrying to her. I 
 thought there was probably some crisis in her 
 mother's sickness. 
 
 She stood straight and still. Only her lack of 
 color and her wide eyes showed emotion. 
 
 "Tell me, is she going to die?" she asked 
 "my mother? 
 
 " Don't," she said, when I started to avoid her. 
 " I've come to you to get the truth. I always 
 have." 
 
 Eventually I told her. It had less effect upon 
 her than I had thought. She remained exactly as 
 she seemed at first numb, as if gripped with cold. 
 
 " One thing more," she said evenly. " If she 
 had gone away, if we had had the money to send 
 her when we wanted to so much, would she have 
 lived?" 
 
 We stood beside the White Church just back 
 of the light from the last window of the vestry. 
 A prayer was beginning, in the rapt voice of the 
 bearded man who prayed. His strained accents 
 came out the open windows to us. 
 
 " Oh, God, we thank thee " he began. 
 
 I tried not to answer her. " I don't know "
 
 206 The Last Christian 
 
 I began. But I saw that it did not satisfy her; I 
 could not make my voice convincing. " Yes," I 
 had to say at last. 
 
 She stood silent for the moment. The voice 
 of the bearded prayer-maker came through the 
 silence. 
 
 "And, oh, God, we rejoice," he was saying, 
 i n a li 
 
 " It was true," Celeste Griswold said absently, 
 " just as she told me just as she said." 
 
 "Who? "I asked her. 
 
 " That woman that awful Judd woman 
 that vampire ! " said Celeste Griswold sharply. 
 " She will not come back," she added curtly, her 
 mouth set. 
 
 The man who prayed had passed to the 
 regulation second phase of his rhapsody, his 
 thanksgiving for mercy: "renewed, renewed, 
 continually renewed," his voice came swelling 
 out. 
 
 Suddenly Celeste Griswold broke down, shaken 
 with weeping. I had never seen her break be- 
 fore, uncontrollably, like this. Then, just as sud- 
 denly, she stopped. The prayer in the church 
 was done. The services seemed to be over. The 
 place was silent. 
 
 " I don't believe it," she said, her hands 
 clenched. " I don't believe it. My mother my 
 poor, gentle mother!"
 
 The Vampire 207 
 
 They were leaving the church now. I could 
 see them in the street, walking under the 
 lights. 
 
 " Think of her life ! Poverty, and deprivation, 
 and sickness year after year, always. But al- 
 ways cheerful always kind. It was her form of 
 serving God. Just as high, just as true, as my 
 father's; just exactly." 
 
 There was nothing I could say to her. 
 
 "And now, because of it because, when she 
 could have been saved to me if they had paid us 
 what they should " 
 
 She stopped; her eyes dilated. I could see 
 them, even in that half-light. 
 
 " Do you know what that would mean? " she 
 asked fiercely. " Do you understand? It is the 
 White Church the service of God God himself 
 that would kill her!" 
 
 It was suddenly darker; the lights had gone out 
 in the church vestry. 
 
 " In torture, in agony in those awful fits of 
 coughing. Oh, if you saw her! " 
 
 She stopped again, then went on: 
 
 " No, no ! I don't believe it I don't believe 
 it. I don't believe there is a God who would do 
 such a thing. It won't happen ; it can't ! But " 
 she stopped " if it does," she went on, " if it does 
 I couldn't believe there was a God, that's all. 
 I couldn't. Never never again."
 
 208 The Last Christian 
 
 She spoke crisply, evenly, her voice as expres- 
 sionless as a voice in a dream. 
 
 " Celeste," I said, after a silence. I took her 
 listless hand. " Think isn't there anything I 
 can do? Can't you let me do something to help 
 her to help you? " 
 
 "What can you do now?" she asked dully. 
 
 " I don't know," I said impotently, and was 
 still. 
 
 " Listen, Celeste, please," I said at last, for 
 she was very clearly not thinking of me, or of 
 what I said. " If you ever need me if I can ever 
 help you, you will call me wherever I may be." 
 
 " If I ever need you," repeated Celeste ab- 
 sently, and stopped. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she went on, her speech quickening 
 a little. " I should do that anyway." 
 
 I don't think she knew what she was saying. 
 She was entirely preoccupied with her grief and 
 rebellion. 
 
 We stood silent for a very little time. Then, 
 back of us, from the Griswolds' house there came 
 a voice calling: " Celestia, Celestia." 
 
 " My father," said Celeste, loosening her hand 
 from mine. 
 
 " Celestia, Celestia," came the old voice again. 
 
 " I won't believe it," said Celeste Griswold 
 hurriedly. "There is a God there is a God! 
 He will not let that happen to my mother."
 
 The Vampire 209 
 
 " Celestia, Celestia," came the old voice a 
 third time. 
 
 " Yes, father," she called back. " Coming." 
 
 Her voice was perfectly sure again loud 
 enough so that it seemed he should have heard it. 
 But still he called for her again: " Celestia, Ce- 
 lestia." 
 
 It was like the voice of the past calling her 
 away from me. 
 
 Once more I saw her and only once before I 
 left: in a formal call upon her and her father. 
 Early the next week I was on my way to Ger- 
 many.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THIS Is NONE OTHER BUT THE HOUSE OF GOD. 
 
 THE next year, that one year of mine in 
 Germany, was a busy one, perhaps the 
 busiest and most interesting of my life. 
 It was not only that I was occupied in work which 
 held fast my attention. More than that, much, 
 it was the transition, the being born again into 
 that new universe of modern science; a place of 
 new landmarks, and new perspectives, inhabited 
 by men who could scarcely think of the Universe 
 of my childhood, the teaching of the White 
 Church as something still extant upon the earth. 
 
 And yet, though I myself was rapidly becoming 
 acclimated to the new environment, never have I 
 been under stronger or happier emotion than 
 when I was returning once again that next sum- 
 mer to the old Street ; when the rattling, decrepit, 
 branch train jerked its cars around the tortuous 
 curves, and I saw rising in the distance the dim, 
 old-blue mountains I had fished through, when I 
 was a boy. 
 
 There was one curve, just before we arrived, 
 as the top of the grade was passed, when you
 
 L This Is None Other but the House of God 211 
 
 could look across, and see the spire of the White 
 Church surmounting the elm trees. There, I 
 remembered, was where, coming back, I had al- 
 ways had the first sense of home. I stepped 
 across the half-empty car and looked. I could 
 not see the spire. I looked again in vain. 
 Then the train rattled on, and the viewpoint was 
 gone. 
 
 It was a dark day. Very likely, I thought, the 
 spire showed less brightly than on the sunny one, 
 and so I had missed catching it. But when I 
 came into the Street again, and the trolley stopped 
 before it, I saw that, as a matter of fact, the 
 White Church was gone, and gone forever. They 
 had painted it brown a dirty brown. 
 
 I had, I remember, a feeling of sinking and 
 regret the feeling that you have when something 
 in your past life is irrevocably gone; the main 
 underlying sentiment, I think, at the time of loss 
 by death. But here was a death, not of an in- 
 dividual, but a generation, a race of men and 
 women. 
 
 I stopped, and gazed at the little box of a 
 brown church; tried to call back again the great 
 White Church of my childhood; the high pillars, 
 where overhead the pigeons cooed and chuckled 
 somewhere out of sight; the House of God. Then 
 beside the main entrance my eye fell upon the 
 announcement :
 
 212 The Last Christian 
 
 " Tonight. Holy Ghost Night ! Come ! " 
 
 I gazed, wide-eyed, at the neatly stenciled let- 
 ters; read, and read again, and still was reading, 
 when behind me, I finally realized that a gen- 
 tle voice was speaking: 
 
 " Why ! How do you do ? How do you do ? " 
 said the voice, in a somewhat guttural tone. 
 " This is indeed a pleasure, Mr. Morgan. Back, 
 I see, from your researches abroad." 
 
 It was Mr. Millett, the young minister, dis- 
 closing to the full his quick, frightened smile. 
 
 " I see you are looking at the old church," he 
 said. " Do you think it improved by the change ? " 
 
 " No," I said. " I do not." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Millett, " personally I should 
 have preferred the white. But it seemed to be 
 the feeling with many that brown would be bet- 
 ter. It is more durable; more wearable, so to 
 say." And he smiled again his fleeting, apologetic 
 smile. 
 
 " Pardon me. I must go now," he said. He 
 was always begging your pardon; always in 
 transit. 
 
 " What is that? " I asked, pointing to the sign 
 above the door. 
 
 " That oh, that is our revival service the 
 notice of it, I had intended to say," said Mr. Mil- 
 lett. " You see," he went on, explaining again, 
 "we have felt we needed a spiritual awakening
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 213 
 
 here. The interest was not quite what we de- 
 sired. 
 
 " Pardon me. I must be going," he said sud- 
 denly again. " I must be going in to prepare for 
 it. This is the last evening. I hope I wish we 
 might see you there," he added doubtfully. 
 
 He passed along, with quick light steps; his 
 long coat fluttered into the back entrance of the 
 church. 
 
 I turned toward my own house, and there, of 
 course, across the lawn, sat Mr. Tubbs, the or- 
 ganist, upon his porch. I had hoped to escape 
 him. But it was impossible. He sat like fate, a 
 village deity, regarding the comings and goings of 
 the Street. Life and death passed before him; 
 and all new-comers were his by right of prior 
 discovery. 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Tubbs, " here you are 
 again. Back from Dutchland. Well, well, how 
 is the Kaiser huh?" 
 
 " Hello," I said. "How are you? I see you've 
 been out painting up the church." 
 
 " Pretty good job, too," said Mr. Tubbs. 
 "Looks pretty nifty, don't it? Everybody got 
 awful tired of that old white. It dirtied up so, 
 too. It looks rich for a change, that brown, 
 don't it? 
 
 " Coming to the revival tonight? " he went on, 
 when I didn't answer. " This is your last chance,
 
 214 The Last Christian 
 
 if you're going to be saved if you're going to 
 get your button." 
 
 I looked over and saw that new order that he 
 wore, next to the Odd-Fellows' links upon his 
 lapel that unspeakable button, white, with a 
 blue inscription : " Advertise Jesus." 
 
 " They're giving them away to all the church 
 members new ones, and old ones, too," said Mr. 
 Tubbs. 
 
 "Great doings, great doings," proceeded Mr. 
 Tubbs " lively times. They've had me most 
 dead. They would have, if they hadn't brought 
 their own trombonist with them. Pentecost 
 Brown you've heard of him," said Mr. Tubbs, 
 looking up. " A good one, too." 
 
 "Who's the evangelist?" I asked. 
 
 " Sam Shipes the Gospel Tornado you've 
 heard of him; you see him in the newspapers. 
 We wouldn't have got him only by a piece of 
 luck." 
 
 "How's that?" I asked. 
 
 " Doty got him. He met him somewhere on 
 the train when he was traveling, and they got 
 well acquainted. So Doty got him to come up 
 here. It isn't what they're used to a little church 
 like this one. It's kind of a vacation for them. 
 
 " A smart fellow, that Shipes you ought to 
 hear him," went on Mr. Tubbs. " They say he 
 makes good money out of it. And there's some of
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 215 
 
 them that criticises him for it. But I don't see it. 
 That's his business, ain't it, just the same as any- 
 body else's? Let him have it, I say, if he makes it 
 honest. And I don't know any honester way than 
 saving souls. A smart feller; a smart feller," 
 said Mr. Tubbs. " He stirs 'em up ! " 
 
 " How does Mr. Griswold like it? " I asked. 
 
 " Like it," said Mr. Tubbs, " the old crank. 
 He don't like anything up-to-date. That's what's 
 the matter with our churches," added Mr. Tubbs, 
 becoming didactic " these old timers like him 
 hanging on." 
 
 "He fought it, eh?" I said. 
 
 " Yes. But they brought him around finally," 
 said Mr. Tubbs. " Doty brought him around. 
 He went right to him, and told him he'd have to 
 agree to it, if they were going to save the church. 
 He told him straight that if he didn't, it'd be 
 his own responsibility." 
 
 " Say, you ought to see the old codger," he 
 went on. " He's changed a lot since last year 
 got kind of sour and disagreeable. I tell 'em he's 
 a little off. About Sundays about Sundays in 
 particular. Why, just last Sunday afternoon our 
 baseball nine were playing against North Palmer 
 over here in Hathaway's lot. And what do you 
 think! Who comes over but old man Griswold, 
 shaking his cane, and trying to break up the 
 game right after the third inning."
 
 2i6 The Last Christian 
 
 "Did he, though?" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes. He's stalking around like that all the 
 time now every Sunday. You'd think, the way 
 he acts, he thought he was the last Christian on 
 earth," said Mr. Tubbs warmly. 
 
 " They didn't use to play ball here much Sun- 
 days in the old days," I suggested. 
 
 " No, but we've got out of that generation now. 
 Times are different," said Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 " No the old man's crazy in my opinion," he 
 added. " And getting crazier every day." 
 
 " They're still having a hard time with the 
 church, are they?" I asked. 
 
 "You're right. They are," said Mr. Tubbs, 
 settling himself back again into his rocker. 
 " Yep, the old church is pretty hard up," he said 
 reflectively. " I don't see how they'll pull it out, 
 if this revival don't work out something." 
 
 I passed along home. 
 
 " They've tried most everything else," he was 
 saying. " This little minister's been a great one 
 for that sociables, and Browning readings, and 
 Boy Campers. He had a Man's Forward move- 
 ment for a while, and that didn't work 
 either." 
 
 I was getting out of ear shot cross the lawn. 
 
 " Well, good-by," said Mr. Tubbs, interrupt- 
 ing himself. " You want to be there tonight. It's 
 your last night."
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 217 
 
 I was there, one of the first. By habit, I got 
 again into our old pew. 
 
 The ministers came from the platform, one after 
 another. Sam Shipes was on hand early an ac- 
 tive, confident, wiry man, with the smooth shaven, 
 deep-marked face of a vaudeville actor. He wore 
 a blue serge suit, patent leather shoes, and a blue 
 bow tie, with white polka dots. A handkerchief 
 with a blue border showed from his upper coat 
 pocket. There was a diamond ring upon his 
 hand. 
 
 Pentecost Brown, the trombonist, was also early 
 a small figure, with a peculiar, mouse-like ap- 
 pearance, that side whiskers would give to a little 
 small-featured man. 
 
 Mr. Millett came next, giving his quick, apolo- 
 getic smile to the evangelist and to several in the 
 audience. And last of all, Mr. Griswold tramped 
 heavily up the old steps, bowed gravely to the 
 men upon the platform, and sat down. Celeste 
 Griswold, who had come with him to the step, 
 went back to her old pew. 
 
 There was an obvious reluctance, it seemed to 
 me, a heavy weight upon the old man's move- 
 ments, in his attitude, as he sat there, eyes down. 
 I said to myself, I remember, that it was my imagi- 
 nation. But very soon, I learned that there were 
 others who saw the same thing that I did. 
 
 The church filled up quite well. It was Satur-
 
 2i8 The Last Christian 
 
 day night the last night of the services. In front 
 of me were four young girls from the Village, 
 I think. At any rate, I did not know them. I 
 could hear their whisperings quite clearly. 
 
 "Isn't he funny?" said the pretty one of the 
 party. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " That old man," she said. " What's he mad 
 about anyhow? Gee, don't he look like a thunder 
 cloud?" 
 
 " S-sh," said the proper one of the party 
 the thin one with glasses. 
 
 " Say, girls, look at his upper lip. Did you ever 
 see such a long lip in your life? " said the pret- 
 tiest girl. 
 
 .They giggled. 
 
 " Oh, Min, you are the worst," said one. 
 
 " Honestly," said the wit. " Did you see it a 
 little while ago? It kind of wiggled. Honestly, 
 I mean it." 
 
 " S-sh," said the proper one again. " Don't you 
 know where you are? " 
 
 So after a little while they stopped giggling, 
 and patted the backs of their necks, and were still 
 again. 
 
 I noticed then that what they said was true. 
 
 The old man's lip did seem to tremble a little 
 occasionally from weakness, I suppose. His 
 hands shook somewhat, I saw, when he took them
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 219 
 
 from where they rested on the arms of the old 
 pulpit chair. He did look pretty melancholy 
 yes, and crabbed, I suppose, to the other people. 
 
 I glanced over to where Celeste Griswold sat. 
 I could see that affairs had gone no better with 
 either of them. Her mother had died during the 
 year. She was still in black, which made her whiter 
 than she would have been in some other color. 
 
 But now the service had begun. Pentecost 
 Brown was sounding his trombone and we were 
 rising to sing the hymn which had been, as I 
 learned later, the keynote of the success of the 
 week: 
 
 " Roll us, roll us, Savior, to the Gloryland above ; 
 Wash us, wash us, Jesus, with the cleansing of Thy love." 
 
 Mr. Griswold, I noticed, did not sing as he 
 quite often used to. He stood up, his hymn book 
 open in his big palm, staring rather absently at it. 
 His clothing was more shiny than it ever was, I 
 thought. His hair was a little long and unkempt. 
 
 They prayed, and sang again; and then, in a 
 very crisp and business-like manner, Sam Shipes, 
 the Evangelist, began getting under way starting 
 slowly, working up in the friendly, breezy, ver- 
 nacular of the Middle West: 
 
 " Folks, when I was a boy in Michigan way 
 out on the farm in Michigan my good old 
 mother used to say to me:
 
 220 The Last Christian 
 
 " ' Sammy, you'll never get right with your 
 Savior, till you get straight down on your marrow- 
 bones, and pray till He sends you down the Holy 
 Ghost. And you've got to get at it pretty quick 
 or you know who'll get you.' 
 
 " You bet I knew before she told me. But 
 Mother told me just the same, ' For the old devil's 
 watching you, Sammy. He's on your track. The 
 sooner you get right, the safer it will be for you.' " 
 
 The restless girls in front of me gave little 
 appreciative giggles. Mr. Griswold, I thought, 
 moved slightly in his chair. 
 
 " It's that old devil," called Mr. Shipes, warm- 
 ing, " that same old devil, sitting out there, wait- 
 ing, waiting, to grab you up. That's the same old 
 devil who's been sitting outside there, for six 
 thousand years, waiting for us all. That same old 
 bunco steerer, that got talking to our grand- 
 mother, Miss Eve, before she took out her mar- 
 riage certificate, and became Mrs. Adam. 
 
 " Now there are some people," said Mr. Shipes, 
 " will tell you there ain't any such thing as a per- 
 sonal devil; but I for one ain't ashamed to say 
 that I believe in him. Well, no, I don't believe 
 in him. I know he's there! " 
 
 He was off now upon the personal devil, for 
 several minutes. My mind wandered a little, in 
 spite of his fierce and vivid rhetoric. My eyes 
 came back quite often to the figure of Mr. Gris-
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 221 
 
 wold his hands fixed upon the arms of the pulpit 
 chair, his head down, his eyes entirely hidden by 
 his shaggy eyebrows. 
 
 Above him, I read again, as I had a thousand 
 times before, the semicircular old gilt motto in 
 its Gothic letters : 
 
 ftbfs is mone tber but tbe Ibouse of <5oO 
 
 The gilt was pretty dull now; the long tail of a 
 water stain hung down to it from the ceiling. 
 
 The speaker gradually worked up to the sub- 
 ject of the evening. He was now expatiating upon 
 the Holy Ghost. I saw Mr. Griswold change his 
 position shift his heavy feet, apparently steadying 
 himself as the man started. 
 
 " Now there's lots of people, nowadays," said 
 Mr. Shipes, " seem to think there ain't any such 
 thing as the Holy Ghost any longer. They think 
 it's out of date. They'll come right out and tell 
 you so or they might as well." 
 
 I saw Mr. Griswold lean forward tense, grip- 
 ping the arms of his chair, waiting. 
 
 " But I tell you, folks, they're wrong. They're 
 wrong," shouted Sam Shipes, pacing back and 
 forth upon the platform. " And my good old 
 friend here, Mr. Griswold, will tell you the same 
 thing." 
 
 The old man looked up quickly. Then his 
 figure relaxed back into the chair.
 
 222 The Last Christian 
 
 "Now, folks, let's get together," said the 
 Evangelist; " let's try to think it out. Let's see it 
 just the way it happened. 
 
 " Here was our Savior crucified, hanging on 
 the cross." 
 
 He backed up against the rear wall of the plat- 
 form, his arms extended. Mr. Shipes crucified 
 crucified in a blue serge suit and a polka dot tie 
 and a diamond upon his left hand. 
 
 "Crucified, suffering!" he whispered. 
 
 His eyes turned up, his head lopped down. 
 
 I saw Mr. Griswold lean forward, tense, grip- 
 ping his chair arms again. 
 
 And still the Gospel Tornado kept on passed 
 to his illustrations of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " Now after he got over with that after he'd 
 gone through with it; gone up, up there, back to 
 glory who was it came to take His place on 
 earth with us poor miserable, insignificant sin- 
 ners? Who was it? Who was it? The Holy 
 Ghost," yelled Mr. Shipes. "The Holy Ghost 
 that's who it was ! " 
 
 " They say to me: What do you mean. Holy 
 Ghost? What do you mean? What is it? I tell 
 you, folks, it's fire, it's water, it's blood, it's life 
 it's the glory hallelujah of the sanctified soul! 
 I tell you, folks, you've got to get it you've got 
 to get it, or go yellin' down to your damnation." 
 
 The veins stood out on Mr. Griswold's
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 223 
 
 yellow forehead. I could see them from where I 
 stood. 
 
 "Now look, now look, then, folks; look, and 
 watch me close while I say it. For this thirty sec- 
 onds may mean more to you than any time in all 
 your life. It may mean to you an eternity of joy 
 and bliss or everlasting years of squirming in 
 Hell fire." 
 
 The evangelist talked louder and faster. 
 
 " You've got to get it, folks; you've got to have 
 it. You've got to have it to be saved ! It's got to 
 come and strike you blind, like it did old Paul on 
 his way down to Damascus. 
 
 He jumped into the air at that, with a sudden 
 yell. 
 
 " Oh, smite us, Lord; smite us with the Spirit 
 here tonight! " he called. 
 
 Results were coming. I heard the bearded man 
 who prayed calling, very softly at first, Hallelujah 
 from the audience. The old gaunt woman, who 
 peered into the Hereafter, sat, happy tears 
 streaming down her cheeks. 
 
 "Shoot us, shoot us!" yelled Sam Shipes. 
 " Shoot us dead, God, with your Holy Ghost to- 
 night!" 
 
 I saw it just before it came. Mr. Griswold was 
 half up on his feet his finger pointing. 
 
 "Now, this won't do! This this is blas- 
 phemy," he said. " This "
 
 224 The Last Christian 
 
 Then suddenly he collapsed back again into the 
 big chair. 
 
 Fortunately his voice was not so loud as it 
 once was. What he said was not very plain. I 
 don't know that I myself could have understood it 
 if I had not had my attention at the time upon 
 him. 
 
 His daughter was on her feet. I was myself. 
 She glanced a fraction of a second at me. It was 
 the first time our eyes had met. I went up to the 
 platform after her. 
 
 The speaker fortunately was at the height of 
 his effort, shouting. He did not notice the inter- 
 ruption, or didn't care to notice it. He went on 
 with his wild apostrophe to the Holy Ghost. Ce- 
 leste Griswold and I helped the old man down the 
 stairs out of the side aisle. There was much 
 less disturbance than might have been expected. 
 Mr. Millett indeed came across the platform, and 
 started to help us. But Celeste refused his aid. 
 
 " It's nothing," she said. " Nothing but what 
 we can manage," she said. " Is it, father? " 
 
 " No," the old man said thickly. 
 
 " A little dizziness, that's all. He has it occa- 
 sionally," said Celeste. " .That's all. And if 
 anyone asks please tell them so." 
 
 The old man was pretty heavy one side par- 
 ticularly, the right side, which was toward me. It 
 seemed to me to drag a little, but he kept trying
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 225 
 
 to walk alone to be free, especially from the 
 aid of Celeste upon his other arm. 
 
 " I don't want you to, Celestia, don't. You're 
 tiring yourself again. I can get along," he was 
 saying. 
 
 So she supported him more lightly. 
 
 " You see, my daughter," he kept saying to me. 
 " You see, this girl is all the time doing more than 
 she should for me. I try not to be a care to her, 
 sir," he said. " I do try " 
 
 " Father please " Celeste was trying to in- 
 terrupt him. But without success. 
 
 " I do try," he went on, a little peevishly. " But 
 she will over-exert herself for me. I don't like it. 
 I will not be a drag, a tax on anybody. But I'm 
 
 afraid; I'm afraid all the time " He was a 
 
 little out of his self-control, I saw. He didn't 
 know what he was saying. He shivered a little 
 and stopped. 
 
 We walked on in slow silence. From out the 
 windows of the church came the height of the 
 Evangelist's calling. 
 
 " Oh, shoot shoot shoot 'em dead! " he was 
 shouting. 
 
 The groans were increasing from the audience. 
 The noise attracted Mr. Griswold's attention 
 again. 
 
 "This won't do; this won't do," he started 
 muttering. His mind didn't seem very clear.
 
 226 The Last Christian 
 
 But then the stimulus passed out of his brain, 
 and he was silent again. He was frightfully thin, 
 I thought, as I grasped his arm weazened to 
 bone and gristle. But what a huge man he was 
 still. He got very heavy leaning away from 
 Celeste toward me. 
 
 We got him finally to the house. We were 
 pretty slow. They were playing, by the time we 
 got there, the song which followed the exhortation. 
 The bleat of the trombone came across the still 
 street, and we heard the congregation singing that 
 song I had not heard before until then : 
 
 " My good old Mother's Bible is good enough for me." 
 
 They were still singing it, when we helped Mr. 
 Griswold upstairs to his old bedroom, and he lay 
 down heavily upon the creaking, high, old-fash- 
 ioned bed. 
 
 " You are kind, sir," he said to me. " You are 
 very kind." Then his eyes closed heavily. 
 
 I went away for the doctor. They were pray- 
 ing in the church when we hurried back together. 
 
 The doctor was upstairs for some time. I 
 waited in the old library. Then finally we came 
 away together. Celeste would let us do nothing 
 more for her. And in fact the doctor reassured 
 her about her father's condition. 
 
 " He's trying to have a little stroke, I think," 
 he said to me as we went away together. " His
 
 This Is None Other but the House of God 227 
 
 arteries are old; he's been under a long nervous 
 strain. But he'll be all right tonight and prob- 
 ably for some time." 
 
 It was, as a matter of fact, just what he had 
 thought but with a little more after effect than 
 he had first expected. From that time on, there 
 was that little hitch in Mr. Griswold's walk; that 
 invisible ball and chain which he dragged after 
 him, until the day he died. 
 
 The services, naturally, that last night, were 
 long. They were singing again their chief song: 
 " Roll us, roll us, Savior," when we came out 
 of the door of the old parsonage. We stopped a 
 moment on the walk and listened. 
 
 " They do it better on the Congo," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 The rhythmic rolling of the song came out 
 across the silent air the trombone leading. 
 
 " Much better," said the doctor. " They use 
 the drum. It sets them dancing quicker." 
 
 They began coming out soon after, some of the 
 first of them, bearing on their lapels that awful 
 button that Mr. Tubbs had worn. 
 
 They were talking, I knew, some of them, about 
 Mr. Griswold's attack. But strangely enough 
 there hadn't many of them noticed it. The voice 
 and gestures of the Evangelist had focussed their 
 attention. What few had seen the old man leave, 
 were not alarmed by the occurrence. Mr. Millett
 
 228 The Last Christian 
 
 had assured them that it was of no serious con- 
 sequence. 
 
 And now the doctor gave a second assurance 
 that all was right, to the groups that met us. 
 
 " That's right," said the Doctor to me after. 
 " Oh, he'll come out all right. He's tough." 
 
 I saw the doctor at the door. He wasn't very 
 talkative. He was tired, I think. He had had a 
 long day. We were both thinking, more than 
 talking. 
 
 We came to his yard at last. 
 
 " Jerusalem, Jerusalem," said the doctor 
 " thou that killest the Prophets! " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "Christianity! Good God!" he broke out 
 suddenly. " I wouldn't treat an old dog the way 
 these churches treat their broken down minis- 
 ters." 
 
 I had never heard him speak as bitterly before.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE DEAD PROPHETS 
 
 1WENT away three days after that, and was 
 gone for two months. The development of 
 the newer biological work of this country, 
 which has grown of such importance now, was 
 already well under way then. And a particular 
 opportunity for apprenticeship and study had 
 brought me back from Germany to New York. 
 I was there in the city through that summer. And 
 it was September before I came back again to the 
 old Street; before I had that unexpected visit from 
 Mr. Griswold. 
 
 It was the morning after the day I arrived. I 
 was looking out a window, across the lawn to- 
 wards the church, when I saw the figure of the old 
 man emerge from the rear door the door into 
 the vestry. He hesitated, looked around, es- 
 pecially towards the street. Then started walk- 
 ing across our lawn. I was naturally surprised. 
 Never since my grandfather's days had he been 
 inside my house. And never, that I could remem- 
 ber, had I seen him coming by that way across 
 the lawn. 
 
 229
 
 230 The Last Christian 
 
 He did not see me from where I stood. I 
 watched him in his slow advance, with his cane 
 sidling a little, dragging that invisible ball and 
 chain, which his illness had fastened on him. It 
 was depressing, very, to see it for the first time 
 the clogged progress of that big, powerful, free- 
 moving figure I had seen from childhood go 
 striding by our door. It hesitated again for a 
 moment near the house, choosing between the 
 front and back way. And finally, to my still 
 greater mystification, turned toward the back. I 
 passed through the house to our side porch to 
 meet him, and was there when he came. 
 
 He stood at the foot of the steps a moment, 
 looking up at me. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Morgan," he said. " Are 
 you at leisure? " 
 
 " Certainly," I said, and welcomed him as 
 warmly as I knew how. 
 
 He clambered slowly up the steps, sideways, as 
 a little child does. 
 
 " I am awkward," he said. 
 
 " There's plenty of time," I assured him, and 
 we said no more, until he reached the top of the 
 steps, and we shook hands. 
 
 He was strong enough, when he had come up 
 though pretty slow. We went into the house, 
 the old sitting room, the place where he had al- 
 ways been received by my grandfather. The room
 
 The Dead Prophets 231 
 
 was just as it had been, except for the usual mor- 
 bid desire of my old New England housekeeper to 
 shut and cover everything up. 
 
 The two great steel engravings, which fur- 
 nished the touch of majesty desired in the sixties 
 to my grandfather's chief room, dominated the 
 place. The smell of the bunches of pampas grass, 
 from the high red vases on the mantelpiece, had 
 saturated the close air. I opened a window and 
 pushed up the shades a little higher for more light. 
 
 Mr. Griswold, by force of habit, had settled 
 himself in the old black armchair he had always 
 occupied. I could almost feel, as he sat there, his 
 great bony knee at my back again, as when he had 
 drawn me toward him when a boy. He sat for 
 a moment; his eyes passed once around the room 
 in silence. Then he addressed himself to me. 
 
 " We are not liable to be overheard here? " he 
 asked, and looked around again. 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 "No; I thought not," he said heavily, and 
 paused a moment, his hands supported upon his 
 ivory-headed cane. His temples seemed even 
 hollower than before, I noticed. His legs tapered 
 off, thin and shrunken, just above the knee, as 
 they often do in very old men. There was a big 
 tear, very neatly darned, in his trouser leg. 
 
 " I have come to advise with you," he said 
 slowly, " upon a matter of business."
 
 232 The Last Christian 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " I have determined," he said, " to sell my li- 
 brary," and paused. 
 
 " Oh, have you," I exclaimed, and waited for 
 him. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Griswold. And stopped 
 quite a little time. 
 
 " I believed you would be willing to give me 
 the benefit of your knowledge," he went on. 
 
 " More than willing, Mr. Griswold," I said. 
 " If I have any." 
 
 " You have, I think," he said. 
 
 He laid by his cane then, beside his chair; felt 
 in his inner coat pocket, and brought out some 
 folded sheets of note paper. 
 
 " I have here," he said, displaying them, " a 
 list of the volumes. In matters of this kind, we 
 cannot be too business-like." 
 
 11 No," I said. 
 
 He handed them to me. I looked over, rather 
 helplessly, the scrawled, aged writing. 
 
 " I have taken this list myself," he explained. 
 " In one column, you will see, are the volumes by 
 titles fourteen hundred and sixty, as I remem- 
 ber it." 
 
 " Fourteen hundred and sixty-three," I said. 
 
 " Yes. On the other column I have put their 
 cost to me approximately. You see it?" 
 
 11 Yes."
 
 The Dead Prophets 233 
 
 " Fifteen hundred and fifty dollars about 
 estimated, you understand. I could not be exact 
 not over so great a lapse of time." 
 
 " Of course not," I said. 
 
 " This library was completed a good many 
 years ago. I was a young man at that time. It 
 was before my marriage. Since then I have not 
 been able to save much for such matters." 
 
 He stopped for a while, gazing across the room. 
 
 " No," he said, rousing himself. 
 
 " Now in the first place, we must not deceive 
 ourselves," he went on. " We must not over-es- 
 timate the value of this collection. Many of these 
 volumes are quite old their bindings are old." 
 
 " Yes, of course," I said, trying to say some- 
 thing. " But there might be " 
 
 " Yes," interrupted the old man, his eyes light- 
 ing. " I think I catch your drift, sir; I think I can 
 understand what you are going to say. There 
 might be volumes there of some value for that 
 reason." 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " Exactly. Have you ever had any experience 
 or knowledge in this line, may I ask?" he said, 
 looking expectantly into my eyes. 
 
 " No," I said, " I'm afraid not." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Griswold. "No; I see. It 
 would not be in your line of experience." But he 
 was visibly disappointed.
 
 234 The Last Christian 
 
 " Some rare books, of course, become in time 
 very valuable," he said. 
 
 " Extremely so," I said. 
 
 "Well, we could scarcely expejct that. We 
 must not deceive ourselves," said Mr. Griswold. 
 " That's absolutely essential." 
 
 " No," I said. And there was a little silence. 
 
 " I know this," said Mr. Griswold, suddenly 
 breaking it. " I know many visiting clergymen 
 have told me that a number of my books were 
 now quite rare. That they would greatly like to 
 have them, themselves." 
 
 " I can imagine it," I said. 
 
 " However," he went on, at last, " that is 
 problematical at best. We must not count much 
 on it." 
 
 " Perhaps not," I said. 
 
 He had taken his list from me again, and was 
 turning it over. 
 
 " My books; my books," he said absently. 
 
 " Now here," he said, going on, " here are my 
 autograph copies." He went silent staring at 
 the page. " I have quite a number of them a 
 shelf by themselves. Here are two full pages, you 
 see." He stopped again. " You may remember 
 them," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. I did. 
 
 " I was fortunate in being acquainted with 
 many of the foremost Christian writers in my
 
 The Dead Prophets 235 
 
 day. I had copies directly from them themselves 
 or through their influence. Here is one, for 
 instance by Mark Hopkins sent personally. 
 Another by Doctor J. Pye Smith, the great Chris- 
 tian writer on geology not so well known today, 
 perhaps. But a man of great erudition. And 
 others. One, even, from Henry Ward Beecher." 
 He glanced up under his thick eyebrows at me. 
 
 " Indeed," I said. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "and others. Doctor S. 
 Clarke also. And John Brown, the great author- 
 ity on exegesis and hermeneutics. And the widely- 
 known John Kitto. Yes, these should be worth 
 something. They should count for something." 
 
 " I should think so," I said warmly. 
 
 " And then, of course, there are the standard 
 books Edwards on the Will; the works of 
 Ewald and others a long list of them." 
 
 " I see," I said, looking at the pages he pointed 
 to. 
 
 " About the others, we might easily deceive our- 
 selves," he went on. " But here, I believe, we are 
 on more solid ground. I have found it always an 
 excellent working library for a minister." 
 
 " Yes. Yes. Here are my books," he said, 
 turning over his list slowly. " I may be wrong, I 
 may be wrong, but I feel that I should realize a 
 good possibly a considerable sum from their 
 sale."
 
 236 The Last Christian 
 
 " I should think you might," I said guardedly. 
 
 " Now then," said Mr. Griswold, sitting up a 
 little, " there comes the method of disposing of 
 them." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I had thought at first of selling the books as 
 a whole to some clergyman. The difficulty there 
 is that there are so few ministers with the means 
 for a purchase of such magnitude." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yes. Finally I made up my mind that it 
 would be better to get in touch with some dealer 
 in second hand books." 
 
 " I should think so," I said. 
 
 " Yes. I weighed the matter quite carefully 
 before taking action," he said. " Then I reached 
 the conclusion that I would come to you. I re- 
 called that at one time I heard you speak of hav- 
 ing dealt with these dealers in books." 
 
 As he spoke I remembered having talked with 
 him once while in college about buying books at 
 second hand. Since then, it happened, I had many 
 times patronized the book stands on the streets of 
 New York. I was naturally glad to see if I 
 could help him. 
 
 " Could you let me have your list?" I asked 
 him. 
 
 " Certainly," he said. 
 
 " If you will," I said, " the best way, it seems to
 
 The Dead Prophets 237 
 
 me, will be for me to take it with me to New 
 York." 
 
 "Very well excellent," he said. 
 
 " There is one thing, however," said Mr. Gris- 
 wold, hesitating. " Shall you be going soon? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " quite soon." 
 
 He still hesitated. "When how soon?" he 
 said at last. " You see," he went on, " I'm in 
 this position: the fact is, I must make this ar- 
 rangement, if at all, very soon." 
 
 " How soon? " I prompted him. 
 
 " I must know," said Mr. Griswold, " by the 
 first of the coming month, at the very latest." 
 
 " I can arrange that," I said. 
 
 " You can be sure? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes," I said. " I'm going down the first 
 of next week. And I'm coming right back again 
 in three or four days at most." 
 
 " That will be in time," said Mr. Griswold, 
 " in ample time." 
 
 " Very well," I said. " Then we'll do that." 
 
 An expression of marked relief came on his 
 face: He settled back a moment in his chair. 
 His eyes passed about the old room again. 
 
 " You have not changed this room, I see," he 
 said. " You've left it exactly as your grandfather 
 had it." 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Griswold. " I'm glad you
 
 238 The Last Christian 
 
 have. I'm glad you have." His eyes lingered on 
 one familiar object after another. " I have 
 passed many pleasant hours here." 
 
 " Well, I must be going," he said, starting to 
 get up. 
 
 " Don't yet," I begged him. 
 
 " My daughter will be wondering where I am," 
 he said. " Oh, one thing more," he exclaimed, 
 settling back. " You see, my daughter I 
 prefer that you do not speak to her on this 
 matter." 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. " Very well." 
 
 He sat still, looking before him several mo- 
 ments before he spoke again. " I prefer that she 
 does not know," he said, a little stiffly. 
 
 I noticed his eyes then, how bruised they looked, 
 how deep they seemed to set back in the skull. 
 
 " You see," he said, explaining, " the danger is 
 this. She would oppose it; she would do all she 
 could to prevent." 
 
 " Why," I asked, " what makes you think so? " 
 
 " For this reason," he said. " My daughter 
 has an idea an entirely false idea of the senti- 
 mental value I have attached to my books." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see," I said, remembering what 
 his library had been to him, the pride he had al- 
 ways taken in it. 
 
 "Sentiment!" he said, his voice rising. "If 
 it were ten times as great as it is, yet I would sell
 
 The Dead Prophets 239 
 
 them. I can't have I cannot have things as they 
 are now. No! " 
 
 He sat still several seconds more, his hands on 
 the head of his cane, his eyes straight ahead. 
 
 " You see, my daughter," he said again, and 
 stopped. " Do you know what she's doing now? " 
 he asked and looked up abruptly. I noticed for 
 the first time a glint in his eye. 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 " Sewing," he said, more loudly. " She's sew- 
 ing at night secretly, for others, for pay." 
 
 He struggled to his feet; and stood, his eyes 
 fixed on mine. 
 
 " Sewing," he repeated. " One day's work 
 piled upon another. Daytimes she is my house- 
 keeper, my amanuensis. Daytimes and night- 
 times my reader reading often far into the night 
 on the pretext that I do not sleep. She does 
 this every day and night of her life, and has for 
 over a year now; and always, without fail, since 
 this trouble of mine, this lameness confines me." 
 
 " As you know," he explained, " I was active 
 quite active before this this trouble. Now I am 
 confined quite closely to my chair. She makes that 
 a reason for amusing me, diverting my mind." 
 
 He started limping down the room, turned 
 awkwardly and came back. 
 
 "For what purpose does she do this?" he 
 asked, his eyes searching mine.
 
 240 The Last Christian 
 
 " For the sole and only purpose of occupying 
 me; of keeping me from this thinking," he an- 
 swered himself. 
 
 " Thinking," he said absently, " thinking. To 
 keep me from thinking! " he went on more loudly. 
 " She cannot prevent this thinking. No one can. 
 The very thing she's doing now to prevent it 
 makes me think the more. This midnight sewing 
 this piling night's work upon day this wearing 
 herself out, year in and year out for me, this tak- 
 ing upon herself the whole burden of that mort- 
 gage payment that responsibility which stands 
 before us at the beginning of next month ! " 
 
 So that was what they faced! That old fa- 
 miliar financial cancer that old secret disease 
 which I had seen before since eat out the life of 
 so many of the older families about the street. I 
 had not known before that the Griswolds had one. 
 
 " I will not have it. I will not. No," he said, 
 striking his fist upon the marble top of the old 
 center table. " I will not accept all this from her 
 any longer. I cannot. I must have my self-re- 
 spect. We must all have our self-respect no 
 matter what our age. Old or young, none of us 
 will be a burden upon others. Never! " 
 
 He stopped suddenly, feeling pain from his blow 
 upon the table, perhaps. 
 
 " Here," he said, under his breath, " I'm talk- 
 ing too much."
 
 The Dead Prophets 241 
 
 I could just hear him say it. He was thinking 
 aloud, according to his old habit. 
 
 He took his hat and cane from beside the chair 
 he had sat in; he would not stay a moment longer. 
 
 " You will see me when you return? " he asked. 
 
 " At once," I said. 
 
 " Any offer any offer, within reason," he said. 
 
 " Very well," I answered. 
 
 " I thank you, sir," he said. " Good day." 
 
 He clambered down the steps again in silence, 
 hesitated, turned again to the back way, which I 
 knew now, of course, he was taking to escape the 
 notice of his daughter. 
 
 I watched him from my window pass once 
 more across the lawn, around the church home 
 head down, silent, hitching after him his invisible 
 ball and chain. 
 
 I saw him once or twice in his own house the 
 next few days; he came in while Celeste and I 
 were talking. And several times my eye roamed 
 casually over his library estimating the current 
 value of the messages of those seers and prophets 
 along the wall; reviewing again the ranks of the 
 dead Doctors of Divinity in their faded bindings 
 upon his shelves. 
 
 Then the first of next week I was in New York 
 again, with my list of them, to place before the 
 booksellers. 
 
 There was a Jew, who kept a bookstand on
 
 242 The Last Christian 
 
 Twenty-third Street in those days a good-na- 
 tured, unshaven, friendly fellow, who sat continu- 
 ally out of the light of day in his dark cellar full 
 of books; slouched down in a round-backed cane 
 chair, his derby hat hanging on the back of his 
 head, living and breathing and having his being 
 in that perpetual dead atmosphere of dried 
 thoughts and withered sentiments happy as a 
 bug in a tomb. 
 
 I took him in the list of Mr. Griswold's books. 
 He looked it over with my aid. For Mr. Gris- 
 wold's writing was pretty difficult. He laid it 
 down, when he was done; took it up again. He 
 was undoubtedly interested. 
 
 " I have been many years in this business," said 
 the bookman, " but I have not yet seen one like 
 this." And he examined it again. 
 
 "Where does it come from?" he asked. 
 
 " New England." 
 
 "Way up?" 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Pretty far up." 
 
 He looked it over again, dwelling on the au- 
 thors' names. " Sometimes we used to get 'em," 
 he said, " these old Christian libraries out of 
 them old houses sometimes twenty years ago, 
 when I was first in this business. Honest, I tell 
 you the trut', I ain't seen one for years. And 
 nothin' like this one never." 
 
 He was interested, sentimentally and profes-
 
 The Dead Prophets 243 
 
 sionally. " Yes, sir," he said sadly, turning the 
 leaves, " and I betcha they cost a lost of money 
 once. Fifteen hundred dollars? " he added, read- 
 ing. "My, my I" 
 
 " What's it worth to you now? " I asked. 
 
 " Nothin' ! " he responded quickly. 
 
 " Nothing," I said. " It's certainly worth 
 something." 
 
 "I tell you the trut': I don't want it at no 
 price," he said. " Look here, I show you, look." 
 He turned over the sheets again. 
 
 " Jonathan Edwards well, I get something for 
 him Paley yes, something. Kitto yes, they 
 use him now, some. But who is this this J. Pye 
 Smith, D.D., I have not heard of him. Then this 
 here, Doctor S. Clarke who is this man I do not 
 know him. All these years I'm in business, I do 
 not hear of him nor all these other fellows here. 
 No, no, no, no I tell you, I don't want them, I 
 have no call for them." 
 
 " You can give something," I said. " These 
 authors' copies, these ones with autographs, 
 Henry Ward Beecher, now that's worth some- 
 thing." 
 
 " Maybe, who knows? A dollar two dollars 
 for him, maybe. But who else? Mark Hopkins 
 fifty cents, say. Who else?" 
 
 " But something," I said, " you can give some- 
 thing."
 
 244 The Last Christian 
 
 " Oh, well I give twenty-five yes, I give you 
 thirty dollars. No, that's all. No, positively. No. 
 Honest, I'd rather not take them at no price. 
 
 " Look, I tell you, what I do with you," he 
 said, getting up. " I'll sell you some. Look." 
 
 He showed me two deep alcoves, filled with 
 books more and other Doctors of Divinity, row 
 after row, imprisoned there in his dingy cata- 
 combs. 
 
 " Some I have ten twenty years. What shall 
 I do sell them? How? When I get ten cents 
 apiece for them, on the average, I do well. You 
 take them!" he said, the thought striking him. 
 " I tell you, I sell them all to you for that money 
 now without one word. We say no more. You 
 take them." 
 
 " I don't want them," I said, " at any price. 
 They're of no use to me." 
 
 "No," he said. "You see? I tell you the 
 trut', there ain't no market for them. There ain't 
 no customers no more for these goods," he said. 
 
 He didn't want them that was clear. 
 
 " Ain't it funny," he said, philosophizing, 
 " how books change all of them. The books we 
 get now they won't be wort' nothing two years 
 from now. I got an uncle in the provision busi- 
 ness. I tell him they've got so they keep eggs 
 with them new ice-making plants now, longer than 
 we can books."
 
 The Dead Prophets 245 
 
 He laughed a short business-like laugh. 
 
 " Honest, they do," he said, his round eyes get- 
 ting rounder. " Honest, I mean it! " 
 
 He stood phlegmatically in the door as I left 
 an untidy, cheerful, philosophical creature. 
 
 " Well, you try someone else," he suggested. 
 " You see what they give you." 
 
 I did. There was no material advance. I saw 
 soon very clearly what I should have understood 
 before, that Mr. Griswold's library that won- 
 derful thesaurus of supernatural wisdom of my 
 youth was now practically no asset at all to him. 
 
 I had not ever thought, in fact, that it would 
 be a great one. I had imagined, tho, that it 
 would have been worth enough at least to make 
 plausible some transaction by which it would bring 
 him money in some way. A transaction, in fact, 
 in which I myself, under cover of someone else's 
 name, could pose as a purchaser or better still, 
 as leaner of money on his books as collateral. 
 And, in spite of everything, I had partly made 
 arrangements with my friend, the book dealer, to 
 carry such an enterprise if I should find it 
 feasible. 
 
 The difficulty was, of course, how to make it 
 plausible. For, in carrying it through, I must 
 face the scrutiny in Celeste Griswold's eyes. With 
 her father alone, it might have been different 
 not so difficult. But sooner or later, Celeste her-
 
 246 The Last Christian 
 
 self would know. I doubted my ability to carry 
 out before her quite so transparent a transaction. 
 
 But as it happened, I was never destined to at- 
 tempt it. 
 
 I was on the train, going home, when I ran 
 across Mr. Millett, the young minister. He was 
 sitting alone, ahead of me, head down, thinking. 
 He seemed somehow more scared, more shrinking, 
 more flitting than ever. He did not see me at 
 first, but he passed back going through the car, at 
 last, and was naturally held by the social code of 
 his profession to stop and exchange a few ameni- 
 ties with me. I was sorry for him. It was so 
 evidently against the dictates of his personal in- 
 clination. 
 
 " You are going home, I see," he said, flashing 
 and closing his quick smile. 
 
 " Yes. I suppose you are, too," I said. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said. " But not for long." He 
 seemed unusually nervous. " You see," he went 
 on, " I'm leaving the old church. I'm resigning 
 as you perhaps know." 
 
 " No," I said. " I had not heard it." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Mr. Millett. " That is my 
 decision." 
 
 " I'm sorry," I said. " I thought you liked it." 
 
 " I did. I did in many ways," he said. 
 
 " It's too bad," I said. " What will they do 
 without you ? "
 
 The Dead Prophets 247 
 
 " It is their present purpose, I understand," 
 said Mr. Millett, " to close the church. That is, 
 I so understand it," he qualified. 
 
 " You don't mean that! " I said. 
 
 " Yes, that is it, I think," said Mr. Millett. 
 " You will pardon me, won't you, you'll excuse me 
 now, won't you? I must go on. I am on my way 
 through to the next car. I am so glad to have seen 
 you, even for this little minute." 
 
 He flashed his quick disappearing smile, and 
 vanished himself did not return again to the car. 
 I have never seen him since. My last impression 
 of him was like my first an immature, and fright- 
 ened soul, continually in flight before some tre- 
 mendous following doom. 
 
 Naturally, for the time being, the matter of the 
 library dropped into secondary importance with 
 me then. My first purpose in the town was to 
 call on Mr. Doty and understand the new plan. 
 
 I sought out Mr. Doty that very afternoon of 
 my arrival; found him in his shining office still 
 amiable, still with his affectionate hand wandering 
 about your shoulders but just a little less demon- 
 strative towards me a shade less cordial. He 
 had been so, I felt, since I had failed to carry 
 out his wish that I consult with Dr. Spurdle con- 
 cerning my religious doubts. 
 
 "How do you do, Calvin? I'm very glad to 
 see you," he said, giving me a chair beside him.
 
 248 The Last Christian 
 
 There was the slightest touch of formality in his 
 voice. 
 
 " I've come to ask you," I said at once: " Is it 
 true that you're going to close up the church? " 
 
 " Yes, Calvin," said Mr. Doty. " It is quite 
 possible. Quite possible. We have called a meet- 
 ing of the Society for that purpose on next Mon- 
 day morning. 
 
 " Isn't it rather sudden," I asked, " this 
 move? " 
 
 "Well, yes," said Mr. Doty. "You see, we 
 had an offer for the building that was the 
 special reason for acting now." 
 
 " An offer from whom? " I asked. 
 
 " From the Odd Fellows," said Mr. Doty. " It 
 seems there is a plan on foot for establishing a 
 temple an Odd Fellows' temple here. A good 
 idea an excellent idea, too." 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 " It is on the trolley line quite convenient, you 
 see," said Mr. Doty. 
 
 I had nothing to say to that. 
 
 " You see, it was an offer a real offer, which 
 would take the building off our hands relieve 
 the mortgagees," he went on, explaining. " It 
 was unexpected; but we could not disregard it. 
 Offers for church property are not usual." 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 " I said the offer was responsible," qualified
 
 The Dead Prophets 249 
 
 Mr. Doty. " But that isn't it either. That didn't 
 close the church. The whole thing is the old 
 church is running down. It would have to be 
 done anyhow. This offer merely brought it to 
 a head." 
 
 ~ "What's the plan for the congregation?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " The same as before," said Mr. Doty. " We 
 will go over to the Brick Church, to Dr. 
 Spurdle's." 
 
 " Millett has gone, I understand," I said. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Doty, " an excellent young 
 man but not a strong man. No, not a strong 
 personality." 
 
 " And Mr. Griswold," I said, " what's to be- 
 some of him? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Mr. Doty. " That's 
 one of the questions we must take up." 
 
 " Poor old Mr. Griswold," I said, thinking 
 aloud. 
 
 " Yes, it is too bad," said Mr. Doty. " It's 
 painful." 
 
 " Cruel, I should call it. Just plain cruel," I 
 said, too warmly. 
 
 "Well, no; no, I don't think so. Not quite 
 that," said Mr. Doty. " You see, you must re- 
 member that that church has been kept open for 
 some time, practically for him. There are two 
 sides, my boy, to every question."
 
 250 The Last Christian 
 
 " Has he been paid to date? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, no," said Mr. Doty. " No not for 
 the past three months." 
 
 "Not paid!" I said. 
 
 " He's a problem a very difficult problem," 
 Mr. Doty hastened to say. " He can do nothing 
 now. And he's grown very old, very erratic. 
 Sometimes I think," said Mr. Doty very confi- 
 dentially, " that he's not all right not entirely, 
 you know not just right." 
 
 "You think so?" I said. 
 
 " I do. But we won't see him suffer," said Mr. 
 Doty. " No. We'll do something, I think. We 
 have that on our minds and hearts. 
 
 " At the same time," went on Mr. Doty, the 
 other Mr. Doty, the business man, the Doty of 
 affairs, " there's another way of looking at it. 
 Why should a church be made responsible for a 
 minister? Why is he any different from you or 
 me? We're all dependent, you might say, on some 
 going enterprise. And now this enterprise of his 
 this church has died out. It's failed, you 
 might say. If your business failed, or mine, we 
 wouldn't expect anybody to take care of us, would 
 we? No. 
 
 " No," he went on. " No. We've done a 
 good deal for the old man, and the old church, 
 first and last. We took up that mortgage our- 
 selves. We got up those revival services and
 
 The Dead Prophets 251 
 
 they cost money, too. But they didn't do any good. 
 Nothing did any good. They didn't revive they 
 couldn't. It's all continually been downhill. No ; 
 I tell you, Calvin," said Mr. Doty sadly, " I'm 
 afraid the old church has got to go this time." 
 
 " I hate to think of its going," I said. " The 
 passing of the old church forever." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Mr. Doty. "It does 
 seem so. I'd like to keep it open myself." 
 
 " For sentiment's sake," I said, " at least 
 if for nothing more than sentiment." 
 
 " Sentiment is all right," said Mr. Doty. " But 
 where are you going to get your money? " 
 
 I did not know, of course. 
 
 "Does Mr. Griswold know your plans?" I 
 asked him. 
 
 " Well, no," said Mr. Doty. " We haven't told 
 him yet."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 WHAT Is UPON Us? 
 
 IT was Celeste who brought the news to her 
 father. 
 
 " I was so glad I heard it first," she said, 
 when she told me of it. 
 
 She went back to the house, and found him in 
 his library. It was curious. When he was active, 
 writing sermons, he had done most of his work 
 away from it, upstairs. But now he sat there a 
 good share of the day, surrounded by his books. 
 
 He looked up at her when she came into the 
 room. 
 
 " Father," she said, as casually as she could, 
 " would it surprise you if they had to close the 
 church, after all? " 
 
 He looked at her in silence. 
 
 " What time do they propose to close it? " he 
 asked after a little. 
 
 " Pretty soon, I'm afraid, dear," said Celeste. 
 
 "When do they have the Society meeting?" 
 he asked her. " When do they act on it? " 
 
 "Next week; next Monday evening," said Ce- 
 leste. 
 
 Then there was silence between them. 
 252
 
 What Is Upon Us? 253 
 
 " They have had a chance to sell the building," 
 said Celeste. 
 
 He did not ask her to whom unusual as the 
 proceeding was ; she did not have the heart to tell 
 him. She sank down by him, and took his hand, 
 and held it for a long time, neither of them speak- 
 ing. Then after a while he said: 
 
 " Little daughter, I would like to be alone." 
 
 So she went out and left him. 
 
 He didn't speak of it again or scarcely at all, 
 she said when she told me. 
 
 " I wish you would go in and see him," said 
 Celeste, " and talk with him." 
 
 So I went in alone. He sat there in his arm- 
 chair by the window a big figure, a little 
 crumpled, but still suggestive of the strength that 
 was bone and sinew and gristle looking out the 
 window toward the street, along the side of the 
 little old brown church. 
 
 He did not speak of what had happened, and I 
 did not. 
 
 I tried to broach the sale of his library. I had 
 intended merely to tell him that it might be best 
 to wait a little before trying it. Celeste was out 
 of the room purposely of course. 
 
 But he didn't care to speak of it. 
 
 " Another time; another time," he said. 
 
 Then we talked on other matters, very calmly, 
 very pleasantly.
 
 254 The Last Christian 
 
 He spoke of my grandfather several times. " I 
 see a look in you like him," he said, examining my 
 face. "But more like your father; more like 
 your father! Your mind is like his. A restless 
 mind. Pretty restless isn't it?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. " I suppose it is." 
 
 " I'm very glad you came," he said when I 
 left him and turned, and started looking out 
 the window again. 
 
 " He's that way a good deal now," said Ce- 
 leste, when I told her of his talk. " His mind 
 goes back. He speaks of mother quite a 
 little." 
 
 " How does he look to you? " she asked. 
 
 " He seems very quiet," I said, " and unex- 
 cited." 
 
 " I don't like it. I'd rather he'd be some other 
 way. He ought to let me read to him more; he 
 ought to let me do something for him." 
 
 I smiled. " Ought " was a favorite word with 
 Celeste used both for herself and others. She 
 didn't notice me. She sighed. 
 
 " Do you think he ought to go to that meet- 
 ing? " she asked. 
 
 "He'll go anyway, won't he?" I answered. 
 
 " I suppose so," said Celeste. 
 
 So Mr. Griswold was there, at the corporation 
 meeting, that Monday night. I was there myself, 
 at the solicitation of Mr. Tubbs but legitimately
 
 What Is Upon Us? 255 
 
 enough, too. I still had an interest, strictly 
 speaking, in the business of the church, as a per- 
 manent pew holder in it. 
 
 We met in the vestry. There were nine of us, 
 when we were all there. We greeted each other 
 in a rather subdued way, and sat down in the 
 round-backed, yellow, wooden chairs. 
 
 I looked around the little place, dim under the 
 light of its few bracket lamps the worn, cheap 
 carpet, the battered hymn books, the low ceiling, 
 the painted walls, dulled by the fingers of long- 
 grown generations of children. 
 
 " Pretty seedy," said Mr. Tubbs, who sat be- 
 side me. " Pretty seedy. It will take quite a lot 
 to fix it up, so it's right." He was already, as a 
 leading Odd Fellow, assuming an air of pro- 
 prietorship. 
 
 The meeting organized, with Mr. Doty in the 
 chair. The clerk of the corporation sat beside 
 him, the druggist of the Village; a thin, sandy 
 man not a very regular attendant at church 
 who worked in his clerical capacity in a somewhat 
 off-hand way, always with a quill toothpick in his 
 mouth. 
 
 Mr. Griswold came in, last of all. He sat a 
 row ahead of me, at the end of a line of empty 
 chairs. 
 
 The situation was explained by Mr. Doty; in 
 fact, the whole meeting was conducted by him
 
 256 The Last Christian 
 
 excellently, I thought; in a clear-cut, business-like 
 way. 
 
 The matter was very simple as he showed. 
 There would be great regret, he said, beginning, 
 at the closing of the dearly beloved church. But 
 after all, might it not be God's leading? The 
 congregation would be welcomed in Dr. Spurdle's 
 church. He was there now at Mr. Doty's invi- 
 tation, to give the welcome. 
 
 There was more than could be said of the sad- 
 ness of the time. But much, too, on the other side 
 as well. He spoke of the waste in overhead 
 charges for two churches, where one would do. 
 He did not think that waste, any waste, was ac- 
 ceptable, or praiseworthy in God's eyes, more than 
 in man's. And then Mr. Doty passed directly 
 into the meeting's business. 
 
 He spoke concisely and clearly of the financial 
 impossibility of the situation. The fact was that 
 the church could not go further. It had not the 
 money to pay its bills. He showed some of them 
 a coal bill in particular for last winter's coal. 
 How could they pay it? They could not. 
 
 It had seemed that the church must be closed 
 anyway. And then, suddenly, by luck some might 
 call it, but he felt that it was much more like the 
 work of Providence there was this opportunity 
 to sell an unexpected, an unusual chance, which 
 he would call upon Mr. Tubbs to explain.
 
 What Is Upon Us? 257 
 
 Mr. Tubbs explained, somewhat clumsily, the 
 hopes and aspirations of the Odd Fellows, whom 
 he represented, for a permanent home. There 
 was a great lack, he said, of good halls in the 
 Village. Other organizations, the Red Men in 
 particular, had been approached, and been found 
 to have a desire to co-operate; to take a hall on 
 other nights, if one could be found. And so, it 
 had just happened that at this time they were in 
 the market for a building. He knew everybody 
 knew, that the old church was hard up; and was 
 probably going to close anyway. It was only a 
 few minutes from the Village, on the trolley line. 
 It might do. Others thought so. And so he 
 had spoken to Mr. Doty. That was all. 
 
 Mr. Griswold did not move nor look up as he 
 spoke. He sat there, with his hands on his cane, 
 staring down motionless as a graven image. 
 
 Mr. Doty continued the business of the meet- 
 ing. He said another side of the subject, upon 
 which something must be said, was the matter of 
 the mortgage, and the men who had taken it. 
 They had come forward, and assumed the bur- 
 den manfully. They must certainly be considered. 
 And this offer would take the burden from them 
 yes, and pay, perhaps, some of the other debts 
 besides. 
 
 They were there, the holders of the mortgage 
 all of them. Mr. Doty, of course, was one;
 
 258 The Last Christian 
 
 and the clerk of the meeting, the druggist. The 
 third was the provision man who drove his cart 
 about the Street. A pleasant, rosy-faced, quiet 
 man, who could scarcely afford to lose the money. 
 
 It was a foregone conclusion from the first. 
 The provision man said a few words hesitatingly. 
 Dr. Spurdle gave his fluent invitation for his 
 church. There was ample room in the Brick 
 Church still ampler room in the hearts and 
 memories of its people, for the reception of the 
 sons and daughters of its own mother, the ancient 
 church of the valley. The occasion was sad in 
 many ways parting was always sad. Yet we 
 must remember: it was not brick or clapboards 
 that made the temple of God; it was spirit. He 
 spoke, in closing, of his delight in some fine senti- 
 ments in Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
 
 Mr. Griswold, so far, had said nothing. He 
 still sat motionless, his eyes focussed now, appar- 
 ently, on a coarse, brown wall map of Palestine 
 behind the platform. 
 
 "Can't we hear from someone else?" asked 
 Mr. Doty. " Can't we hear a word from him, to 
 whom our love and reverence goes out particu- 
 larly at this time from our dear old pastor, Mr. 
 Griswold?" 
 
 But the old man shook his head. 
 
 There was nothing to be said, really; it was al- 
 ready settled. The only voice, that could be said
 
 What Is Upon Us? 259 
 
 to sound a note of questioning, or reluctance, was 
 that of the bearded man who prayed, who spoke 
 last of all, arising, as always, with his Bible in 
 his hand. He was just a little doubtful. They 
 had been richly blessed there, he felt; the spirit 
 had descended upon them in full measure. He 
 had hoped that the old church might be snatched, 
 even now, a brand from the burning. But he 
 finally acknowledged the fuller wisdom of the 
 other men these men of affairs. They had 
 plumbed the problem more deeply than he. He 
 could only trust their great judgment and accept. 
 No doubt they would continue to be richly blessed 
 there, as here in their new Bethel, their new 
 church home. 
 
 And so the vote was taken, and passed; and 
 Mr. Doty, and the clerk, and the provision man 
 as the responsible men of affairs were chosen 
 to carry out the settlements. The old church was 
 formally ended. And still Mr. Griswold sat with- 
 out speaking. 
 
 We all sat for a moment, waiting. It was very 
 quiet. Mr. Doty sat looking down on us, in 
 white-vested benevolence. The nervous clerk 
 chewed at his toothpick. The old, old man, the 
 octogenarian who attended Mr. Griswold's 
 prayer meetings, sat chin down on his cane. You 
 could hear his difficult breathing in the silence. 
 
 It was the man who prayed, that finally called
 
 260 The Last Christian 
 
 Mr. Griswold to his feet, for his final discourse, 
 after it was all done. 
 
 " Before we go," he pleaded, " before we go, 
 will not our dear leader, our shepherd of long 
 years, speak? Will he not tell us what is on his 
 heart?" 
 
 The old man shook his head again, at first. 
 Then, arousing himself, he struggled slowly to 
 his feet. It was very still; his cane, which he had 
 placed against the chair before him, fell loudly 
 to the floor. 
 
 " I am awkward," he said, in apology, and stood 
 there, looking down at the handful of men in his 
 old gathering place for prayer. Mr. Tubbs, sit- 
 ting beside me, yawned and moved his feet. 
 
 "To what end?" said the old man heavily. 
 "To what will it lead? Who will listen when I 
 speak?" 
 
 " All, every one of us in this place! " said Mr. 
 Doty warmly. And still the old man hesitated. 
 
 " Thirty years I have shown you. I have cried 
 aloud to you," he said finally. His voice had 
 risen a little. " To what purpose ? " 
 
 He paused again; went on. 
 
 " Now this has come. At last it is upon us 
 what we feared what we saw coming for so 
 long! 
 
 " For this is not new. I saw it. You saw it," 
 he said, extending his long finger toward Mr.
 
 What Is Upon Us? 261 
 
 Doty; " and you! " he said to the old, old man 
 " long years ago ! " 
 
 Mr. Tubbs nudged me significantly with his 
 elbow. 
 
 " So now it is here. To-morrow we strip this 
 sanctuary. And it becomes a playhouse a house 
 for grown men, in child's play." 
 
 Mr. Tubbs sat up, stiffened with resentment. 
 Mr. Griswold, half facing me, looked up now. I 
 saw the momentary flash of his eyes under their 
 ragged brows. 
 
 " But this is a little thing," he said, more loudly 
 " a very little thing to what is coming close be- 
 hind it ! To what I see ; and what you see exactly 
 as you saw before in this one church is rushing 
 down upon us. It is almost here. You will see 
 it, if you will only look." 
 
 He had held, by one shaky hand, to the seat 
 before him; his voice had not been quite steady. 
 But now it steadied and grew firmer. 
 
 " Let us be men. Let us look at it before it over- 
 whelms it," he called, and stopped. 
 
 They sat uneasily, the little congregation arm 
 on hymn book, looking down, waiting. Mr. Tubbs 
 shuffled his feet a little; Mr. Doty looked down 
 doubtfully under his eyebrows. 
 
 The speaker stood a moment; his deep-set, 
 melancholy eyes turned about the narrow confines 
 of the little room.
 
 262 The Last Christian 
 
 " You will remember this church the place of 
 worship, when it was the House of God ! " He 
 addressed himself seemingly to the octogenarian, 
 who nodded slightly, his chin upon his cane. 
 " The temple of a living God full, full of wor- 
 shipers. You remember it and you, and you ! " 
 he said, pointing. " The House of God an ever- 
 present God a living God. 
 
 " Now this now this handful ! 
 
 " Strange, you will say. Why? Who did this 
 thing? I will tell you; I will tell you," he said, 
 leaning forward; speaking lower: "The foes in 
 our own household the whisperers! " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " The whisperers, the traitors, of whom Paul 
 speaks the whisperers; those which creep into 
 houses ! " 
 
 A strange and eerie earnestness had come into 
 his voice and manner. I saw Mr. Tubbs turn 
 toward me a furtive and suggestive glance. 
 
 " Digging, digging, digging sapping at the 
 foundations of our faith," the speaker went along, 
 in a constrained, mysterious voice. u Where did 
 we hear them first? What were they whispering 
 of when we heard their voices thirty years ago? 
 The Creation, was it not?" The octogenarian, 
 appealed to, nodded once again. 
 
 " Just a breath. Just a whisper. Just the lisp- 
 ing of a spring night wind in the maple leaves!
 
 What Is Upon Us? 263 
 
 softly; lightly! Was it possible, was it possible? 
 they whispered, we had misunderstood we had 
 misinterpreted that first, most distant period of 
 revelation the inspired narrative of Moses of the 
 Creation? 
 
 " ' There it is,' we said, ' in black and white in 
 God's book.' 
 
 " ' Yes, yes,' they whispered. ' But it may be ; it 
 might be we have misconceived God's meaning. 
 Might it not be an allegory a lesson not meant 
 as history?' Oh, they were humble then; very 
 reverent! " 
 
 The bearded man nodded now. His eyes were 
 brightening. 
 
 " Where do we find them next? ' demanded the 
 old speaker "creeping, creeping, creeping on? 
 You know. You remember. At God's punish- 
 ment. The entire scheme of Divine Justice." The 
 octogenarian nodded deeply now. " Probation 
 probation might not divine love overcome 
 divine justice? " 
 
 " ' But there it is,' we said, * in black and white 
 in the Bible. What are you doing? What are you 
 trying to do? Destroy the book of God destroy 
 all revelation? ' 
 
 " ' No, no,' they answered. ' Never. We speak 
 with greatest reverence of God's book of revela- 
 tion.' But still their whisperings grew." 
 
 He paused. " Off 'way off," remarked Mr.
 
 264 The Last Chris f ian 
 
 Tubbs, leaning over toward me. He touched his 
 knuckle to his forehead. 
 
 " Then what? " asked Mr. Griswold. The man 
 who prayed sat upright now and stiff. 
 
 " They were moving, moving, moving," said 
 Mr. Griswold, in a strange and stealthy voice, 
 "bolder now; a little bolder where, at what? 
 Against the miracles. Against revelation itself ! 
 
 " * They are in the Bible,' we said ' in its very 
 fabric woven in and in. They are revelation 
 its signs and seals. The very Scripture itself ! ' 
 
 " ' Sit still. Sit still,' they said. ' The Bible is 
 something more than that something higher; 
 something more satisfying.' 
 
 " ' What ? ' we asked them. ' What ? Show us ! 
 How can a book of fairy tales be satisfying to 
 man's immortal soul? ' 
 
 " ' Wait,'- they said. * Sit still. Wait, we will 
 show you.' 
 
 " And still we heard the whisperings grow 
 among the immature, among our enemies, in our 
 churches themselves.' 
 
 " Right; you are right! " interpolated the man 
 who prayed. His eyes were kindled now, with an 
 anxious fire. 
 
 A greater flame was in Mr. Griswold's eyes. 
 His worn old figure shook with a nervous tension 
 too strong for him. 
 
 "And then then where do we find them?"
 
 What Is Upon Us? 265 
 
 he called. "Where? At our citadel at the very 
 resurrection itself! 'Was there a resurrection?' 
 they were whispering. ' Is there an immortal soul ? 
 Was there really, then, a Savior? Was there; was 
 there ? We only ask. We just suggest ! ' 
 
 " But now their whisperings rose. They ran 
 around the world, a hissing and a great re- 
 proach ! On every lip ! Caught up by boys and 
 children ! That whisper, that awful whisper they 
 began ! It filled the earth ! It never ceased upon 
 our ears! 
 
 " ' What have you done? ' we asked these men 
 these whisperers. ' What have you left? Are 
 you destroying faith? Are you killing Chris- 
 tianity? ' 
 
 " They answered with high looks, and twisted 
 lip. ' Hush, hush, be still. You are belated. You 
 are old, old; you are very old. Your vision has 
 grown dim. Can you not see? We have some- 
 thing nobler; something better. Breadth of vi- 
 sion; higher interpretations, long, mysterious 
 words cold and unsatisfying as mouthfuls of 
 north wind! 
 
 " * No, no ! ' we said. ' This has gone too far. 
 Be specific. What is it you see? What do you 
 bring us in your hands? ' 
 
 " ' Very well,' they said, * we will show you. 
 We will unfold our scheme. We will show you 
 the new Christianity! ' "
 
 266 The Last Christian 
 
 He stopped. The resonance of his voice died. 
 He stared before him, a bright glitter in his eye. 
 
 "The new Christianity! What was it? Was 
 it new? No, not one word all picked out from 
 the Bible from the book they left in ruins under 
 them. Rags, and shags, and tatters, they had 
 picked out from the wreck they made like glean- 
 ers in a ruined city. This was their new Chris- 
 tianity, the thing they gave us back a few selec- 
 tions, a few verses from the Bible taken at the 
 pleasure of Smith and Jones of Tom and Dick 
 and Harry a Christianity without a Creator, 
 without a Judge, without a Bible. A Christianity 
 without a resurrection, without an immortality; 
 without a Christ! 
 
 " And now they sit inside the doors of their 
 emptying churches, and cry aloud, and wonder, 
 why the people pass by them laughing. 
 
 " ' Come in,' they call. * Come in! ' 
 
 "'There is no God no living God!' these 
 call back to them as they pass. ' There is no 
 Christ I You have told us so yourselves.' 
 
 " ' Ah. But listen to His words,' they say. 
 ' His words.' 
 
 " ' His words? ' they answer back again. * Can 
 myths speak anything but myths? ' 
 
 " 'Ah, but listen. Come! The higher ethics; 
 the fuller interpretation. The broader vision of 
 the Bible.'
 
 What Is Upon Us? 267 
 
 " ' Why not call us to the worship of the statute 
 books of Massachusetts? ' the people cry back to 
 them. * Why not? We know at least no one has 
 called these fairy tales.' 
 
 " And so they shake their heads and pass along 
 to their own desires and devices and destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 " In vain your revivals in vain your gospel 
 circus shows your stereopticon lectures on 
 Alaska ! Your Browning readings your pretty 
 poetry and your first lessons in politics! The 
 people pass you by. 
 
 " * A living God,' they cry. * A living God 
 Him only will we worship 1 ' 
 
 " Where are they; where are the people gone? " 
 demanded the old speaker. " Are they in your 
 churches Sundays? Are they worshipers of God? 
 Let us be men. Let us no longer palter, and cast 
 down our eyelids like schoolgirls. Let us look at 
 this thing boldly as it comes. 
 
 "Look about the closed and vacant sanctu- 
 aries upon these hills; the emptying temples of the 
 great cities! Is this a people of worshipers? Is 
 this a Christian nation now? Is it? Hardly." 
 
 "Crazy!" whispered Mr. Tubbs, leaning to- 
 ward me again. " Crazy! " 
 
 "Hardly now!" The speaker was passing 
 on. "Hardly! And what of three generations 
 from now what of the time before us in the
 
 268 The Last Christian 
 
 future just that little length of time, which eyes 
 in this room have looked back into the past? 
 What if this tide sweeps on? " he asked, and an- 
 swered his own question. 
 
 " A pagan nation heathen a nation lost in 
 darkness without hope, without a light without 
 a Christ! 
 
 " Let us not mince phrases. You know it. I 
 know it. The day of Christianity is dying in this 
 nation unless this nation turns itself! " 
 
 He stopped. The man who prayed sat on the 
 edge of his chair, his Bible in his hand ready to 
 spring upon his feet. 
 
 " Crazy," said Mr. Tubbs again, leaning over. 
 "Crazy as a bat!" 
 
 " Turn, turn return ! " the voice of the speaker 
 rose in the dimly lighted room. The handful 
 of listeners heard him head down, arms upon 
 their hymn books. Mr. Doty was ill at ease. 
 Mr. Spurdle's hand arranged his necktie. The 
 nervous clerk sat gnawing furiously at his tooth- 
 pick. 
 
 "Turn back," cried Mr. Griswold, "let us 
 turn back to a living God! To a living Christ 
 that was crucified. Let us show Him forth! Let 
 us sweep away let us sweep away these doubts 
 this gathering of darkness! Hush these whis- 
 pers silence them! Bring back mankind its 
 hope!
 
 What Is Upon Us? 269 
 
 "Hope! Hope!" he cried. "They have 
 killed man's hope ! " 
 
 He stood a moment, speechless. 
 
 " I warn you," he went on, speaking a little less 
 fiercely. " I warn you ! As I have warned you 
 now for thirty years. You must turn back to 
 God to the one living God and to his living 
 Son. One God one only Son one Holy Spirit. 
 One only triune God. For as surely as you do 
 not turn again, so surely is this nation lost. As 
 Tyre and Sidon ; as Nineveh and Babylon. Lost ! 
 Paid the penalty ! Smoke and ashes ! Gone for- 
 ever slipped down forever into the Great Pit." 
 
 He stopped again, swayed a little. And stood 
 there for a few seconds more. He seemed be- 
 wildered. 
 
 " I have said what I wish to say," he said at 
 last, wiped the perspiration on his forehead, and 
 sat down. 
 
 We sat silent then looking down all but the 
 bearded man who prayed. He had been waiting. 
 He was on his feet at once, trembling, on fire to 
 exhort. 
 
 "We have heard it!" he cried. "We have 
 heard it! We have heard the word. We must 
 act. We must organize! " His eye passed from 
 one figure to the other. He opened his Bible to 
 read. 
 
 I looked across. Mr. Griswold was rising
 
 270 The Last Christian 
 
 slowly taking up his hat. He stopped and looked 
 about the room once a little dazed, he seemed, 
 still. His lips moved. 
 
 " A voice crying in the wilderness," he said, like 
 a man talking entirely to himself. 
 
 And then he walked heavily to the door. Sev- 
 eral looked up, but no one thought to follow him. 
 
 We sat there after he had left, with downcast 
 eyes, until the exhorter had finished his out- 
 .pouring. Then we adjourned. I myself walked 
 on toward home with Mr. Tubbs. 
 
 Just before us, as we went out, were the octo- 
 genarian, and the man who prayed, walking very 
 slowly, passing down the steps. 
 
 " A powerful discourse," said the octogenarian, 
 leaning heavily upon his cane. " A powerful dis- 
 course. It stirred us. It stirred us ! " 
 
 " We must act. We must organize ! " said the 
 bearded figure. " We must spread the News." 
 
 But the old, old man did not answer him. He 
 was busy with his walking.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DARKENED SHRINE 
 
 I WAS with Mr. Tubbs upon his piazza. He 
 was explaining to me, in more detail than I 
 had heard before, the plans for the new uses 
 of the old church. 
 
 " A temple of Odd-Fellowship," said Mr. 
 Tubbs. " A big thing. A good hall. A place 
 where folks can get together, and have some 
 up-to-date enjoyment. A big thing a big thing, 
 I tell you, for this place I 
 
 "And we got it," said Mr. Tubbs, winking 
 broadly " we got it for a song." 
 
 I was getting restive, when I saw the figure 
 of a woman of Celeste coming across the 
 lawn. 
 
 "Have you seen father?" she asked. 
 
 " No," I answered. 
 
 "Will you come with me, please? " she asked 
 me. 
 
 Mr. Tubbs got up, hesitated sat down again. 
 The request was very clearly directed at me alone. 
 
 " I'm anxious," she said, as we went away to- 
 gether. 
 
 271
 
 272 The Last Christian 
 
 " We'll find him somewhere," I told her. 
 
 " I'm afraid he may be in the church," she said. 
 
 "Upstairs?" 
 
 " Yes. He was there once before," she told me. 
 
 Every one was gone; the place was closed and 
 locked. But Celeste had a key to the side entrance. 
 We let ourselves into the vestry, and following 
 her, I went to the entrance of the front stairs. It 
 was dark, but there was light enough from the 
 electric lamps on the street, so that we could pick 
 our way through the place. 
 
 We went upstairs. I felt again in the dark that 
 suspense that little gasp of expectation, which I 
 have sensed in the entry of the church, before 
 finally passing in the closed doors of the house of 
 God, always, since I was a child. We moved 
 quietly. Celeste pushed back without a sound the 
 swinging door, which led into the side aisle. She 
 motioned for greater silence. We stood together 
 inside. 
 
 She gripped my arm then. And I saw that her 
 father was there. I could barely see him. On 
 the platform a little back and to one side of the 
 pulpit we could see a figure ! 
 
 A small, round spot of electric light, coming 
 through the window through a little opening in 
 the foliage of the elm trees outside fell upon 
 his white beard. There were other smaller spots 
 upon his forehead; upon a hand, which rested
 
 The Darkened Shrine 273 
 
 upon the great Bible, lying open on the pulpit. 
 The rest of him the figure in black broadcloth 
 was almost invisible; swallowed up in the deep 
 background. 
 
 .He stood rigid motionless. He might per- 
 haps have heard our coming. The slightest noise 
 swelled to a tumult in the place. I waited for 
 what Celeste would do. Her hand was on my 
 arm, governing me. She did not move. We stood 
 there seconds minutes possibly. The black fig- 
 ure upon the platform stood erect, motionless 
 so still it seemed like nothing living. 
 
 It stirred then spoke: 
 
 "Oh, Hope of Israel!" it called softly. 
 Thou God " 
 
 He was praying. He stopped, stood motionless 
 again. 
 
 "Thou one triune and only God! How 
 long? How long? " 
 
 He stopped again. 
 
 " Arise ! Arise ! " he started suddenly. " Arise, 
 with healing in Thy wings." 
 
 He stopped in sudden silence a dim and mo- 
 tionless gray priest, behind a silent shrine. The 
 solemn place seemed choked with the immanence 
 of some ancient winged Asian deity. 
 
 "How long?" asked the old voice again. 
 "How long?" 
 
 Far, far away, there rose the hollow call of a
 
 274 The Last Christian 
 
 locomotive the cry of the moving machine, which 
 year after year now grows to disturb our nights. 
 
 The light and shadow moved just perceptibly 
 upon the unmoving face. A little wind was stir- 
 ring. 
 
 ."Where art Thou?" demanded the voice 
 again. " Why hidest Thou Thy face in dark- 
 ness?" 
 
 I felt Celeste's light, firm hand upon my arm. 
 My thoughts went back again to that other time 
 we three stood there that day we two children 
 had joined the old White Church together. The 
 day the preacher called out his discourse upon 
 Elijah and his triumph over the priests of 
 Baal. 
 
 " Thy people die. Thy people perish ! Lost 
 lost lost! Darkness covers all the earth, and 
 gross darkness the people." 
 
 The wind was freshening; a flicker of light 
 through the shifting foliage touched his eye. 
 
 " Arise, shine ! " he said quickly. " Lift up the 
 light of Thy countenance upon us ! Lift it up ! " 
 
 He stopped listened, apparently. In the dis- 
 tance toward the village, we heard the hourly 
 trolley car as it came into the Street. 
 
 " Thou that ridest upon the Heavens," said the 
 voice and stopped again, listening. 
 
 The sound approached; the jar and thunder of 
 the rolling machine filled the silent, empty place.
 
 The Darkened Shrine 275 
 
 " Thou that spake on Horeb ! Thou that thun- 
 derest on Sinai ! " said the voice in broken inter- 
 vals. "Speak!" 
 
 The car had passed the door. 
 
 "Speak, speak! Send us a sign!" called the 
 old, wild voice. " If Thou wouldst, Thou couldst 
 send signs and wonders ! " 
 
 The noise of the trolley died away. 
 
 " No ! " the voice said dully. " No ! " 
 
 I looked at Celeste questioningly. 
 
 " Not yet, dear," she whispered. " Not yet! " 
 
 "How long?" the voice was saying once 
 again. "How long?" 
 
 The wind outside was rising. It tossed and 
 lifted the lithe branches of the elm trees. The 
 light of the electric street lamp fell upon his eye 
 for longer now. I saw the glitter of his eye-ball, 
 from where we stood. 
 
 He moved, and shook his head. It seemed to 
 annoy him. But the same suggestion came to 
 him again. 
 
 " Arise, shine ! " he said. And was silent for 
 a long time. 
 
 We heard the freshening wind in the elm trees. 
 The circuit in the street light was disturbed. We 
 heard the electricity hiss and stammer on its car- 
 bons; its blue light flickered through the place. 
 But still we did not move; for still Celeste's hand 
 was restraining me. And still the speaker did not
 
 276 The Last Christian 
 
 call again, until the light shone once again, full 
 into his eyes. 
 
 " A light," he said then, absently. " A light 
 that shineth in the darkness." He paused. It 
 came again. 
 
 " Shineth until the day dawn until the day 
 dawn! " 
 
 His voice grew heavier now, less vibrant. 
 " Dearly beloved. Until the day dawn ! " 
 
 I knew a change was coming in him. Celeste's 
 fingers were tightening on my arm. 
 
 " Dearly beloved," he said again " until the 
 day dawn ! " 
 
 " He's going back," Celeste whispered, moving 
 for the first time. " He's remembering! " 
 
 He roused himself a little. A miracle had 
 come, in fact, with his praying the sign and won- 
 der that he had desired. He was back again 
 talking to his dead people of the hopes pf thirty 
 years before. 
 
 " It is coming, Dearly Beloved," he was telling 
 them. " Do we not see it ? It has dawned for us. 
 It is dawning now for all mankind. It comes; it 
 comes! It moves across the mountains the isl- 
 ands of the sea ! It is on us it is here ! 
 
 " In this new century. This nineteenth century 
 this century of wonders and new light it is 
 upon us! Who knows what eyes now here will 
 see of its coming? Who knows what this cen-
 
 The Darkened Shrine 277 
 
 tury will not disclose, to us, the followers of the 
 Christ?" 
 
 He stopped. The wind was falling. The light 
 passed from his eyes; came again. 
 
 " What changes what changes eyes that are 
 here will see! Will they wait until the dawn 
 wait until the day dawn and the day-star 
 Will they wait till the Day-star arise?" His 
 voice grew slow slower dragged down to 
 silence. 
 
 The flurry of wind was gone; the long 
 branches of the elm trees drooped; the shadows 
 moved no longer on the high windows, or on his 
 face. 
 
 For a long time he was silent. Beside me, at 
 my shoulder, I could feel the body of Celeste 
 grow tenser and more tense. Then all at once 
 another voice came from the pulpit platform a 
 changed voice. 
 
 " It is dark here," it said, fretfully, like a 
 wakened child. 
 
 " Father ! " Celeste Griswold whispered 
 quickly. But there was no answer. 
 
 " This is strange unusual " said Mr. Gris- 
 wold's voice at last. 
 
 She called him again; but he did not hear her. 
 
 " I do not understand this," he said again. 
 " They are gone. They are gone, it seems. All 
 gone. Strange ! "
 
 278 The Last Christian 
 
 "Father!" Celeste called once again. And 
 now moved toward him. 
 
 The suggestion of her voice had reached him at 
 last. 
 
 " My daughter," he was saying, " I must find 
 my daughter. She can't have gone without 
 me!" 
 
 She had come quite near to him now, walking 
 softly up the dim aisle. 
 
 "No! No! She hasn't, dear," she said to 
 him. 
 
 " Celeste ! " he said quickly. " Celeste ! I was 
 afraid that you had gone ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, dear," she told him and laughed a 
 little. "What made you think that?" 
 
 " So many have," he answered wearily. " So 
 many have." 
 
 " Oh, no, I'm here, father," said Celeste, in her 
 most cheery voice. 
 
 She was at the platform now I following her. 
 
 She took his arm lightly to guide him. 
 
 " It's dark here," he complained again. " We 
 seem to be here in the dark." 
 
 His mind was clearing but was still not very 
 clear. 
 
 "We are in the church are we not?" he 
 asked them, coming down the stairs. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she answered him " of course
 
 The Darkened Shrine 279 
 
 " I see," he said, a little wonderingly. But did 
 not question further. 
 
 " Yes, dear," his daughter told him. " But it's 
 time to go." 
 
 " Yes," he said, like a sleepy child. " I know. 
 It's time to go, Little Daughter. It's time to 
 go." 
 
 He was perfectly tractable. We brought him 
 home without the slightest trouble. But when he 
 was there, it came the final stroke. We scarcely 
 got him to his bedroom when it came upon him; 
 and I was rushing for the doctor. 
 
 I stayed below, waiting, when the doctor came. 
 He came down from upstairs at last for a mo- 
 ment, with an order for something I could do. 
 
 "They've got him this time," he said crisply; 
 " they've broken him at last." 
 
 He hurried back again. And I waited. Once 
 or twice he was down, alert busy with his work. 
 
 I asked him if I could be of any use upstairs. 
 "No, no," he said, "why should you be there? 
 No, stay away. Why should any one, but we who 
 have to, see it? " 
 
 But Celeste, of course, he could not move away 
 from where she was and stayed. 
 
 I waited there, in the old library, among the 
 dead Doctors of Divinity, those intolerable, drag- 
 ging hours of listening and suspense. I heard the 
 little movements in the room above the silences.
 
 280 The Last Christian 
 
 I sat and rose; and opened pages of the old man's 
 books; and closed them and put them back upon 
 their shelves again. But all the time my fright- 
 ened mind dwelt in imagination in the room above 
 with the dying man, the woman the one 
 woman, that one figure dearest in the world to me. 
 
 It was five o'clock when it came. The lower 
 stars were fading in the high translucence of the 
 dawn. And the sons of men were waking, across 
 the barren hills of old New England; across the 
 land of my own people. In its fields, beside 
 the gaunt stacks of its factories; within its misty 
 cities on the sea, they woke again into another 
 day. And as I watched it coming, out of the old 
 library window, he was gone my dear, old friend. 
 Gone; and with him went, for me, a generation 
 a generation of strong and honest men. There 
 was a stir in the room above a muffled cry. I 
 knew that he was dead. 
 
 I stood below, rigid, listening waiting. 
 
 She came to me at last down the old steep 
 stairs. The doctor made her come away sent 
 her to me. 
 
 I stood waiting in the door. 
 
 "Celeste!" I called. 
 
 She came into my arms dry-eyed, silent. Her 
 body shuddered lightly against mine and lay 
 still.
 
 The Darkened Shrine 281 
 
 " I'm so tired, dear," she whispered. " So 
 tired so tired." 
 
 Across her white face fell the light the first 
 warm sunlight of another day.