THE SON gf 
 
 MARY BETHEL 
 
 By EISA BARKER
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL
 
 The Son of Mary Bethel 
 
 By 
 
 Elsa Barker 
 
 "7 know not whether this book it worth anything, nor what the world will 
 
 do with it, or misdo,or utterly forbear to do, as ii likeliest; but this I could tell 
 
 the world: Tou ham not had for a hundred jears any took that comes mart 
 
 direct and jlaminglj from the heart of a living man. Do what }t,u like with if." 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLB, of his French Revolution. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1909
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 Published September, 1909 
 
 THE PREMIER PRESS 
 NEW YORK
 
 To the Memory of My Mother. 
 LOUISE MARIA 
 
 Who taught me the meaning of 'Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity whose 
 other name is Love. 
 
 2229169
 
 CONTENTS 
 BOOK I 
 
 THE PROMISE 
 
 BOOK II 
 THE PREPARATION ... ...... 123 
 
 BOOK III 
 THE FULFILMENT ......... 209 
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE SACRIFICE .......... 381
 
 BOOK I 
 
 THE PROMISE
 
 The Son of Mary Bethel 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HE was a strange child, given to long reveries almost from 
 the cradle. As Mary Bethel told her husband one day 
 when Jesse was three years old : " You would think, to 
 see him gazing off into the sky with that rapt look in his 
 eyes, that he was trying to remember something that hap- 
 pened ages before he was born." The young mother was 
 herself a dreamer, and sometimes wrote verses in secret. 
 Jesse was her first child, and she had searched the Scrip- 
 tures for a name which should be an inspiration and a 
 source of strength to him in after life. Mary was a 
 religious woman who deeply realised her religion, having 
 a larger heart and a larger brain than any of her neigh- 
 bours. From an old Biblical dictionary she learned the 
 meaning of the name Jesse, " the Lord is." So, as the 
 existence of her Lord was very real to her, she called the 
 child's name Jesse. 
 
 Though two other sons came later to fill her heart and 
 to lessen her scant leisure, they seemed to be of a different 
 spirit from the first-born. Never would she have admitted 
 that she loved them less than him; but on the night when 
 the swamp woods were on fire behind the house, it was the 
 little Jesse she held close in her arms through the long hours 
 of watching, while the two younger boys slept heavily side 
 by side on the broad lounge at the other end of the kitchen. 
 
 The husband of Mary Bethel was a kind and quiet man 
 of middle-age, some twenty years her senior. He was by 
 trade a carpenter, and occasional work of building and re- 
 pairing added enough to the income of their few acres to 
 give them peace and plenty. 
 
 Two decades after the Civil War, the standard of liv- 
 ing was simple among the farming people of Western Ver- 
 mont. They were artless and full of elemental grace. The
 
 4 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 annual flood of summer visitors from the large cities, that 
 later brought disturbing suggestions of a more complex ex- 
 istence, had hardly then begun. But for the railroad and 
 the weekly newspaper, the life of the dwellers in N ash- 
 burgh and the neighbouring towns might almost have been 
 likened to that of the inhabitants of Palestine in the early 
 years of our era. Extremes of poverty and wealth were 
 practically unknown. On the table of the poorest family 
 there was enough of wholesome if coarse food, and the most 
 prosperous farmer and his wife sat down to eat with their 
 farm-hands and hired girls in at least the semblance of 
 fraternity. When in the meeting-house, those who made 
 the profession of religion were wont to call each other 
 " brother " and " sister." Though generally reserved for 
 Sunday, this ancient custom was an occasional reminder 
 of that ideal which they believed they sought to realise. 
 Religion was much talked about, and if the tears so freely 
 shed at the revival meetings were true testimony, it must 
 have been at least emotionally experienced. 
 
 The books in that remote farmhouse of the Bethels were 
 few, and mostly of a religious character; though two or 
 three well-worn volumes of the best English poetry were 
 on the table in the sitting-room, beside the family Bible 
 and the album. But when Jesse was seven years old, and 
 the two other boys five and four, a literary event occurred 
 in the Bethel home. The child of a more prosperous neigh- 
 bour gave " The Book of Wonder " to the eldest son of 
 Mary. This precious gift was a token of appreciation of 
 the bravery of Jesse in subduing, with his gentle voice and 
 affectionate arms, the anger of a passing dog whose loud 
 barks and widely displayed white teeth had alarmed not 
 only the children but their mothers. 
 
 " The Book of Wonder " was, for Jesse, the door into 
 another world. He was familiar with the idea of angels 
 and other lofty supernatural beings, whose pictures were in 
 the family Bible; they were to be regarded with awe and 
 veneration from a respectful distance. But fairies, and 
 brownies, and sylphs, and salamanders! Oh, these were 
 the companions for whom his soul had yearned ! No revela- 
 tion of the unfamiliar splendours of foreign lands can ever 
 mean to a grown man or woman what an illustrated book
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 5 
 
 of 'fairy lore and beauty may mean to an imaginative child. 
 At the age of seven Jesse could read as well as most chil- 
 dren of ten or eleven, and the first hours of his possession of 
 " The Book of Wonder " were hours of such intense in- 
 tellectual excitement that outwardly he was so still his 
 mother was afraid. She was too wise to take the book away 
 from him; though when his bedtime came there was no 
 appeal from her decision that the wonderful thing must 
 be put away until the morrow. 
 
 Jesse could not sleep. After lying for half an hour, he 
 called to his mother, softly, so as not to waken the other 
 boys : 
 
 "Mother! Mother!" 
 
 She came to the half-open door of the bedroom. It was 
 in the middle of the summer and still only twilight, though 
 past eight o'clock. 
 
 " What is it, child ? Why are you not asleep ? " 
 
 "Mother, when is Midsummer eve?" 
 
 " I don't know, Jesse : the middle of the summer, I sup- 
 pose. Why don't you go to sleep ? " 
 
 " But, Mother, I want to know when is Midsummer 
 eve." 
 
 She came over to the bed and took his hand. It was 
 hot, and vibrant w r ith the inner force which she had grown 
 almost to fear in him. After a moment she gently laid his 
 hand back on the coverlet, and said in a whisper: " Do 
 not wake the children. I will look in the almanac. I will 
 come back and tell you." 
 
 He was sitting up in bed when she re-entered the room. 
 
 " Well, Mother?" he whispered. 
 
 " Midsummer eve is the twenty-fourth of June." 
 
 "And when is it now? " 
 
 " This is the wait a moment Why, this is the twenty- 
 fourth of June." 
 
 "Oh, Mother!" 
 
 He reached up and caught her around the neck, drawing 
 her down to him. She felt his small heart beating wildly 
 through her thin summer dress. 
 
 " Mother," he whispered excitedly, " the Book says that 
 on Midsummer eve, at midnight, the fairies all come out 
 and dance upon the grass. They will come out to-night!
 
 They will dance upon our grass! Around the rose-bushes, 
 the Book says, around and around the rose-bushes. Oh, 
 I must see them! How long before midnight, Mother? " 
 
 " My darling! Won't you go to sleep? It is hours and 
 hours before midnight. You can never stay awake. And if 
 you should, you wouldn't you might not see them." 
 
 " Yes, I will stay awake. How will I know when it's 
 midnight? " 
 
 " The clock strikes twelve at midnight." 
 
 " The same as it does at noon? " 
 
 " Yes ; but before that, you know, it will have to strike 
 nine, and ten, and eleven, with a long, long hour between 
 each striking. You could never keep awake." 
 
 "Will you come in and kiss me good-night, Mother, 
 before you go to bed ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you are not asleep." 
 
 " I shall not be asleep." 
 
 Before ten o'clock she came again, not thinking to find 
 him awake, but merely to keep the letter of her promise. 
 So still he lay, that she would have passed out again in 
 silence had not his whisper held her. 
 
 " What time is it now? " 
 
 She told him, as she gave the good-night kiss, then went 
 away and left him alone. He was no longer feverish, for 
 the little hand was cool and normal, and she thought he 
 would soon fall asleep. So she went to her own bed in the 
 next room. 
 
 After a sound slumber Mary awoke. The clock was strik- 
 ing. As the last tones reverberated through the silent house, 
 she thought she heard a sound as of a clicking latch. 
 
 Slipping quietly from the bed so as not to waken her 
 husband, she went with bare feet into the little entry at the 
 front of the house. The outer door which led into the 
 garden was wide open. Noiselessly she passed to the thresh- 
 old and looked out. 
 
 There in the violet moonlight stood the child, his long 
 white nightgown sharply outlined against the dark back- 
 ground of currant-bushes. Suddenly she saw him bend 
 forward, half crouching, gazing intently at something be- 
 tween him and the rose-bushes bordering the path. Only 
 a minute or two he bent there, motionless, apparently spell-
 
 bound ; then, throwing up his arms exultingly, without a 
 sound he began to walk swiftly to and fro over the damp 
 grass, regardless of his naked feet, his scantily clad body, 
 unmindful of everything save the unquenchable flame of 
 his idea. At the age of seven, the son of Mary Bethel had 
 discovered the Invisible. 
 
 After a few moments the mother went out on the door- 
 step and waited quietly till he should turn and see her. 
 She feared to startle him too suddenly from his abstraction 
 should she call his name, or by any sound apprise him of her 
 presence. But soon he turned of his own accord and came 
 up the path, then saw her standing by the open door. She 
 went a few steps toward him, extending her arms to the 
 cold little form which rushed to meet her. 
 
 "Oh, Mother, I saw the fairies! The Book Is true! 
 There are fairies! They were dancing and dancing over 
 the grass around the rose-bushes, a circle of them, all in 
 green, with silvery wings, and I think they saw me, for they 
 all at once let go of hands, and off they were, quick as a 
 star falls, Mother. And I am so happy that I saw them, 
 for now I know the Book is true. And if I can see them, 
 other people can see them, too, Father and the boys, and 
 maybe all other people." 
 
 " Yes, darling, but now come back to bed. It is cold 
 here, and you have no shoes on." 
 
 So she led him back to his bed, and sat beside him till his 
 enthusiasm finally forgot itself in the delicious languor of 
 relaxing nerves and slipped into the waiting void of slum- 
 ber. And by no word, nor by any too-long silence, did she 
 give the child to feel that in the mind of his mother there 
 could be a possible doubt that he had seen the midnight 
 dance of the fairies around the rose-bushes on Midsummer 
 eve. 
 
 But in the morning she advised him to let the wonder 
 remain a secret between themselves. So she postponed the 
 dreamer's inevitable awakening to the incredulity of a mate- 
 rial-minded world.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EVERY summer, in a large grove some twenty miles north 
 of Nashburgh, there was held a religious camp-meeting. As 
 the husband of Mary Bethel was not in sympathy with 
 these periodical expressions of collective emotion, she rarely 
 visited the camp-ground. That she could not oftener join 
 in the summer festival of her church was a cause of secret 
 grief to her; but after several years of marriage to a man 
 whose undoubted love for her had never found refreshment 
 at the wells of understanding, and whose own tastes and 
 limitations tended more and more, as time went on, to be- 
 come the boundaries of the family's experience, after sev- 
 eral years of marital compliance, the indulgence of her own 
 desires had come to be a part of the vast ocean of the un- 
 attainable, whose voice was ever calling in her ears. Before 
 the birth of Jesse this voice had called incessantly, and 
 she sometimes wondered if the strangeness of the child was 
 not the answer of Nature to her ceaseless questioning. In 
 those very words she expressed the query to herself, hav- 
 ing more education than was usual with the women of her 
 class. As she had no companionship of a nature to stimulate 
 the mind, all the enthusiasm of her temperament flowed into 
 the broad channel of religion, all save one small stream, 
 whose unknown way she found by means of the volumes of 
 old poetry which lay beside the family Bible on the table 
 in the sitting-room. But the great reality of Mary's life was 
 an ecstatic adoration of her Creator. And every year, be- 
 tween haying and harvesting, when her neighbours made 
 ready for the annual seven days at the Grove camp-meeting, 
 her heart made ready with them; but only once during all 
 the years of her marriage had she been able to gratify the 
 desire. 
 
 The summer after Jesse was eight years old, it occurred 
 one day to Mary's husband that she was looking paler and 
 thinner than he had ever seen her; that her eyes were less 
 
 8
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 9 
 
 bright than usual and her step less elastic and vital. He 
 turned the matter over in his mind for fully a week, watch- 
 ing her meanwhile as she busied herself about the house and 
 garden. Then one evening after supper he followed her 
 into the bedroom, where she had gone with a pile of freshly 
 ironed clothes, and putting his arm around her shoulders, 
 kissed her on the cheek. He was not given to such demon- 
 strations, and she looked up wonderingly into his face. 
 
 " I've been thinking about you, Mary, for a week," he 
 said. " You're looking peaked. Been working too hard, 
 maybe. It's camp-meeting next week at the Grove. Sup- 
 pose you take the oldest boy and go up there for a few days. 
 The change will do you good. Aunt Sue Wheeler will 
 come and look after me and the two younger children. I 
 don't like to see you looking peaked, Mary." 
 
 She was so glad, and so surprised, that she laid her head 
 against his shoulder and cried for a minute or two. Then 
 she laughed. He remembered, with a pang, that he had 
 not heard her laugh for weeks. 
 
 " You'll feel more like yourself when you come back," he 
 said. " It will keep your spirits up while waiting for that 
 trip to Burlington we're going to have, when we can spare 
 the money." 
 
 " But don't you want to go with me ? " she asked. " I 
 always enjoy things more when you are there to enjoy them, 
 too." 
 
 " No, I guess not. You know I'm not much on religion. 
 I'll stay at home and have my fun going fishing with the 
 little fellows. I don't mean on Sunday; I've never done 
 that, Mary, since the boys were old enough to take notice. 
 You go to the camp-meeting with .the other women of the 
 church, and come back with a whole flower-garden bloom- 
 ing in your face, like you did the other time you went, when 
 Henry was a baby." 
 
 Going to camp-meeting involved some days of preparation. 
 There was bedding to be washed and packed, a new straw- 
 tick to be made ready (the straw was bought on the camp- 
 ground at a few cents the tickfull) ; there was food to be 
 cooked, fresh bread and doughnuts, pies and sponge-cake, 
 biscuits and ginger-cookies. Mary churned the day before 
 they went, so they could have new butter, also; and her
 
 10 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 sweet pickles were famous even beyond the boundaries of 
 Nashburgh. 
 
 Great was Jesse's delight at the prospect of a journey. 
 He had never been farther from home than the little vil- 
 lage, six miles to the south, where they sold their grain and 
 bought their clothing, and the little mountain settlement, 
 ten miles to the northeast, where his aunt had lived until 
 her death, one year before. The Grove, being twenty miles 
 away, seemed very far off to the child, not like the wonder- 
 ful places pictured in the geography, for they were beyond 
 reach, and only to be dreamed about; but still the Grove 
 was far enough away to make their going thither the great- 
 est event of Jesse's eight long years of life. 
 
 The younger boys, bribed by their father's promise of 
 twilight fishing in the creek, were quite resigned to being left 
 at home. To them, going to camp-meeting meant nothing 
 in particular; while going a-fishing meant hours of keen ex- 
 citement, perched on the edge of the bridge-planking, their 
 bare feet dangling; meant, if they were lucky, fine bass and 
 bullpouts fried in corn-meal by the indulgent Aunt Sue. 
 And Aunt Sue also had a recipe for gingerbread which was 
 better than seven camp-meetings. 
 
 In her closet, Mary prayed for pleasant weather. Rain 
 would have seemed the irony of Satan. And when on 
 Thursday morning, the day they were to go, the yellow rays 
 of the sun shining on her eyelids awoke her, she bounded 
 out of bed with a joyous little prayer of thanksgiving. Ev- 
 erything had been packed and made ready the night before; 
 and as soon as breakfast was over, her husband hitched old 
 Topsy, the leisurely black mare, to the lumber-wagon, and 
 loaded on the trunk, the clothes-basket of provisions, the roll 
 of bedding, two wooden chairs, and the small can of kerosene 
 
 011 which was to keep their light shining before their fel- 
 low men. 
 
 A tent was not included in their outfit, as they were go- 
 ing to the " Nashburgh tent," a shelter collectively owned 
 by the church people of their township. By a curious mis- 
 use of terms, the " Nashburgh tent " was a frame building, 
 or the mere shell of a building, where on these occasions the 
 whole town clubbed together in the fraternity of communal 
 housekeeping. During camp-meeting time the railroad com-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 11 
 
 pany was indulgent to the campers, carrying without extra 
 charge their conglomeration of luggage. 
 
 At the railway-station, two miles away, they met other 
 families also bound for the Grove. There was a black-haired 
 man and his wife, whom Jesse's mother called Brother and 
 Sister Taylor, and the young Taylors, two boys about 
 Jesse's age, his schoolfellows, heavy and indifferent children 
 who did not care for fairy stories. And there were others 
 whom Jesse remembered having seen in the meeting-house, 
 but did not know by name. 
 
 When he felt the car-wheels moving under him, the 
 child was so excited that he gripped his mother's hand, in 
 a mute appeal for what he did not know. She put her 
 arm around him lovingly (somehow, she always under- 
 stood), and so they rode the whole way, past farms and 
 woods and houses, with now and then a view of the wind- 
 ing river between its high green banks. As they went further 
 and further into the unfamiliar country, the child turned 
 his great blue eyes to his mother's face. 
 
 " Does the world go on and on like this, Mother, a long, 
 long way ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear, on and on like this, all the way around the 
 world." 
 
 " And is there no end, no place where everything stops 
 and there isn't any world beyond? " 
 
 " There is no end." 
 
 "And if I should go on, and on, and on, where would I 
 come to ? " 
 
 " If you should go on long enough, you would come back 
 to the place you started from." 
 
 He was silent for a time, and then he said : 
 
 " Mother, if God made the world, and the world has no 
 end, and if I go on travelling long enough I come back to 
 the place I started from; and if God made me, and I have 
 no end, why, if I go on living long enough, won't I come 
 back to the place I started from, and be a little boy again? " 
 
 " Grove Camp-ground ! " called the conductor at the 
 door of the car. And in the bustle of leaving the train, 
 Man 7 was spared the necessity of finding an answer to the 
 child's question. 
 
 As they stepped onto the platform, there was no station-
 
 12 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 building, the scent of pine and hemlock was blown to them 
 on the wind, blown into their consciousness, changing it, 
 thrilling it as with something wilder and nearer to the 
 heart of things. A joyous sense of freedom possessed them. 
 The world of every-day was left behind, and they found 
 themselves in a world of more subtle sounds and feelings. 
 Old neighbours looked at each other in surprise, wondering 
 at beauties never before observed in familiar faces. The 
 sound of the brook over the stones was like the babble of 
 love words in another language, heard through a veil of 
 crystal. And though a soft breeze was blowing, the air as 
 it caressed the cheek and dallied with the hair seemed in no 
 hurry to pass on and leave them, but lingered, as if it found 
 a pleasure in the contact. 
 
 It was already the third day of the meeting. As Mary 
 and Jesse looked about them, they could hear the chatter 
 of voices among the pine-trees to the west of the railroad. 
 Several women in light summer dresses, bareheaded and 
 sheltered from the sun by parasols, had come down to meet 
 the train. One of them, a tall young lady in a blue dress, 
 greeted the boy's mother with a kiss and seemed to have been 
 expecting her. 
 
 " I'm glad you brought the child/' she said. And Jesse's 
 heart swelled with joy that he, too, was welcome in this 
 strange and happy company. 
 
 The camp-ground was a natural amphitheatre, an irregu- 
 lar circle some twenty rods across, surrounded on two sides 
 by walls of earth and rock, and on all sides by pines and 
 hemlocks. Scattered here and there among the trees were 
 the tents and summer buildings of a dozen neighbouring 
 townships. In the centre of the open space was a great 
 wooden platform, raised a little from the ground, and over 
 it was a sloping roof of canvas, which left the tent open on 
 all sides to passing breezes, though protected from the 
 strong rays of the August sun. This platform was empty 
 as they passed around it, the morning services not yet having 
 begun. 
 
 They went to the building known as the " Nashburgh 
 tent," where several women whom the Bethels knew were 
 busy laying a long table, which extended nearly the whole 
 length of the one room forming the ground floor. Mary
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 13 
 
 and Jesse and the tall girl in blue went up-stairs. Here was 
 another large room, divided in the middle by white curtains 
 made of sheets and bed-spreads. 
 
 " We women are on the right," said the girl. " I sup- 
 pose you want to keep the child near you, Sister Bethel ? " 
 
 " I'd rather," replied the child's mother, " if none of the 
 other women object." 
 
 " They won't care, for he's only a little fellow. By the 
 way, have you heard the news? I'm going to teach in your 
 district this fall." 
 
 " Oh, I'm so glad! I wish you could board at our house; 
 but I suppose the Taylors will board the teacher, as long 
 as he is the committee." 
 
 " Yes, probably. Here are your things coming up the 
 stairs now, Sister Bethel. Better put your bed next to 
 Aunt Susan's and mine ; then Jesse won't quarrel with the 
 Smith children, who sleep over there." 
 
 " Why, Jesse never quarrels ! " answered the mother. 
 
 The two women were still arranging the belongings of 
 the Bethels when a loud sweet-toned bell went ringing by 
 the house. 
 
 "What's that?" asked Mary, looking up from her now 
 half-empty trunk. 
 
 " The fifteen-minutes-bell," answered Rose Thomas. 
 " The morning service is at ten o'clock. We haven't any 
 church-bell, so Brother Johnson goes around the circle with 
 the hand-bell from the Centre schoolhouse." 
 
 Soon they went down-stairs, and Mary greeted other 
 friends and neighbours. Of the five hundred persons with 
 which the census credited their township, about one-tenth 
 availed themselves of the camp-ground privilege. The 
 house could not have held so many at one time; but as they 
 came and went during the seven days of the meeting, room 
 was always found, somehow. 
 
 As they stood waiting, Jesse's heart beat fast. Already 
 over the place had settled that hush that muffling of the 
 personalities and stilling of the faces which always lies 
 upon an Anglo-Saxon crowd preparing for the exercise of 
 worship. They passed out of doors and onto the platform 
 under the great canvas. Then the whole congregation be- 
 gan singing " Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."
 
 H THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Jesse was happy, but strangely frightened why, he did 
 not know. He had been to church many times, often enough 
 not to be frightened at the singing or the crowd. And he 
 eight years old last December! He breathed deeply, trying 
 to steady the trembling of his heart. Poor little one! His 
 sensitively balanced being was experiencing for the first 
 time, with overwhelming intensity, the weight of the great 
 ocean-waves of collective religious emotion which vibrated 
 through and over and under and around this assembly of 
 passionate human souls. He closed his eyes, trying to shut 
 out the world that seemed to rock and reel around him. As 
 the last note of the song died away, his blond head fell for- 
 ward on his mother's lap. He had fainted. 
 
 A large man who sat on Jesse's other side lifted the 
 child in his arms, and, at a signal from the mother, bore 
 him from the tent. As Mary followed, she heard a voice 
 behind her: 
 
 " It's the glory of God, Sister Bethel ! Lay him on the 
 altar. It's the glory of God ! " 
 
 Mary pressed a silencing finger on her white lips. " Take 
 him to the house, please, and put him on the bed," she whis- 
 pered to the large man. " Give me some cold water, 
 and don't let anybody come up the stairs." 
 
 After a few moments Jesse became conscious. She told 
 him simply what had happened, and advised him to be 
 quiet and rest a little while. He pressed her hand, then 
 lay looking up at the square of green waving leaves which 
 was the window. From the near-by platform came the 
 voice of the evangelist, exhorting sinners to repentance. To 
 the listening child the words of the text, ever and ever re- 
 peated with monotonous insistence, came with unanswered 
 questions, with never-to-be-forgotten summons to some un- 
 dreamed-of piace: 
 
 " Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb." 
 
 He did not know the meaning of the words; but every 
 time the voice outside repeated them, he pressed his mother's 
 hand and closed his eyes. There was little co-ordination in 
 the speaker's thoughts and little beauty in his discourse, but 
 the child knew nothing of this; he heard only the voice, 
 a mellow voice thrilling with controlled emotion, and it
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 15 
 
 seemed to be calling him to " the marriage supper of the 
 Lamb." 
 
 " Mother," he whispered, after some minutes, " what is 
 ' the marriage supper of the Lamb ' ? " 
 
 "The supper of the Lord in heaven," answered the 
 mother, and there was on her face a look of ecstasy which 
 he had never seen there. 
 
 The child was little wiser for the answer; but he grew 
 happier with every passing moment, with every repetition 
 of that mysterious text: "Blessed are they which are 
 called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." And when 
 the voice was silent, and the tones of the organ on the plat- 
 form rolled through the window, he sat up in bed and 
 gripped his mother's hand in both his own, crying: 
 
 " Mother, I am called ... I am called to the sup- 
 per, the marriage supper. . . . Oh, Mother! " And 
 burying his face in her bosom, he burst into tears. 
 
 When the meeting was over the women flocked up- 
 stairs and gathered round the bed, congratulating Mary 
 on the child's experience, "losing his strength," as they 
 called it, in the vernacular of their sect, and asking him 
 questions he did not understand. But the wise mother 
 knew the child was overwrought and should have quiet, 
 so she gently asked them to leave him until dinner-time. 
 Then they all went down-stairs to prepare the midday 
 meal. When the two were alone again, she bent and kissed 
 his face with a chastened and unearthly passion, her eyes 
 uplifted, whispering something to herself which his ear 
 could not distinguish. Soon after he fell into a light 
 sleep. 
 
 The sound of the dinner-bell awoke him, and after Mary 
 had bathed his face in cold water and brushed his hair, 
 they went down-stairs. Seated beside his mother at the 
 long table, his back against the wall, Jesse ate his dinner, 
 vaguely wondering if the marriage supper of the Lamb was 
 anything like this. He had never before eaten in so large 
 a company, and the unusual surroundings took away his 
 appetite. Though the request of the mother that the 
 child should not be reminded of his fainting-spell had been 
 passed along the line, still they all seemed to be looking at 
 him strangely; and he was glad when the meal was over
 
 16 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 and he could escape out of doors with the other children, 
 while his mother helped the women wash the dishes. 
 
 The Taylor boys, who had come up on the train with 
 them that morning, began to gibe him about " making a 
 show of himself " ; then his cousins, Jim and Josie Bethel, 
 fell upon the Taylor boys and gave them a good beating 
 before their parents could interfere. So early did he become 
 a theme of contention among his neighbours. 
 
 Jesse went to every meeting under the great canvas, but 
 he did not faint again. To the casual eye he seemed like all 
 the other children, save for his great beauty and the silence 
 which lay over him from that first day. Sometimes his face 
 was lighted as by an inner joy; sometimes it was clouded 
 as by feelings too remote for speech, as he listened earnestly 
 to every word that every speaker said. It was only dur- 
 ing the evening prayer-meetings that he seemed restless, 
 though he was then no less attentive than at all other 
 times. His usual early bedtime was now disregarded. As 
 here and there in the congregation men and women arose 
 to " give testimony " of their belief and religious experience, 
 he moved uneasily in his chair, he drew long breaths, he 
 rolled and unrolled the ends of his flowing necktie in sup- 
 ple, nervous fingers. His mother wondered at this, but on 
 the last night of their stay she learned the cause of it. 
 
 During those four days the child had heard many ser- 
 mons from many texts, and on that Sunday afternoon a 
 grey old man had preached in a harsh voice about the lake 
 which burneth with fire and brimstone, in which liars and 
 other sinners shall have their part. 
 
 At the prayer-meeting on Sunday night the same grey old 
 man sat on the speakers' platform, rising from time to time 
 to urge those present to testify to the Lord. The meeting 
 was a long one. Many became converted that night, and 
 literally at the eleventh hour came forward to ask prayers. 
 It was nearly midnight when the old preacher arose for the 
 last time and asked if there was not perchance one more 
 who wanted to say a word. 
 
 Then arose little Jesse Bethel of Nashburgh and climbed 
 upon his chair. His mother cast at him one startled look, 
 but he did not notice her; he was oblivious of the scores 
 of surprised worshippers who gazed at him; he saw noth-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 17 
 
 Ing but the grey old man on the platform, and thought of 
 nothing but the question which was burning in his mind. 
 
 The preacher looking down saw in the torch-light the 
 golden head and white-robed figure of the child, gleaming 
 above the mass of upturned faces. He heard the little 
 voice of penetrating sweetness, saying in tones as steady 
 and unfrightened as his own: 
 
 " I have a little brother who tells lies. I have another 
 little brother who steals walnuts. 
 
 " The preacher said this morning that folks who lie and 
 steal will go to hell. If that is true, my little brothers will 
 both go to hell. The preacher said that hell was full of 
 fire. He said it was a place where thieves and liars burnt 
 for ever. 
 
 '' The other preacher said this morning that God will 
 answer prayers. I don't tell lies, and I don't steal, because 
 I think it silly. It must be horrible to burn for ever for 
 such silly things as lies. 
 
 " One day my little brother burnt his hand, and he 
 cried from dinner-time till supper-time. It hurts him to 
 be burnt. This afternoon, after I heard the preacher 
 preach, I lit a match and held my fingers in the flame. It 
 hurt it hurt a good deal ; but I didn't cry. I don't think 
 it hurts me half so much to be burnt as it hurts my little 
 brother. 
 
 " When we are dead, if God has really put my brothers 
 in the fire, and if He puts me up in heaven, I'm going to 
 ask Him if He won't let me go and burn awhile in place 
 of them. I'm going to ask him to let them go to heaven 
 for just as long as I can stand it to be burnt. 
 
 " I want my little brothers to see heaven. They've never 
 seen anything beautiful. They never saw the fairies. And 
 even when they look at the moon, they just can't see how 
 beautiful it is. They think the stars are only stars. They 
 think the lovely sky is Oh, just nothing at all! 
 
 " I've always had the best of everything. It isn't my 
 fault, because I can't help it, and I don't want the best of 
 everything; but everything I have just gets to be the best 
 without their knowing it. 
 
 "If God should make me stay in heaven all the time, 
 and make them stay in hell, I couldn't endure it. I've
 
 i8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 tried to hire them not to lie and steal, I give them all my 
 pennies; but they only take the pennies and then they don't 
 stop doing wicked things. 
 
 " Mr. Preacher, you said this afternoon how that God 
 told you things, and spoke to you. God will not speak to 
 me. I've asked him now for days and days. Perhaps I'm 
 just too small for God to bother talking to. But will you 
 ask God, Mr. Preacher, if I can't go to hell and let my 
 little brothers go to heaven part of the time? Please, Mr. 
 Preacher?" 
 
 He sat down. 
 
 Not a sound was heard for several seconds; then to the 
 right and left of him, behind and before him, the people 
 began to cry, " Praise the Lord ! " and " Glory to God ! " 
 and " Hallelujah ! " And the old preacher offered up a 
 prayer that their beloved young friend might be the means 
 of leading the sinners to repentance. But though nursed 
 on the milk of vicarious atonement, he did not pray that 
 the child might be permitted to suffer in place of his 
 brothers. 
 
 The little Jesse felt that his trust in the preacher was 
 betrayed. With his eyes swimming in tears, he took his 
 mother's hand and left the meeting. As they passed out 
 with the crowd he heard a woman say: 
 
 " Sister Bethel, if I didn't remember as well's yesterday 
 the day that child was born, I'd swear to goodness he was 
 eighteen years old instead of eight! " 
 
 " Jesse was always forward for his age," was Mary's 
 modest answer. 
 
 Early the next morning the child and his mother went 
 back to Nashburgh.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A FEW miles east of Otter Creek lies the long range 
 of the Green Mountains. Of all the earthly things his 
 eyes had seen, these mountains were most wonderful to 
 Jesse. Perhaps some whisper of ancestral memory was in 
 their call to him, for four generations of his fathers had 
 seen the sun rise behind old Thunder Mountain; four gen- 
 erations of his mothers had gazed upon the blue guardian 
 of their valley, and in the vague, imaginative hours before 
 their children's birth had questioned it in long and word- 
 less reverie. 
 
 Three times within his memory the child had gone to 
 visit his aunt, who lived on the north side of this moun- 
 tain; but she was dead now, and there seemed to be no 
 promise of his going there again. He grew more and 
 more to love the face of the old Thunder Mountain, and 
 dreamed waking dreamsi of some future day when he 
 should climb its mighty shoulder, far up and over, and see 
 with his own eyes the hidden things which lay on the 
 farther side. 
 
 So when he heard his mother say that the new school- 
 teacher was from over the mountain, the tall girl in blue 
 whom he had seen at the Grove camp-meeting became a 
 thing of wonder in his eyes. 
 
 Early in the first week of the fall term Rose Thomas 
 came to spend the night at the Bethels' house. While his 
 mother was putting the younger boys to bed, Jesse followed 
 the teacher into the garden where she had gone to gather 
 some late flowers, and asked her to tell him about over the 
 mountain. She gave a brief description of the place she 
 came from, Myra, a village where there were four churches, 
 a town-hall, a dozen stores, a graded-school, and nearly 
 two thousand people. 
 
 " It must be very beautiful in Myra," said the child, his 
 blue eyes expanding with imagination. 
 
 19
 
 20 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " It isn't nearly so beautiful over there as it is here," 
 the teacher answered. 
 
 " But I thought Why, isn't the other side of a moun- 
 tain always more beautiful than this side?" 
 
 She looked at him, perplexed for a moment; then she 
 smiled: "The other side of a mountain is this side, when 
 you are there." 
 
 It was a new idea to Jesse, and he turned it over and 
 over in his mind. Of course the teacher meant to tell him 
 truly about everything; but maybe she didn't know her- 
 self how wonderful it was on the other side of the moun- 
 tain, any more than his brothers knew how wonderful the 
 moon was. And he told himself that when he was older 
 he would go over the mountain to Myra and see with his 
 own eyes what made it beautiful. 
 
 Rose Thomas had been teaching several years and was 
 learned in the ways of children, but Jesse puzzled her; she 
 had never had a pupil in any way like him. His beauty was 
 a source of wonder; and he was the most loving being, 
 young or old, whom she had ever known. But, most of 
 all, his questions and strange sayings kept her thinking. 
 
 One day they sat alone together in Mary Bethel's room. 
 Rose was reading, and the child seemed to be doing noth- 
 ing. The clock ticked loudly on the mantel. After a long 
 silence, he looked up. 
 
 " Teacher, what is time ? " 
 
 She hesitated a moment. Had he asked her to define 
 "parallax," she might have done it but time! 
 
 " Time is the measure of duration," she ventured. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Jesse. " But I 
 think there isn't any such thing as time. When we came 
 into this room it was three o'clock, and then it was now; 
 and now it's four o'clock, and it's still now. I think time 
 isn't real; it's like a shadow which keeps moving along, 
 and isn't really anything, anyway. But I wish I knew 
 what it's the shadow of. You don't know, do you, 
 Teacher ? " 
 
 She confessed that she did not. 
 
 Another day, when they were walking together, he said 
 to her: 
 
 " Teacher, what is the difference between you and me? "
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 21 
 
 " Why I am a young woman, and you are a little boy." 
 
 " I think that's not much difference," Jesse replied. 
 " You just believe you're yourself, and I believe I'm my- 
 self." Then, after a pause, he added: " I think it wouldn't 
 be strange if I should wake up to-morrow morning and 
 find that I was you. I wouldn't be scared a bit, would 
 you?" 
 
 " You mustn't think such things," said his instructress. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Jesse. 
 
 And she was silent. 
 
 So the autumn passed, and late in October Rose Thomas 
 went back over the mountain to Myra; but the memory 
 of Jesse Bethel went with her, and she wrote his mother 
 a letter every few months with messages for the child. 
 
 The summer after Jesse was nine years old he made an 
 enemy. It was the black-haired man, Thomas Taylpr, 
 whose two boys had been thrashed by Jesse's cousins at the 
 camp-meeting the year before. The trouble came about 
 in this way: 
 
 Many of the farmers in that section, who lived along 
 the line of the railroad, were able to make a small profit 
 by selling their milk to a Boston company which sent a 
 car through on the mail-train every morning to collect it. 
 Four of the Nashburgh farmers, among them Thomas Tay- 
 lor, drove to the railway-station daily with their milk. It 
 would have been a great saving of time and labour had one 
 man carted the milk belonging to all four; but there was no 
 one man in whom the other three had confidence, and so 
 all four went daily to the station. 
 
 Early in the summer an agent from the Milk Company 
 came up the line, stopping here and there at the larger 
 towns to confer with the farmers who gathered by appoint- 
 ment to meet him. On the day of the conference in the 
 village six miles south of Nashburgh, Jesse had gone down 
 there with his father to buy a barrel of flour. The elder 
 Bethel, who found his carpentry more profitable than keep- 
 ing many cows, had no call to the milk meeting; but hav- 
 ing some business with a man from the next town who was 
 certain to be there, he went up to the hall, and Jesse went 
 along with him.
 
 22 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 The meeting was in full swing. The man from Boston 
 was explaining to the rather sullen crowd of men the rea- 
 sons competition, railway extortion, ice-famine, etc. 
 why he was compelled to offer them a few cents less than 
 formerly on each can of milk. There was much loud but 
 futile argument; for every farmer knew, and knew the 
 milk man knew, that if he refused to sell his product to 
 the company, he would be obliged to make it into butter; 
 and the women of those towns were tired of making but- 
 ter. So the new rate was reluctantly accepted. 
 
 The question of money being settled, the man from 
 Boston told them he had something yet to say. There was 
 a pure food agitation going on in Massachusetts, and the 
 week before a duly authorized committee had visited the 
 company he represented, and had found some cans of milk 
 below the standard. In other words, their company had 
 got into trouble for selling watered milk. The cans con- 
 demned by this committee had been traced to the Nash- 
 burgh station, and the men from Nashburgh were requested 
 to stand up. The agent had their names on a slip of 
 paper, and he slowly called them off. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said politely, " can any of you throw 
 light upon this question ? " 
 
 Apparently no one could; but involuntarily the eyes of 
 the other three turned sideways toward Thomas Taylor, 
 who got red in the face. The man from Boston was ex- 
 perienced in these cases, and from this wordless testimony 
 he knew the guilty one. He was a sentimentalist, having 
 found that sentiment was often useful in his business, and 
 he now dilated on the culpability of men who sold impure 
 milk for poor little city children to drink. Then he said: 
 
 " Will the dark man on the right kindly tell "me his 
 name ? " 
 
 ' Thomas Taylor," came the answer, in rather a low 
 vo ce. 
 
 ' Thomas Taylor, have you ever watered your milk ? " 
 
 'I have not." 
 
 ' Will you swear to me that you have never watered 
 your milk?" 
 
 Now Thomas Taylor had lately been entertaining the 
 minister at his house, and he hesitated. To put pure water
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 23 
 
 from his own good well into a can of milk was one thing, 
 but to swear falsely was quite another thing; so he stam- 
 mered, still red in the face: 
 
 " Well, I dunno. I never put in more'n a cupful." 
 
 Then, from the back seat, came the penetrating childish 
 voice of Jesse Bethel: 
 
 " ' Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little 
 ones a cup of cold water ' " 
 
 The end of this quotation was drowned in a general 
 howl of laughter. When the noise had subsided a little, 
 and had given place to nudges and neighbourly winks and 
 chuckles, the man from Boston said slowly and deliberately: 
 
 " The milk of Thomas Taylor will no longer be accepted 
 by the company." 
 
 The meeting was then adjourned. 
 
 Shame-faced at the derision of his neighbours, and sullen 
 over the loss of his profit on milk, Taylor got into his 
 buggy and started for home. But he never heard the last 
 of it. In rural Vermont, a joke is a joke, and a good one 
 is an inheritance to be handed down from generation to 
 generation. 
 
 Taylor came to writhe at the very mention of a cup of 
 cold water, for he was invited to partake of one upon any 
 and every occasion. And he nursed a grudge against 
 Jesse Bethel.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was in September of the same year that Jesse first 
 met Mary Magnus, Mary the Great, as she came to be 
 called a long time afterward. But she was only a pretty 
 little girl of eight years when she came to Nashburgh, on 
 a visit to the Smith children who were her second cousins. 
 Though Mary was of the same age as Susie Smith, she was 
 half a head taller almost as tall as the nine-year-old Jesse, 
 and plump as a rosebud. She sat beside Susie in the school- 
 house every day for a week, and her pretty clothes set the 
 fashion in that neighbourhood of having a double row of 
 quilling around the bottom of small skirts, and lace around 
 the pocket-handkerchief. By the innate right of beauty 
 she was already a personage, and carried her little brown 
 head high with consciousness of power. The boys had been 
 her willing slaves since a time before she could remember. 
 She liked boys, all boys more or less, but especially the 
 handsome ones ; and no boy had ever resisted her small, shy, 
 daring yet appealing ways. 
 
 On the morning when she first came to the district 
 schoolhouse, Jesse Bethel was half an hour late. The im- 
 perious little Mary, being mentally active and desirous to 
 excel in everything, was copying a hard example in long 
 division from Susie's arithmetic when she heard a step in 
 the entry. Looking up, she saw in the frame of the door- 
 way the most beautiful picture in all the world, as she 
 told herself in after years when she had seen many of the 
 world's beautiful pictures. 
 
 Slender and lithe and alive in every nerve, the boy 
 seemed to be surrounded by an aura of vibrant light, as 
 he stood there in the doorway with the rays of the morn- 
 ing sun behind him. His hair, worn rather long and wav- 
 ing round his head in golden fullness, retained the sun- 
 beams in its meshes even after he had passed into the 
 shadows of the schoolroom. 
 
 24
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 25 
 
 The little sybarite from Vergennes suddenly lost interest 
 in long division and turned her attention to the strange 
 boy, who, after the first look of surprise he gave her, passed 
 quietly to his seat on the other side of the room. Out of 
 the corners of her amber eyes she watched him; but he 
 was the only child in the school who was not furtively 
 watching her, and she wondered why. From that hour all 
 other boys became as shadows to little Mary Magnus, only 
 to emerge into the sunlight of her notice after she had 
 made this new boy notice her. 
 
 During the noon recess those children who brought their 
 luncheon usually passed the hour in a neighbouring pas- 
 ture; the boys played ball in the centre of the field, and 
 the girls played house on the rocks under the trees. That 
 noontime Mary Magnus, by an artful question now and 
 then to one girl and another, learned the name of the 
 beautiful boy and such details of his life as had impressed 
 themselves upon the rather unobserving young daughters 
 of Nashburgh. She looked in vain for opportunity to speak 
 to Jesse. 
 
 But on the following day it rained, and during the noon 
 recess the children played in the schoolhouse. The teacher 
 this term, a rather oldish woman with greying hair, boarded 
 in the next house and went home to dinner in the middle 
 of the day; so the young ones had the place to themselves. 
 They ate their lunches from little pails, sitting on the 
 front seats and on the long recitation bench; and during 
 this pleasant rite the visitor from Vergennes cleverly placed 
 herself beside the object of her interest, but for a time 
 she seemed to be unconscious of his existence. When she 
 had finished her sandwiches and pie, she took out of the 
 dinner-pail a big red apple, and with a subtle smile turned 
 to her young neighbour. 
 
 "Wouldn't you like one of my nice apples Jesse?" 
 
 Now anything resembling generosity was the straight 
 road to Jesse Bethel's heart, and he thanked the pretty 
 little girl beside him with a beaming expansion of his whole 
 person quite indescribable. He raised the apple to his lips 
 then his arm dropped. He blushed. He looked at 
 Mary. Mary looked at him. Finally he whispered, wist- 
 fully:
 
 26 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "Would you care if I shouldn't eat the apple? Would 
 you care if I should give it to Marty White? He hasn't 
 anything in his dinner-pail to-day but old dry bread! " 
 
 The eyes of the emotional girl filled with tears. " Oh, 
 how good you are!" she said. "Yes, let's give him the 
 apple, from both of us, and (she reached into the dinner- 
 pail) here's a doughnut, too." Her little red mouth was 
 tremulous. 
 
 " I'll give them to him in the entry," Jesse whispered, 
 " then the other children won't laugh and make him 
 ashamed." He started to rise. 
 
 " Come back here afterward," she said, under her breath. 
 
 And Jesse came back. They were friends from that 
 hour. The hunger of little Marty White was a bond for 
 them stronger than their beauty. Between the emotion of 
 Mary and the love of Jesse the difference was one of kind 
 and not of mere degree; but this she learned long after- 
 ward. 
 
 When he was again beside her, Mary said playfully: 
 " Maybe you didn't really want the apple, after all ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I did! But when I really want anything 
 very much myself, I like to give it to somebody else." 
 
 " I never thought of that," Mary admitted. And slowly 
 into her undeveloped mind came a new feeling, the ad- 
 miration of goodness, which is deeper and more lasting 
 than the admiration of beauty, even in such vessels of emo- 
 tion as Mary Magnus. 
 
 When they were through with their lunch the cry arose: 
 "What shall we play? " One suggested this, another that; 
 but Susie Smith said: 
 
 " Let's all ask Jesse to tell us fairy stories." 
 
 "Oh, do, Jesse! Jesse, do!" they all exclaimed in 
 chorus. And Jesse did. 
 
 He had a prodigious memory, and every story in " The 
 Book of Wonder " was stamped upon his brain from alpha 
 to omega. He did not merely recite them in the words of 
 the author, but gave their substance in his own delightful 
 fashion, with illuminating touches here and there; for had 
 he not seen fairies? Spellbound the children sat, breath- 
 ing the air of undiscovered regions, seeing the marvels of 
 the invisible. . . . Then the sudden clang of the five-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 27 
 
 minutes-bell in the entry told them the teacher had come 
 back. As they all arose, Mary put her little hand on Jesse's 
 arm. 
 
 " I think," she said, slowly and deliberately, and without 
 any of her usual coquetry, " I think, Jesse, that you are 
 the most wonderful person I have ever seen." 
 
 " I am glad you enjoyed the stories," he answered sim- 
 ply. " I know many more. My mother reads them to me 
 almost every night after I've gone to bed, those and Bible 
 stories. But I like the fairy stories best, because the peo- 
 ple in the Bible are always wrangling about something." 
 
 This unique view of the religious classic was lost on 
 Mary; but the grey-haired teacher heard it, and gently 
 reproved Jesse for irreverence. 
 
 On Friday it was the day before Mary was to go back 
 to her home in Vergennes the children were all playing 
 tag together in the pasture at noontime, when a strange 
 thing happened. Susie Smith, " the tag," was chasing 
 Marty White. The ragged little fellow, in trying to elude 
 her, stubbed his toe and fell sprawling. Now they had a 
 rule among them against " tagging " anybody who fell 
 down, so Susie turned to chase her brother who was just 
 behind. But suddenly she stood still, and all the other 
 children turned, for the scream that issued from the lips 
 of Marty was a scream of terror and not of ordinary 
 crying. 
 
 'The spotted adder! Oh, the spotted adder!" he 
 shrieked, as his frightened playmates gathered round. " It 
 bit me, it bit me! . . . see, here on my arm * . . 
 and then it crawled into that hole in the rock. . . . Oh, 
 I shall die, I shall die! My mother says it's poison! Oh, 
 Mother, Mother! I shall die!" 
 
 The children were all crying excitedly all save Jesse 
 Bethel. He did not cry. He did not even speak. He sat 
 down on the ground beside Marty, and taking the poor 
 bitten arm in his firm hands raised it to his mouth. Then 
 with all the force of his young body he sucked the wound 
 of the spotted adder, wiping his lips from time to time on 
 his handkerchief. After some moments he laid the arm 
 down gently, and stood up. 
 
 " I think you will not die," he said.
 
 28 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 News travels quickly near a schoolhouse. In ten minutes 
 the nearest neighbour had harnessed his horse and started 
 for the doctor, and in fifteen minutes Marty's slatternly 
 mother came and led him home. Then the teacher rang 
 the first bell, and the children filed into the schoolhouse. 
 Before ringing the last bell, she said to Jesse, in the pres- 
 ence of the others: 
 
 " Do you want to be excused for the day? " 
 
 "No, ma'am." 
 
 " Don't you think you ought to tell your mother what 
 you have done? " 
 
 " No, ma'am." 
 
 "What made you think of sucking that snake-bite?" 
 
 " I heard my mother and Mrs. Smith talking about it one 
 day." 
 
 But the teacher sent for Jesse's father, who came and 
 took him home. In the excitement of the moment, the boy 
 had forgotten that Mary Magnus was going away the 
 next morning, and he did not say good-bye to her. 
 
 When they were on the road home, Jesse's father turned 
 to him impatiently: 
 
 " How could you risk your life like that ? " 
 
 Jesse's eyes grew bright with emotion. 
 
 "Isn't his life as good as mine?" 
 
 "There may well be two answers to that question," said 
 the father. " Your life belongs to me and your mother." 
 
 " My life belongs to Marty White just as much as it 
 does to you, or to my mother," was Jesse's astonishing 
 answer. 
 
 Back in the schoolhouse little Mary Magnus wept quietly 
 behind her lace-edged handkerchief, and would not be com- 
 forted; for the beautiful boy had gone away without even 
 looking at her.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EVERY year in October the railway company ran an ex- 
 cursion to Burlington, the largest city in the State and the 
 seat of a small university. To spend the day in Burling- 
 ton was, to a dweller in Nashburgh, an event of no less 
 interest than is the spending of a month in Paris to a 
 dweller in New York. Before these excursions pious par- 
 ents spoke seriously to their sons and daughters of the 
 perils and temptations of the city. Burlington is really 
 but an overgrown village of some twenty thousand inhabi- 
 tants, lying drowsily upon the margin of Lake Champlain. 
 For all the warnings of anxious fathers and mothers, the 
 greatest peril to the young excursionist was the possibility 
 of falling into the lake, and the chief temptation that of 
 losing the last train home. 
 
 When Jesse was twelve years old his father and mother 
 decided, after long deliberation, that they could afford to 
 go to Burlington on the excursion and take the three boys, 
 Jesse, Fred and Henry. For the sake of economy they 
 took their dinner in a basket, fearing the extortions of eat- 
 ing-house proprietors; and as a wise precaution against 
 pickpockets who might possibly rob the father, the mother 
 carried their return-tickets tied up in a handkerchief 
 secreted in her bosom. At any rate, if they should lose their 
 money, they could get home in safety. 
 
 Jesse, who was already well advanced in elementary alge- 
 bra and knew more about geography than did his teacher, 
 reminded his father that Burlington was only one two-hun- 
 dredth part as large as London, and that the distance from 
 Nashburgh to Burlington was only about one six-hundredth 
 part of the circumference of the earth. Though pleased 
 at the prospect of going on the excursion, he was not 
 overwhelmed by the vastness of the enterprise. Was he 
 not going to New York some day? He had learned much 
 since the time, four years before, when " over the moun- 
 tain to Myra" had seemed a long journey. Nevertheless, 
 he intended some time to go to Myra, 
 
 29
 
 30 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 The day in Burlington proved far more interesting than 
 he had hoped. The view of Lake Champlain surprised him 
 with its beauty, and his visit to the university and hospital 
 suggested many questions which their most learned pro- 
 fessors would not have attempted to answer. 
 
 It was a large crowd which gathered at the railway- 
 station for the return train at six o'clock. From half the 
 length of the State they had come; for the round-trip fare 
 was low, and the year had been a profitable one for farm- 
 ers. Several families from Nashburgh were among the 
 excursionists; and when the father and mother of Jesse dis- 
 covered, on the way back to the station, that he was not 
 with the two younger boys, they assumed that he was 
 just behind, with the Smith children and the school-teacher. 
 Not until they looked for him again at the station, and 
 had questioned the teacher, were they seriously alarmed. 
 They gazed at each other with wide eyes: Jesse was 
 lost. 
 
 Then arose a babel among their friends and neighbours. 
 One had seen the boy last an hour ago, one had seen him 
 two hours ago, the teacher had seen him half an hour ago, 
 talking to a tall man in a big building. Which building? 
 She could not say, there had been so many buildings. 
 
 As they were discussing the matter, they heard the 
 whistle of the train. Mary Bethel was cool and quiet, 
 though her face was pale as she asked her neighbour, Mrs. 
 Smith, to take the two younger boys home with her and 
 keep them for the night. She and her husband would re- 
 main in Burlington till they should find the lost child. 
 
 The train pulled out of the station with all the chatter- 
 ing crowd on board, and the father and mother of Jesse 
 stood for a minute or two staring after it. Then they 
 found the station-master, told him their trouble, and asked 
 him what to do. He telephoned for them to various of- 
 fices, and pointed out the way to the police-station. But 
 in none of these places was there knowledge of a lost child. 
 
 Worn and half discouraged, they went at last to a hotel, 
 there to sit patiently on a bench outside the telephone of- 
 fice, waiting for the news which seemed so long in coming. 
 
 About eight o'clock the telephone clerk, a pale young 
 man with eye-glasses, came out to them.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 31 
 
 " Cheer up," he said ; " your boy is found, safe and 
 well." 
 
 Then, for the first time, Mary Bethel broke down and 
 cried. 
 
 " He's up at the hospital," the clerk added, " and the 
 Superintendent says for you to go up there and get him. 
 You'd better take a hack; it's pretty far to walk." 
 
 At that hour the missing boy was holding a sort of re- 
 ception in the operating-room at the medical college, sur- 
 rounded by several of the doctors and professors of the 
 university. He was seated in the midst of them upon the 
 table, questioning them and answering their questions. 
 
 Jesse did not see his parents when they came to the door; 
 and they stood there for some minutes, listening in sur- 
 prise to the dialogue between their incomprehensible first- 
 born and the group of bearded men. 
 
 " I'm glad I came up here to-day," the boy was saying, 
 " because I never realised before how wonderful we are in- 
 side of us. I think that skeleton you showed me was more 
 beautiful than a rose-bush full of blossoms. Do you know 
 why a skull laughs?" 
 
 " No. Tell us, Jesse." 
 
 " It's laughing at all the people who are afraid to die. I 
 think I'll never be afraid of anything again, when a man 
 who has had his flesh all eaten off by worms can take it as 
 a joke." 
 
 " How did you like the man you saw in the dissecting- 
 room, the one with his muscles all exposed ? " a grey old 
 doctor asked. " That fellow was a truckman, Jesse, and 
 only a little while ago he could shoulder a trunk that 
 weighed three hundred pounds, and carry it up four flights 
 of stairs with those same muscles." 
 
 " Oh, I think he didn't carry trunks with muscles! " 
 replied Jesse. " It was the man's soul which could lift 
 three hundred pounds." 
 
 " But you have a soul, Jesse. Can you lift trunks with 
 it?" 
 
 " When I get big I'm going to lift the mortgage off our 
 farm with it, and that weighs more than half a hundred 
 trunks."
 
 32 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 They all began to laugh, but Jesse stopped them with his 
 lifted hand. 
 
 "You think I've made a pun, and so you laugh at it; 
 but puns are really far more serious than sermons." 
 
 " Why, how is that ? " they asked. 
 
 " I'll tell you," answered the boy; " I found it out my- 
 self only last year. When I first learned that one word 
 could mean two or three things, I puzzled over it. It was 
 as if a man had two or three souls. That would be inter- 
 esting, but not the least bit funny; and I couldn't see even 
 then why people laughed at puns. But one day I heard 
 my mother reading in the Bible, and she read something 
 about, ' In the beginning was the Word . . . and 
 the Word was God.' And then I saw it." 
 
 " I know you will pardon our stupidity," said one of the 
 professors, with mock gravity ; " but really, Jesse, we don't 
 see this great truth even yet." 
 
 " Why, it's so plain," the boy responded. " In the be- 
 ginning the Word was God, that is, the great big Word 
 which we don't know, and then it divided itself into all 
 the little words we do know, just as God must have divided 
 himself in making us. Some words are simple, and mean 
 only one thing; those are like the simple people who have 
 only one way of thinking, like my father. Other words 
 are not so simple and have many meanings; those are like 
 the people who lead double lives and live in two worlds. I 
 don't mean deceitful people only, though they are double, 
 also; I mean those who seem simple to the simple ones, but 
 who really live in another world as well as this one 
 people like my mother and me, who have a double mean- 
 ing." 
 
 They sat and stared at him. 
 
 Finally a foreign-looking man, the Professor of Philoso- 
 phy, rose slowly from his chair and came over to the boy, 
 where he sat upon the operating-table. 
 
 " My young friend," he said, " will you let me give you 
 a piece of advice?" 
 
 " Of course," replied Jesse, " and thank you." 
 
 The man smiled. " Well," said he, " I hope you will 
 remember what I say. You are evidently a born mystic. 
 Now if, when you are older, you should come to think you
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 33 
 
 have a message for your fellow men, put it in simple 
 language. Now I know perfectly the meaning you intended 
 to convey by your extraordinary dissertation on puns, or 
 metaphors; but I'll wager a month's salary, against one of 
 your indigestible Yankee doughnuts, that not one of my 
 learned associates here " waving his hand at the crowd of 
 men " not one of these doctors or professors can tell what 
 you mean, my dear young Jesse. So take the advice of an 
 old man who is experienced in teaching: If you want to 
 instruct others, be simple." 
 
 " Thank you, again," the boy answered. " I'll remem- 
 ber all my life what you have said." 
 
 Just then one of the men caught sight of the father and 
 mother standing in the doorway, and with a nod invited 
 them to enter. As they came forward Jesse also saw 
 them, and slipping off the table, he stood waiting. 
 
 "Jesse, my child!" said the mother. "How could 
 you treat us in this way? How could you separate your- 
 self from us? We have been looking for you more than 
 two hours, half crazy with anxiety." 
 
 " You should have gone home," replied Jesse, " and left 
 my ticket with the station-master. You must know by this 
 time that I have need of going to many places where you 
 cannot follow, and need of doing many things which must 
 be strange to you." 
 
 Mary made no answer; but she pondered long on the 
 boy's words, and in after years they came back to her with 
 new and overwhelming meaning.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE summer after Jesse was fourteen he came to re- 
 alise that he had learned everything the teachers in their 
 simple district school could give him. He had long had a 
 secret wish to prepare for the State university; but his 
 parents were too poor, even to send him to the small high 
 school in the neighbouring village. Mary Bethel, always 
 ambitious for her son, wanted him to apply for a position 
 as teacher in some district school; but the boy would not. 
 When pressed to give a reason, he said simply: 
 
 " I will not teach in any of these schools, because I would 
 not be allowed to teach the children truth." 
 
 " Why, Jesse ! " exclaimed his mother, in surprise. " I 
 don't know what you mean." 
 
 " I will not teach in schools," he went on, " because I 
 would have to teach old doctrines which I know to be 
 untrue; would have to give false reasons for a hundred 
 things, and keep the one true reason to myself. When I 
 first realised I couldn't have an education like that of 
 those men I met in Burlington, my heart was heavy. But 
 now I believe I know a better way to knowledge than their 
 way. I'll buy what books I can afford, and be my own 
 teacher. I think, no matter what school I should go to, 
 I would find that the teachers with their greater education 
 were really like the teachers in our little school at Nash- 
 burgh. They would take me just so far, and then I would 
 have to go the rest of the way myself. They would teach 
 me a great many facts and also a great many falsehoods, 
 and I should have to sift their teaching all the time. So, 
 Mother, I've decided to find my own path to knowledge. 
 It will be a new path, all my own; and not until I have 
 found it and have walked the whole way myself, will I 
 try to show the way to others. But when I find it, 
 Mother, when I really find it, I'll make the whole world 
 follow me! " 
 
 His face was lighted by an inner glory, a dream, a des- 
 tiny too high and far away to share with anyone as yet. 
 
 34
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 35 
 
 His mother kissed him, with a voiceless prayer that he 
 might be protected from all dangers. 
 
 The next day he asked his father, who was now an old 
 man weary with much labour, to teach him his own trade 
 of carpentry and building. That spring the men of Nash- 
 burgh had voted to erect a new schoolhouse, the old one 
 being too dilapidated for profitable repair. The father of 
 Jesse was the only carpenter and builder in the neighbour- 
 hood, so he was given the contract for the new school- 
 house; and it was on this work that the boy learned his 
 trade. 
 
 From early morning until dark they worked, the father 
 and the son, although the old man had to take long resting 
 spells because his strength was failing. 
 
 " This is my last big job, Jesse," he said one evening, as 
 they were slowly walking home together. " Many's the 
 house I've built in my day, and many's the house I've re- 
 paired; but this new schoolhouse is my last one. I'll prob- 
 ably live on awhile yet, maybe several years; but I'm not 
 the man I was even this time last year. I'm glad you 
 wanted to learn my trade, because it's going to be better 
 for you than teaching school would have been. There's 
 money in it, Jesse. I'll make enough on this job of the 
 schoolhouse to settle the old Johnson note which has been 
 hanging over us for three years. The reason I've been so 
 poor all my life, and had to mortgage the farm, was be- 
 cause there isn't work enough in a little place like this to 
 keep a carpenter working more than a month or two in the 
 year, on an average, with now and then a little fiddling 
 job of repairing which doesn't keep us all in shoe-leather. 
 When I'm dead, boy, instead of struggling along here, 
 trying to keep up the interest on the mortgage, you'd better 
 take your mother and the boys somewhere else I don't 
 know where, but somewhere where there's building going 
 on. If I can live a few years more, till you're a little older, 
 Jesse, I won't worry about you all on my death-bed. 
 You're taking to the trade like a duck to water. I 
 suppose you'd have beaten me at anything you undertook, 
 you're such a smart one. But w r hat I started to say was 
 this: When I'm dead, let the old farm go. It's mort- 
 gaged now to Taylor for half it's worth, and I had to bor-
 
 3 6 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 row another fifty from him last November; though I 
 haven't dared to tell your mother, she worries so. " But 
 sell the farm, Jesse, sell it, and go to some place where 
 you can work at your trade." 
 
 " I will, Father," the boy promised. " But don't say any- 
 thing to Mother about dying. It would make her feel bad." 
 
 " All right, I won't. And I'm going to depend on you 
 to look after her till the boys get big enough to help. Then 
 you let them do it for awhile. Don't let 'em be lazy and 
 shove off all the burdens on your shoulders. I know 'em; 
 they're just like your uncle Frank. But you're different, 
 Jesse; and I'm prouder of you every day." And the un- 
 demonstrative old man put his arm around Jesse's shoul- 
 ders. It was the first time he had offered him a caress 
 since his last birthday, seven months before. 
 
 The building of that schoolhouse was one long joy to 
 Jesse. His father taught him every detail of the fascinat- 
 ing business: how to lay the foundations though for this 
 work they had a mason to help; how to follow the build- 
 ing plans, so that each part was accurately joined to all 
 the adjacent parts, as the bones and muscles, arteries and 
 sinews of the body are made to work harmoniously to- 
 gether; how the "raising" should be superintended; the 
 perfect way to lay the floor, to frame the windows, to lath 
 and plaster, to erect the chimney though here again the 
 mason came to help. The boy learned all these things, and 
 with his strong young hands he rendered able service in a 
 score of ways. 
 
 There is a joy and a sense of personal power in the 
 higher forms of manual labour which mere scholars never 
 understand. To create something with the hands should 
 be a part of the education of every citizen of earth, how- 
 ever rich, however learned, however far removed from the 
 necessity of labour. To plan an object, great or small, and 
 then to execute the plan with masterly precision and to 
 the smallest detail, should be one of the privileges which 
 go with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So Jesse 
 told himself, as he hammered away on the new school- 
 house. He was glad that he had chosen to be a carpenter 
 instead of a district school-teacher.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 37 
 
 Now less than fifteen years old, he was tall and strong 
 as many boys of seventeen; though slenderly and finely 
 built, and still possessing the extraordinary beauty which 
 had singled him out in childhood from the mass of or- 
 dinary boys. Indeed, that beauty had grown deeper and 
 stranger with every passing year. It was a haunting 
 beauty, and the secret of its power was something other 
 than the mere charm of harmonious; lines and colours. 
 Truly, to use an old but never-worn expression, the boy's 
 soul looked out of his eyes. Gentle spirits were made 
 happy by a glance from those blue eyes; but hypocrites and 
 evil-doers feared their penetrating gaze, which seemed to 
 unclothe safely-guarded motives, to challenge statements 
 of uncertain truth. So, while Jesse easily made friends who 
 loved him with peculiar and passionate devotion, there were 
 others in his little circle of acquaintances who cherished 
 for him an unreasoning hostility. Foremost among these 
 unfriendly ones was the man who owned the mortgage on 
 his father's little farm, that dark and purple-faced man, 
 Thomas Taylor, whom Jesse's quotation of Scripture re- 
 garding the cup of cold water had covered with ridicule 
 at the milk dealers' meeting five years before. 
 
 He was no longer called " Brother Taylor " by the 
 members of the church; for he was now a backslider, dally- 
 ing with spiritualism, openly challenging the authority of 
 religious dogmas, and supposed to be living on terms of il- 
 legal intimacy with the spiritualistic housekeeper who had 
 managed his home since the death of his wife three years 
 before. But, being the richest farmer in Nashburgh, he 
 still retained a certain authority among his neighbours, 
 many of w T hom owed him money. Though Nashburgh, 
 like other farming districts, was a hotbed of malicious gos- 
 sip, a man who owned property there would have had to 
 be proved guilty of extraordinary crimes before being really 
 ostracised by his neighbours. They might believe him 
 worthy to be hanged ; but, so long as he paid his taxes regu- 
 larly and hired men in haying and harvesting, no one would 
 have the initiative to twist a rope. Even ^he hard-faced 
 spiritualistic housekeeper at the Taylor farm was civilly 
 spoken to by the women, if by chance they met her in the 
 road. But behind her back they referred to her in good
 
 38 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 old Saxon terms, out of the Bible, and charged her with the 
 backsliding of the man who presumably paid her big wages. 
 
 As the work went busily on at the new schoolhouse, the 
 neighbours made a habit of dropping in occasionally to see 
 how things were progressing. One afternoon in August 
 the burly figure of Thomas Taylor appeared in the un- 
 cased doorway. The old builder, Jesse's father, was tak- 
 ing a short rest; while the boy was standing on a plank 
 supported by two saw-horses, nailing on a window-casing. 
 The men talked in a friendly way about the crops and the 
 weather. 
 
 During a lull in the conversation, Jesse's father went 
 into the half-finished entry to get something out of his coat- 
 pocket. While his back was turned, Taylor moved lumber- 
 ingly about the place; and when within a few feet of the 
 saw-horse nearest the door, he stumbled and fell for- 
 ward against the horse, knocking it from under the plank 
 on which Jesse was standing. Quick as a cat, the boy 
 sprang onto the window-ledge and saved himself a fall. 
 Then, sliding down to the floor, he stood opposite Taylor, 
 who was picking up his straw hat which had fallen from 
 his head. 
 
 " Stumbled over that blamed timber," Taylor muttered ; 
 " guess I must be gettin' old and clumsy." 
 
 Jesse, who had often caught the side-glance of malignity 
 which Taylor gave him, knew well that his stumbling 
 against the saw-horse was no accident; but that he had 
 purposely exposed him to a dangerous fall. He threw back 
 his beautiful head and looked at Taylor, their eyes o'h a 
 level. Then, with a slow, peculiar smile he said: 
 
 " The man who fills his field with traps, should walk 
 warily when he goes about after sundown." 
 
 Without a word, Taylor turned on his heel and left the 
 schoolhouse. 
 
 That evening Jesse was sitting under the grape-vines 
 watching the moon rise, when Marty White came down 
 the road and stopped at the gate to speak with the younger 
 boys who were lounging on the fence. 
 
 "Have you heard the news?" asked Marty. "Thomas 
 Taylor stumbled and fell down his cellar stairs a little 
 while ago. He's broke his arm."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 39 
 
 The heart of the listening Jesse seemed to stand still. 
 Was it possible that such things could really happen? He 
 stared into the face of the moon which had risen blood- 
 red over the mountain. Out of the maze of his thoughts 
 three questions shaped themselves with startling vivid- 
 ness: 
 
 Could he really see into the future, and had his words 
 to Taylor in the afternoon been a true prophecy? 
 
 Could the word of a human being, spoken in a moment 
 of strong feeling, bring an event to pass? 
 
 Was there a law of cause and effect, a law of justice, 
 that measured out to evil-doers retribution in the very de- 
 gree and kind of their offending? 
 
 He sat so long under the grape-vines that his mother 
 came at last and urged him to go to bed, that he might 
 get rest and strength for the next day's labours. 
 
 The last nail was driven in the schoolhouse only two 
 days before the opening of the fall term, in September. As 
 his father had let out their harvesting on shares that year, 
 on account of the more profitable building work, Jesse was 
 now free for a time to read and dream and think. He 
 had, of course, to help about the daily chores of the farm; 
 but these duties were light and left him abundant leisure. 
 Among other books, he read the Bible through from be- 
 ginning to end; and he read carefully the weekly news- 
 paper, and the one popular monthly magazine which they 
 could afford to take. He studied the world as it was, and 
 meditated on the world as it ought to be. One day he said 
 to his mother: 
 
 " It seems to me that our souls have made small progress 
 in the last two thousand years, for all the beauty of the re- 
 ligion we profess. Do not almost all men lie? Do they 
 not hate their enemies instead of loving them? Does he 
 not prosper most who most oppresses the poor? And is 
 not the man who is most honoured among his fellows al- 
 ways the one who has deceived them most? Mother, the 
 world is ripe for revolution, a religious revolution, a great 
 awakening of the spiritual life. The old religion has 
 failed. We need a new one. Sometimes I wonder I 
 wonder "
 
 40 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "What do you wonder, my darling? You make me al- 
 most afraid when you have that expression in your eyes ! " 
 
 He did not look at her, but out, far out over the sum- 
 mit of old Thunder Mountain. 
 
 " Sometimes I wonder if I am not the one who shall 
 bring to the world the faith it needs." 
 
 The heart of the mother throbbed with sudden prescience 
 of impending destiny. She drew Jesse to her bosom, as if 
 to guard him from the unimaginable future that already 
 reached for him with long, insistent arms. They sat to- 
 gether in silence for an hour, the boy's face lighted by his 
 kindling thought, the mother's lighted by her thought of 
 him. 
 
 The following winter Jesse made a strange discovery. 
 His father had been tortured for weeks with the pains 
 of rheumatism, and one day the boy said: 
 
 " Father, let me rub the arm that hurts you so. I feel 
 that I might ease you, if I should try." 
 
 The old man stretched out his right arm, discoloured 
 and swollen from finger-tips to elbow; and the boy began 
 to rub it with his hands, first gently, then more firmly, his 
 heart filled with the loving hope to relieve suffering. Af- 
 ter a few minutes he laid the arm back tenderly upon his 
 father's knee. 
 
 " I think it will not pain you so much now," he said. 
 
 The father looked at him a moment, lifted the afflicted 
 arm, and with his other hand carefully felt of it in every 
 part. Then his eyes slowly turned to his son's face. 
 
 " It's strange," he said, " it's mighty strange; but you've 
 taken all the pain away. I've not been easy in that arm 
 one minute for a month, and now I wouldn't know I 
 had an arm. It's strange, it's mighty strange." 
 
 That night the old man had the first long sleep which 
 he had known for weeks. And in the morning also he was 
 free from pain. 
 
 The next afternoon the doctor came. This case of rheu- 
 matism had given him much thought, because the weak 
 condition of the patient's heart had limited his choice of 
 medicines. He listened with keen interest to the father's 
 story of the boy's success where his own science had failed;
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 41 
 
 he wiped his spectacles, nodded his head, and stroked his 
 long grey beard. 
 
 " There are those born who have that power," he said, 
 " and science is beginning to take note of it. Unfortunately, 
 most of those who have the gift of natural healing are 
 classed with quacks and charlatans, because so few of them 
 are regularly qualified physicians. Young man," he added, 
 turning to Jesse, "why don't you study medicine?" 
 
 " If I can really ease pain with my hands," the boy 
 replied, " why do I need to study medicine ? " 
 
 The doctor went away without leaving any prescription, 
 merely telling them to let him know if the rheumatism 
 should reappear. But there was no occasion to send for 
 him again that winter.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHEN spring came round again the mother feared that 
 Jesse was not well. He did not complain of anything; but 
 he was preternaturally quiet and given to long reveries, to 
 long gazing at old blue Thunder Mountain in the day- 
 time and at the starry skies in the evening. Once at twi- 
 light she found him sitting alone under the grape-vines, 
 and on going up behind him and putting her arm around his 
 neck, she was grieved to see that the eyes he raised to 
 hers were full of tears. 
 
 "My boy!" she whispered, "is anything the matter? " 
 
 " No, Mother, nothing." 
 
 " Then why those tears ? And why are you so silent 
 and sad of late? " 
 
 " I am not really sad, Mother. But my heart is very full 
 of something, and I don't quite know what it is that 
 troubles me. I am not unhappy, and yet I am never at 
 rest. I seem to be always waiting for something that does 
 not come. In the morning I long for the night, and at 
 night I long for the morning." 
 
 He sat looking at her for some moments, as if there 
 were something he wanted to say; he opened his lips, then 
 closed them again. 
 
 "What is it, Jesse?" she asked. "You can tell your 
 mother anything. Is there something you want to do ? " 
 
 "Do you think that Father would object if I should go 
 up there " -he pointed east toward the blue mountain 
 " if I should go up there and stay a few days all alone ? 
 It's an unusual thing to do, and I cannot well explain 
 to him my reason, for I'm not sure of the reason myself; 
 but I know that I have to go. Will you explain it to 
 Father? " 
 
 "But what would you eat, my boy? And where would 
 you sleep ? There's hardly a soul living up there ! " 
 
 " I know there is solitude, and that is why I want to go. 
 And there's something else up there: I don't know what 
 it is, but it's the answer to a question. You can give me 
 
 42
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 43 
 
 some bread and a few boiled eggs in my pocket, and I can 
 sleep under the trees. You know I've often slept outdoors 
 in summer, since I was old enough to have my own way 
 a little." 
 
 " And you shall have your way in this, my boy. I'll 
 arrange .everything with your father; you shall go when- 
 ever you like." 
 
 And he went the next day. 
 
 On the third evening he returned. His mother saw 
 him coming along the road with head erect and shoulders 
 square. Her heart leaped with gladness, and she went out 
 to meet him. 
 
 " It's all right, little Mother," he said, bending to kiss 
 her, for he was nearly as tall as his father, " It's all right 
 now. I found the answer to my question." 
 
 " Can't you tell your mother what it was?" she asked. 
 
 " I'd rather not," he answered. " I really don't think 
 I could make anyone understand. I had to make a sacri- 
 fice, and went up onto the mountain to do it, like the old 
 fellows in the Bible, only their sacrifices were different 
 from mine. And I'm not going to be sad any more. It's 
 wonderful how happy we are when we have sacrificed hap- 
 
 piness 
 
 Puzzled by his words, but full of joy at having him 
 again at home, she drew him into the house and made him 
 eat some supper. Without evasion, he answered all the 
 questions of his father and the boys: how the trees looked 
 on the mountain, whether it was cold at night up there, 
 whether he saw anybody, whether there were blackberry 
 bushes, and all the other things that arose in their simple 
 minds in connection with his sojourn on the mountain. 
 There was no need of evasion, for the only questions he 
 could not have answered were questions they could not 
 have asked. So they passed a happy evening together, 
 Jesse and his family; and the next morning he arose early 
 and went singing about the business of the farm. 
 
 In June of that year he again saw Mary Magnus, the 
 pretty Mary of Vergennes, now a tall and rounding girl 
 of over fourteen. It was the first time she had been in 
 Nashburgh since she was eight years old and had sat for
 
 44 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 a week beside her second cousin, Susie Smith, in the little 
 old schoolhouse. This weather-beaten relic was no longer 
 in its former place, but had come down in the world to 
 serve humbly as a sheep-barn for Olin Madison, the most 
 comfortably placed farmer in the town, with the sole ex- 
 ception of Thomas Taylor. 
 
 Mrs. Olin Madison was a proud woman, with ideas 
 beyond the humble life she lived as a Nashburgh farmer's 
 wife. Though she had but little intellect, she had tower- 
 ing ambitions for her two tall sons, David and Theodore, 
 both students in the high school of the next village. Mrs. 
 Madison was not a church-member; she considered the 
 emotional form of religion which flourished in that region 
 as being rather undignified. Had there been a church with 
 a pipe-organ within easy distance, she might have paid it 
 her respects occasionally on Sunday morning. 
 
 After high school closed in June her two sons were at 
 home; and as Mary Magnus was the daughter of a man 
 of wealth, when Mrs. Madison learned of her arrival at 
 the Smiths' she decided to have a croquet-party for the 
 young people. As one could not have a party without 
 guests, she was obliged to ask the less important boys and 
 girls of the place. 
 
 She really felt rather kindly toward her neighbours, in 
 a cool and negative way; though she would have sacrificed 
 the reputation of any one of them for the intense pleasure 
 of rolling a morsel of gossip under her tongue. Pride and 
 curiosity were her chief faults, with a little spice of scorn 
 thrown in to season the mixture. But, all in all, she meant 
 to be a good woman. Had she been born a duchess, she 
 might have been quite simple, as then there would have 
 been no need of self-assertion ; had she lived in a place 
 where anything worth talking about ever happened, she 
 might have had other things to think of than her neigh- 
 bours' weaknesses. And she was a good mother, making 
 many personal sacrifices to educate her sons, doing her own 
 housework and wearing her old clothes. Was her motive 
 love, or ambition? The two are often one, even in the 
 heart of a mother. 
 
 Mrs. Madison received her young guests on the veran- 
 dah. She was a tall woman, and for all her fifty-five years,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 45 
 
 preserved an almost girlish slenderness. She wore a grey 
 dress of some thin material which matched in shade her 
 flurry iron-grey hair. 
 
 Jesse arrived early, with his two brothers. All women 
 liked him for his gentleness and beauty, and Mrs. Madison 
 was extremely affable that day. She praised him for his 
 work on the new schoolhouse which raised its white form 
 on a near-by hill; but when she told him, with a little 
 smile of condescension, that he was too bright a boy to 
 choose carpentry for a life work, he knew she was compar- 
 ing him with her own beloved sons who had not yet chosen 
 their careers, but were expected by everyone to do some- 
 thing brilliant for themselves and their parents. 
 
 In little groups the young people came to the croquet- 
 party. There were the three sons of Mary Bethel; the 
 three Brown girls who lived a mile away on the North 
 Road, shy and nervous girls who blushed when anyone 
 spoke to them; Jesse's four cousins, two boys and two 
 girls, ranging in age from Jim, who was seventeen, to 
 Ruth, who was thirteen; Stephen and Susie Smith, Mary 
 Magnus, and the younger of Thomas Taylor's boys. 
 
 Mary Magnus was the last to come, with Susie Smith. 
 Jesse was surprised to see how beautiful she had grown 
 she who had always been beautiful. 
 
 Mrs. Madison greeted her with effusion, kissing her on 
 the cheek. Even plain little Susie came in for a caress, 
 the first she had ever received from that source in all her 
 fourteen years of life in Nashburgh. 
 
 " You two girls come right into my bedroom and take 
 your hats off," said the hostess. The other girls had left 
 their hats in the sitting-room. This was Mrs. Madi- 
 son's way of showing special honour to a distinguished 
 guest. 
 
 " Hadn't we better keep our hats on ? " asked Mary, who 
 had already begun to care for her complexion. " Isn't it 
 sunny on the lawn? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! The house shades half of it, even so early in 
 the afternoon, and the thick leaves of the trees shade the 
 other part. You'll feel so much more at home with your 
 hats off." 
 
 " It was nice of you to ask us," declared Mary, as she
 
 46 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 settled a rose on one side of her dark hair. " I do so love 
 croquet! " 
 
 " So does David, my son," said David's mother. " He 
 was delighted when he heard you were coming to Nash- 
 burgh. There is so little society here for a young 
 man!" 
 
 " I remember David well," returned Mary Magnus ; 
 " he was the largest boy in school when I visited my cousin 
 Susie six years ago. I suppose he doesn't go to school here 
 still," she added, shaking out the ruffles of her sheer white 
 dress and giving her blue sash a little twist. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! He graduates from the high school 
 next year. He'll go to the university, I suppose." 
 
 Then Mrs. Madison took them out on the lawn, where 
 the other young people were standing around in groups, 
 laughing and talking. Her sons immediately came forward 
 to meet the new girl. The two boys were near enough 
 alike to be twins, though there was more than a year's 
 difference in their ages. Mary thought them stolid-look- 
 ing and uninteresting. She knew so many young men that 
 she was rather fastidious. 
 
 Then several other boys came bashfully forward to meet 
 her, and last came Jesse. She greeted him as an old 
 friend. 
 
 " How divinely tall you've grown!" she exclaimed, look- 
 ing up at him with her head on one side, and so exaggerat- 
 ing the difference in their height. " You're a young man 
 now, Jesse, instead of the thoughtless little boy who went 
 away that day without bidding me good-bye." 
 
 " Did I do that? Probably I never thought of it," he 
 answered, with delightful though unflattering candour. 
 Then he added: "You know that was a day of excitement 
 for Marty White and my mother, at least." 
 
 " I've thought of it a thousand times," Mary declared. 
 " However did you have the courage to do it ? " She was 
 referring to the snake-bite. 
 
 " Courage is a large word," said Jesse, " and that was 
 really a very small snake." 
 
 Mrs. Madison was moving about, explaining to her 
 guests that they were to play progressive croquet, with 
 four croquet-sets, the successful couples moving up to the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 47 
 
 next set, as from table to table in progressive euchre. Then 
 came the question of choosing partners. 
 
 Olin Madison, husband and father, was distinguished 
 in his household for always disarranging the plans of his 
 wife by clumsily trying to help her. He now jokingly 
 suggested that, as it was leap-year, the girls should choose 
 their own partners. 
 
 "Always let the pretty creatures have their own way," 
 he said, " especially where the boys are concerned." 
 
 His proposition being hailed with laughs of delight from 
 both boys and girls, Mrs. Madison could not well object, 
 though she had other plans; and that night her husband 
 was roundly scolded for his interference. 
 
 With much laughter it was agreed that the girls should 
 aim at a distant ball, the one who hit it having first choice 
 among the boys for partner, and the others coming after 
 in the order of their nearness to the goal. Mary Magnus 
 was the only girl who hit the ball. 
 
 " Choose your partner," cried Olin Madison, and other 
 voices echoed him. 
 
 Now Mary was a well-trained girl, and knew that she 
 should have chosen the elder son of her hostess; but she 
 was wilful, and rather superior at this rustic party, so 
 she chose according to her own sweet inclination. Walk- 
 ing straight over to Jesse Bethel, she said: 
 
 "Will you play with me, Jesse?" 
 
 " I hoped you would choose me," he answered, " when 
 I saw the way you took that ball at a distance of thirty 
 feet." Then, as an afterthought, he added: "But I'd be 
 glad to play with you, anyway, if you never hit a ball, 
 because I like you." 
 
 Mary opened her eyes wide. He certainly was different 
 from everybody else, she thought, even in his way of saying 
 pleasant things. 
 
 The other girls chose partners, in the order of their skill 
 at the first shot; and plain little Susie, being second-best, 
 chose David Madison whom she secretly admired. As 
 there were sixteen players but only seven girls, two of the 
 boys were obliged to play together, one of them having 
 a handkerchief tied around his sleeve, " to make him a girl," 
 as they expressed it. The two boys who played together 

 
 48 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 were the ones left over after the choice of partners, those 
 whom no girl had taken; they were Jesse's cousin, Jim 
 Bethel, and the Taylor boy. 
 
 " Remember how I licked you that time when we all 
 went to camp-meeting at the Grove ? " asked Jim, as he 
 tied the handkerchief around his partner's arm. 
 
 " You couldn't do it now," was the answer. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I could, if you should pitch on Jesse as you 
 did then!" 
 
 "There's provocation enough to-day," responded the 
 Taylor boy, looking across the lawn to where Jesse and 
 Mary Magnus were standing together. " That cousin of 
 yours has always got everything I wanted for myself, even 
 the prize for speaking pieces in school." 
 
 "Jesse didn't care anything about that prize; he'd much 
 rather you'd have had it he said so." 
 
 " I know it," muttered the other, " and that's one rea- 
 son the more why I hate him." 
 
 " Oh, come now ! You know he's my cousin " 
 
 " All right ; I won't say any more." And he turned to 
 take his mallet from David Madison. 
 
 They divided themselves into four groups, four players 
 to each croquet-set, and then began their friendly battle for 
 the prizes. 
 
 Mary and Jesse won every game for an hour. As they 
 began at the first set, there they remained, the losing play- 
 ers passing down, while the successful couple from the set 
 below moved up to play with them. After a time Jesse 
 began to feel half guilty at their success. He said to Mary, 
 very low, so that no one else could hear him: 
 
 " Hadn't we better lose this game? It doesn't seem 
 kind to win everything." 
 
 "Why not?" she asked, with a toss of her pretty head. 
 " I play a game for the game's sake." Then, with a quick 
 little smile and a glance from her brown eyes, " If you play 
 badly now, and let them win, you'll be cheating me." 
 
 "I wouldn't do it unless you were willing," he replied; 
 " but I would like to let my cousin and Joe Taylor win. 
 You know the girls all passed them by in choosing part- 
 ners." 
 
 They began to play, Mary opening the game brilliantly;
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 49 
 
 but after the second shot she murmured to him : " Yes, 
 Jesse, let us lose the game." And they lost it, passing 
 down to the next set. 
 
 " Let's do it again," he whispered. 
 
 "Yes, Jesse." And they lost again. To watch the 
 pleasure of their adversaries in winning was better for them 
 than another notch on their card. But when they again 
 passed down to the third set below, Mary said: 
 
 " Now, Jesse, let's really play to win. I'm getting rest- 
 less." 
 
 " I think you've only won these last three games," he 
 whispered to her, with a gentle look which made her 
 ashamed. 
 
 Slowly his meaning sank into her mind, and she stared 
 at him, her memory going back to their first talk, six years 
 before, and to the apple which he had given to Marty 
 White her first and only gift to him passed on to another 
 without a thought of regret. Her eyes filled with tears. 
 He saw them, and his face grew soft. 
 
 " I didn't think you cared so much about winning," he 
 breathed. 
 
 " Oh, it wasn't that, believe me, Jesse! I was think- 
 ing of something which happened a long time ago." 
 
 " I think now," he said, " that I also want to win. 
 Let's play as we never played before." 
 
 And they did, winning every game for the rest of the 
 afternoon. The prizes were pathetically cheap, a nickel- 
 plated pencil for Jesse, and for Mary a little pocket-book 
 of imitation leather which she secretly resolved to give to 
 her mother's maid. 
 
 Then they went in to supper, which was served in the 
 cool dining-room of the farmhouse. They found their 
 places marked by little cards, Mrs. Madison having re- 
 cently learned this custom from a book on the etiquette 
 of entertaining. Mary, who was always observant, noticed 
 that the plates were bottom side up and the knives in the 
 wrong place, and she wondered who had taught Mrs. 
 Madison to set a table in that way. She never thought of 
 criticising the table at her cousin's house, because there 
 they made no pretences to elegance. 
 
 Mary sat between Mr. Madison and David, who now
 
 SO THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 had the desired opportunity to talk with her; though he 
 was still a little piqued at her having chosen Jesse as a 
 partner instead of him. 
 
 " Have you ever been in New York, Miss Mary? " 
 David asked, by way of opening the conversation. 
 
 "Oh, yes, many times! My mother buys my clothes 
 there, and when I'm very good and obedient, she lets me 
 go with her but not always." 
 
 "Then you're not always good and obedient? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! I hate obedience. I want to have my 
 own way, and when I'm not allowed to have it, I make a 
 fuss." 
 
 "Do you think that is proper?" asked David. There 
 are young souls who love propriety, even in these revolu- 
 tionary days. 
 
 "Proper?" said Mary. "What's that?" 
 
 David got a little red, and hesitated in replying. He 
 wanted to tell her that it was proper to choose the son 
 of your hostess to play with you, instead of another fel- 
 low; but he knew it would not be proper to say that to 
 a guest, so he compromised by saying: 
 
 "Why, er it seems to me that it's proper to do what's 
 expected of us. Don't you think so?" 
 
 She laughed, a merry little gurgle good to hear. " But," 
 she replied, " people always expect me to do whatever I 
 like." 
 
 " I fear you're sadly spoiled," he said, in a grave tone 
 which sounded almost fatherly; then, in quite another 
 manner, he added: " Maybe it's because you are so beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 " Maybe," she answered. 
 
 " Then you really know how beautiful you are ? " 
 
 " I've been told so all my life. But, David," her tone 
 grew serious, "I'd rather be good like Jesse Bethel than 
 to be as beautiful as Cleopatra." And she told him about 
 the games they had lost on purpose. 
 
 " I think that was rather stupid," was David's com- 
 ment. " A game is a game. But you seem to like Jesse 
 very much." 
 
 " Oh, I think he's the most beautiful being I ever saw 
 and the best! Just look at him now." 
 
 Jesse was far down on the other side of the table. He
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 51 
 
 was seated between Susie Smith and one of the Brown 
 girls, and was telling them a story. David and Mary could 
 not hear what he was saying, because of the chatter of their 
 neighbours; but they could see his face, which would have 
 been a study for the master-painters of the Renaissance. 
 Oval, and rather pale save for a faint pink on the cheeks, 
 his face was of an almost feminine transparency; while 
 on the chin and far back at the sides a soft gold-coloured 
 down was beginning to show the promise of his dawning 
 manhood. Under the waving red-gold of his hair his eyes 
 shone calm and blue, " like pansies in an alabaster vase," 
 Mary told herself. 
 
 She watched him for a little while in silence, uncon- 
 scious of everything else; then, with a start, she turned 
 again to David, who had just asked her something what, 
 she did not know. 
 
 "You call me beautiful," she said; "but beside a face 
 like that mine is like a lump of dough. Can't you see, 
 David, how unlike all other human faces that one is?" 
 
 " I think he looks like a w T oman," David answered, 
 rather crossly. 
 
 " Maybe, though I hadn't thought of it before. His 
 face is like a man's, and like a woman's, too; only he's 
 more beautiful than any man, and lovelier than any 
 woman." 
 
 David turned suddenly and looked into her eyes. " It 
 seems that you've lost your wits over Jesse," he said. 
 
 "What do you mean, David?" 
 
 He laughed, rather unpleasantly. 
 
 Then she also turned suddenly and looked at him. They 
 were silent for a moment, studying each other. 
 
 " I think you don't understand about Jesse," Mary said 
 quietly. " I don't think any of us do. But he's not like 
 us." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " David returned. 
 
 "I don't know myself just what I mean; but you'll see 
 some day." 
 
 Just then Mrs. Madison rose from the table, and all 
 the young people followed her out on the lawn, where 
 they had walnuts and maple-sugar candy. And after a 
 little while they began to go away. 
 
 When Mary gave her hand to Jesse in token of parting,
 
 52 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 she said: "I'm going home to-morrow morning; but if 
 you are ever in Vergennes, will you come to see me? " 
 
 " I surely will," he answered. 
 
 "You promise? " 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 "Good-bye, Jesse." 
 
 "Good-bye, Mary."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SLOWLY the months went by, unmarked by any special 
 happening, but full of quiet work and thought and read- 
 ing. Though Jesse could buy few books, he had the 
 catalogue of a series of inexpensive reprints of the world's 
 classics, and when at intervals a half-dollar could be spared 
 from the slim family purse, he sent for another volume. 
 He read a little science, a little philosophy, a little poetry, 
 a little history, bringing to each new subject a boundless 
 enthusiasm and a point of view unique in its originality. 
 In philosophy he accepted nothing unconditionally, nothing 
 on mere authority; but questioned every statement of 
 every author, seeking for the kernel of unassailable truth 
 in the harvest of assumptions. History he read with some 
 reservations, science with questioning interest, while poetry 
 filled him with rapture. It was a strange and uneven cul- 
 ture he was gradually acquiring, a culture which broadened 
 his horizon without lessening the originality of his view- 
 point. Many things which were mere commonplaces in 
 the schools he knew not at all; while many other things 
 the schools knew not he learned from deep and solitary 
 experience, having no confidant except the blue old distant 
 mountain and the stars. And more and more, as time went 
 on, did his vague conviction grow that he was called to 
 some peculiar service in the regeneration of the world. 
 The oldest book and the most recent newspaper were of 
 equal interest to him, and he was too keen-sighted to es- 
 cape the cruel facts of modern human life. 
 
 Sometimes as he drove his father's two old cows to pas- 
 ture, he mused on the personality of God; as he made the 
 garden, he weighed the inequalities of wealth; as he tapped 
 the maple-trees in spring, he considered the beliefs of old 
 pantheists; as he did small odd-jobs of carpentry for the 
 neighbours, he questioned how the Egyptian pyramids were 
 builded, and evolved a theory of his own about them which 
 was as good as any other theory and simpler than most. 
 
 53
 
 54 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 And as he read and thought and studied, four stupen- 
 dous questions gradually took form within his mind: 
 "What is God?" "What am I?" "What are my re- 
 lations to God ? " " What are my relations to my fellow 
 men ? " So far, he had not found a satisfactory answer to 
 any of these problems. The platitudes of the stock relig- 
 ious writers left him cold, and the books of the more mys- 
 tical religious writers had not been added to his slender 
 library. Of the speculations of modern psychologists he 
 knew almost nothing at this period of his growth, and he 
 had seen only fragments of the sociological writings of the 
 time. Not having access to the world's accumulated knowl- 
 edge, out of himself he sought to bring the wisdom that 
 should answer his four questions. 
 
 The summer Jesse was sixteen he made another discov- 
 ery of unusual power within himself. His cousin Jim, who 
 was a little older than he, was a locally famous colt- 
 breaker, already known for miles around as the most skil- 
 ful master of unmanageable horses that could be found 
 anywhere in that part of the State. 
 
 One morning when Jesse went to see Jim, he found the 
 big fellow in a bad humour. 
 
 " It's that infernal colt of Thomas Taylor's that ails 
 me," said Jim, in answer to Jesse's question. " I've had 
 him now quite a spell, and I can't do a thing with him. 
 He's a devil like his master. I wouldn't tell anybody 
 except you, Jesse, but I'm actually afraid of the beast. I 
 suppose I've got to tackle him again this morning, though." 
 
 " Better wait awhile," advised Jesse. " You can't do 
 anything with a horse, or a man either, so long as you're 
 afraid of him. Suppose you let me try? " 
 
 "You!" Jim's tone was one of scornful amusement. 
 "Why, what do you know about horses?" 
 
 Jesse only said : " Let me see this fellow. I think 
 maybe you don't understand him." 
 
 " Come on, then," Jim assented. " He's in the south 
 stall. Don't think, though, I'm going to let you break your 
 pretty neck fooling with that devil. But in case he breaks 
 my neck, you may as well be there to see it, I suppose." 
 
 The two boys went to the stable.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 55 
 
 " Shall I take him out ? " asked Jesse. 
 
 Jim laughed again. " Not if I know it," he said, grimly. 
 " You stay here in the yard, and I'll bring him out." 
 
 Jim disappeared through the doorway of the stable. 
 Jesse stood alone, watching the leaves of the apple-trees in 
 the orchard move softly in the breeze. " How beautiful 
 the whole world is! " he whispered to himself. 
 
 Jim and the colt came plunging into the yard. 
 
 " Maybe you think you'd like to bit him, and bridle him, 
 and mount him! " satirically cried the colt-breaker, as 
 he tugged at the halter. Then, as the horse gave another 
 leap, " Hi, there, you devil! Stand still, will you?" 
 
 Jesse went over and closed the gate, also the stable 
 door. " Now let the horse loose," he said, " and listen to 
 me." 
 
 Jim released the animal, which gave a nervous leap and 
 then stood still, as if he also was watching the leaves of 
 the apple-trees in the orchard move softly in the breeze. 
 
 " I'm listening," answered Jim. 
 
 Jesse smiled. " I suppose," he said, " when Taylor 
 brought that horse here, he told you that he was a devil. 
 I suppose you've told the horse he was a devil every time 
 you've been near him since that day. Poor horse! No 
 wonder he believes he is a devil. Jim, whatever infernal 
 spirit there may be in that dumb friend of ours, Taylor 
 and you created it. Isn't he a beauty? Look at his 
 splendid head, look at his intelligent eyes, look at the long 
 curve of his great back. He's an animal made to love 
 and serve a gentle master. Now I'm going to bit that 
 horse, and I'm going to bridle him, and I'm going to 
 mount him ; and you're going to stand still where you are 
 and leave us alone. What's his name? " 
 
 " Fred." 
 
 " The name of my brother! " Jesse smiled again. " Well, 
 the horse is also my brother." 
 
 He walked over to the noble animal and offered him a 
 handful of grass which he had pulled by the way. The 
 horse nibbled the grass daintily from Jesse's hand, while 
 with the other hand the young man stroked his broad, in- 
 telligent head. Then Jesse laid his palms one on each side 
 of the long face and looked the animal straight in his
 
 56 
 
 brown, serious eyes. For a moment he closed his own 
 eyes and whispered softly, " Good Fred, dumb brother, 
 friend." 
 
 He turned away, and the horse followed him. He 
 walked around the stable-yard, the animal coming along 
 behind like a dog behind its master; and when he stopped, 
 the warm nose was nuzzling the back of his neck. Then 
 he picked up the bridle, and the horse opened his mouth 
 willingly for the bit. Jesse buckled the straps, talking to 
 him meanwhile in low tones. 
 
 " Now, my friend," he said, when everything was ready, 
 " I'm going to mount you and ride you around the yard." 
 
 A quick leap, and he was astride the horse's back ; a nerv- 
 ous start, a reassuring word, and they were off in a slow 
 walk. 
 
 " Open the gate, Jim," said Jesse, without raising his 
 even voice, and the gate was opened. Then he rode the 
 horse at a walk down the road for about a quarter of a 
 mile, turned quietly, and came galloping back to the stable- 
 yard, where Jim was still standing with open mouth and 
 staring eyes. 
 
 " Well, I'll be blowed ! " exclaimed Jim. ^ 
 
 Jesse said, smiling: "Come, and I will introduce you 
 to my new friend." He took Jim's hand and rubbed the 
 horse's face with it, and the horse nuzzled Jim's neck with 
 his nose. 
 
 " Good Fred, kind Fred," Jesse murmured, as he stroked 
 the animal and looked deep into his eyes. " My cousin is 
 going to mount you now and ride you a little way." 
 
 Jim mounted without trouble, and rode down to Tay- 
 lor's house and back, while Jesse waited for them in the 
 stable-yard. When they had put the horse in the stall 
 again, Jim scratched his head and stood looking at Jesse. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, " why you didn't ride that colt 
 down to Taylor's yourself. I wonder why you turned him 
 around just before you got in sight of the house." 
 
 " You know quite well why," Jesse answered. 
 
 " Do you mean that Taylor hates you and would be mad 
 to see you on his horse?" 
 
 Jesse's face fell, and he looked at Jim with eyes full of 
 pain. He said, very softly:
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 57 
 
 " No, that was not the reason." 
 
 Jim flushed to the forehead, then quickly his big hand 
 went out to his cousin's slender hand with a full heart- 
 clasp. 
 
 " Jesse," he cried, in a voice choked with feeling, " there's 
 not another fellow in the world that's good enough to lick 
 your shoes! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SPIRITUALISM was rampant through New England in 
 those days, and the winter Jesse was seventeen everyone 
 in Nashburgh was talking about the phenomena which fol- 
 lowed a certain travelling medium who came occasionally 
 to one of the neighbouring towns. Thomas Taylor was 
 the only man in Nashburgh who openly avowed the be- 
 liefs of the strange cult; but Jesse's father also had a 
 passionate curiosity in the matter, and if it had not been 
 for the entreaties of his religious wife he would have gone 
 to every meeting of the spiritualists. Even as it was, he 
 went occasionally in spite of her objections. 
 
 One afternoon around Christmas-time, Mary Bethel 
 was sitting quietly beside the kitchen fire doing the fam- 
 ily mending, when her husband startled her by announcing 
 that he was going that night to a seance to be held in the 
 next town. 
 
 " Oh, I beg of you, do not go ! " cried Mary. " You 
 know how I feel about it." 
 
 " It's all prejudice," declared the old man, " all non- 
 sense, the way you go on. Haven't I a right to a little 
 amusement in my old age? I'll take Jesse along to drive 
 the horse and to keep me out of mischief." 
 
 The mother looked appealingly at the son. He smiled 
 back at her, saying: 
 
 " If Father wants to go, why don't you let him go and 
 find out for himself what sort of thing this is? You will 
 never keep a can of gunpowder from exploding by merely 
 sitting on the lid. Let him go to-night, Mother, and 
 I'll go with him. We may both learn something. A lion 
 and a horse need different food, yet they are both good 
 healthy animals. If God is everywhere, as you believe, He 
 will very likely be at that meeting; and I think you can 
 trust Him to take care of Father and me for a few hours, 
 anyway." 
 
 5 8
 
 59 
 
 They started after an early supper, as the ride was 
 long and the hour of the meeting half past seven. The 
 sleigh-bells jingled musically as they went over the white 
 road ; and the full moon, rising in the eastern sky, cast 
 long shadows from the skeleton arms of the trees which 
 seemed to reach for the travellers with bony, wavering 
 fingers. The old man moved restlessly in his seat; he was 
 more excited and alert than Jesse had ever seen him. As 
 they turned the last corner, a few rods from their desti- 
 nation, he laid his hand on Jesse's arm. 
 
 " You won't be scared, will you, if you see your grand- 
 father? I saw him once, at a seance this same medium 
 gave last fall. But you mustn't tell your mother, and you 
 mustn't be scared yourself, no matter what you see." 
 
 "Why shouldn't I tell my mother?" 
 
 " Because she's afraid now to go up-garret after dark. 
 I don't see why folks should be any more afraid of friends 
 after they're dead than they were of 'em alive." 
 
 " And do you really believe," Jesse asked, " that you 
 saw the spirit of my grandfather?" 
 
 " I do," declared the old man, with conviction. " He 
 shook hands with me, and one of his thumbs was gone, just 
 as I remember him when I was a boy. And he told me 
 things nobody knows but him and me." 
 
 Jesse made no answer, and they drove into the yard. 
 Half a dozen sleighs were there before them; half a dozen 
 horses stood, well-blanketed, facing the east, watching the 
 moon with vague and wandering eyes. The Bethels hitched 
 their horse to the fence beside the others, then went to- 
 gether into the house. 
 
 In the large sitting-room nearly a score of persons were 
 assembled; some of them were young, some middle-aged, 
 some old. Among them were Thomas Taylor and the 
 hard-faced woman, his housekeeper. In spiritualistic cir- 
 cles she was more at home than among the stern moralists 
 of Nashburgh. 
 
 There was a large coal-stove in the room, the ceiling 
 was low and the air stifling. The men and women chatted 
 together about indifferent things; there was nothing 
 awe-inspiring in this little group of commonplace persons, 
 met together to question the insoluble mystery of life and
 
 60 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 death. A fat woman in black at the other end of the room 
 laughed much; she was the medium. Two others came in 
 after Jesse and his father, acquaintances of theirs, and the 
 four men nodded to each other and talked about the 
 weather. After awhile the fat medium arose and left the 
 room. 
 
 " It's half past seven," said the man of the house, a 
 grizzled farmer of middle-age. " Wonder if any more'll 
 come." 
 
 " Better wait a few minutes," advised Thomas Taylor, 
 and his housekeeper echoed : " Yes, better wait a 'few 
 minutes." 
 
 They talked less after the medium went out, and slowly 
 the hands of the old clock on the mantel moved up to a 
 quarter of eight. 
 
 " She's coming now," said a muffled voice behind Jesse, 
 and the medium re-entered the room. She walked heavily, 
 as in a kind of haze, and another voice said: 
 
 " She's going to the cabinet." 
 
 The cabinet was a small structure in one corner, covered 
 with white sheets. As the medium disappeared between the 
 curtains, the grizzled man of the house closed and locked 
 the door of the room. 
 
 " Now, friends," he said, " all of you set around in a 
 circle and take hold of hands. I'm going to set here, next 
 the cabinet." 
 
 When they were all arranged to his satisfaction, he said 
 to a tall girl, his daughter, " Mandy, play something on 
 the organ." 
 
 Then he explained to the assembled company: " That's 
 to get the room harmonious, so's the spirits can work 
 better." 
 
 The girl left her place in the circle and went to the 
 cottage-organ, a cheap and wheezy instrument, and played 
 " Home, Sweet Home." When she was through playing 
 and had returned to her seat, her father leaned over and 
 blew out the lamp which stood on the table behind 
 him. There was a dead silence for some minutes. Jesse 
 could hear his own heart beat, though it beat regularly 
 and no faster than usual. He was not in the least 
 nervous.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 61 
 
 Then there was a rustling sound from somewhere, and 
 a thin, high voice cut the stillness: 
 
 " Good evening, friends," it said, " I'm glad to be with 
 you. Yes, it's little Bright-eyes. Oh h-h-h! What a 
 beautiful light . . . right there, in the east! It 
 twinkles and twinkles, just like a star. And it moves. . . 
 Oh-h-h! It's stopped now; it stands right there. See! 
 see!" 
 
 They strained their eyes through the darkness, and saw 
 or thought they saw a bright light, a twinkling light, 
 on the east side of the room. Jesse saw it also, though as 
 he was sitting on the east side of the room, he had to 
 raise his eyes toward the ceiling. 
 
 " Yes, Bright-eyes, we see it," said a deep voice. " But 
 what does it mean ? " 
 
 " It means But I'm only a little Indian girl, I don't 
 know what it means. It has too big a meaning for me. 
 Oh-h-h ! " The voice sank to a shrill whisper, then rose 
 again. " I think it has something to do with that young 
 man there, the one right under it." 
 
 " Do you mean me ? " asked Jesse, as he seemed to be 
 right under the strange light. 
 
 " Yes, you, you," answered the voice, excitedly. " Oh, 
 but you're a strange young man! I don't think I under- 
 stand no, no I won't " The voice shrilled, faltered, 
 
 and was gone. 
 
 " Strange ! " said a man beside Jesse. " She's never be- 
 haved like that before." 
 
 "Hush-sh! Here's another," someone said. 
 
 Again came that peculiar rustling sound, and then a 
 second seemingly supernatural voice was heard. It was 
 a bass voice this time, but muffled, as if it spoke through 
 layers of wool: 
 
 " Good evening, % all. Yes, it's Doctor Ebenezer. How. 
 do you do? What was the matter with Bright-eyes? She 
 came back to us with such a queer expression on her little 
 copper face. She must have seen something. . . . 
 What's that? . . . No, it can't be! ... In 
 nomine Patns, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti . . Spiritus 
 sancti . . ." 
 
 Then silence. The second voice, or spirit,, or whatever
 
 62 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 it might be, was also gone. Not a soul in the room could 
 have told the exact meaning of the Latin words, though 
 they had a familiar sound to some of them. No one dared 
 to speak; they all sat, staring into the darkness. Then 
 came strains of music, soft thrilling strains, like those of a 
 guitar; and here and there about the room innumerable 
 little lights flashed for a second and went out again. A 
 voice like that of a child began to sing in a language no 
 one understood only a line or two, then it also sank to 
 silence. 
 
 In the unnatural stillness one or two persons caught 
 their breath with a quick sigh which sounded loud as a 
 sob, so tense was the atmosphere of expectation. Then 
 came the vibration of a heavy body moving along the floor: 
 the medium was coming out of the cabinet. They heard 
 her voice, almost but not quite a natural tone: 
 
 " It's only me, sit still. There's something here which 
 seems to send the spirits all back. I'll try to tell you 
 what it is, if you'll be quiet." 
 
 There was another silence, of perhaps a minute, and 
 then the voice of the medium again, speaking this time in 
 a natural tone. 
 
 " There's a very beautiful person here. In the darkness 
 I see your souls instead of your bodies, but this person's 
 body and soul both are beautiful. The spirits say that your 
 spirit you there toward the east I'm talking to that 
 your spirit has been the master of millions of theirs, and 
 will be again, as soon as it's freed from the body. Oh, but 
 you have a hard work to do in the world! Yet you will 
 be strong enough to do it. I'm talking to that young man 
 over there. Do you understand what I say ? " 
 
 " I understand," Jesse answered. 
 
 The medium then said she could do nothing more that 
 night ; there were no materialisations nor attempts at materi- 
 alisations; the lamp was relighted, and the seance broke up. 
 
 As they were driving home across the moonlit snow, the 
 father said to Jesse: " I wish you'd tell me wha* that was 
 all about if you know yourself." 
 
 " Father," he replied, " I don't want to talk about it 
 now. I know what that woman meant; but I don't know 
 how she could possibly herself have any knowledge of the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 63 
 
 matter. I must study it all out. Until I do, please don't 
 speak to me about it; and, above all, don't mention it to 
 Mother." 
 
 The father was silent for a time, and then he said: 
 " You're a strange boy, Jesse. You have always puzzled 
 me, yes, ever since you were a baby. But if it's really 
 true that you're going to do some great work in the world, 
 something too big for a man like me to understand, I give 
 you my blessing, boy. And whatever you are, or what- 
 ever you're going to be, your old father's blessing can't 
 help but do you good." 
 
 " Oh, Father, I thank you ! " Jesse answered, his voice 
 unsteady with emotion. 
 
 That night, as he lingered in the region of inner light 
 and elusive forms which the consciousness always passes 
 through on the way to the region of sleep which lies im- 
 mediately beyond, he was startled and thrown back again, 
 wide awake, by the sound of his own voice, saying with un- 
 mistakable distinctness : 
 
 " God is the Power, and I am the expression of the 
 Power," 
 
 He sat up in bed and looked around in the darkness. 
 Had he been dreaming? Or had his lips been merely pas- 
 sive instruments for the delivery of a message from his 
 inner to his outer self? He repeated the words, his heart 
 beating wildly with the realisation of their significance in 
 the development of his thought: " God is the Power, and 
 I am the expression of the Power." 
 
 Why, here was the answer to the first two of his four 
 great questions: "What is God?" and "What am I?" 
 In the consideration of this strange midnight message from 
 the Unknown, his imagination caught fire. He realised 
 himself as the expression of the Power of God, as the 
 hand which could move the lever of the divine engine, as 
 the eye which pierced the fog of the world's future, as the 
 form of the unimaginable Word.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN the month of June, a year and a half later, the father 
 of Jesse went out to investigate for himself the mystery 
 beyond the door of death. While sitting quietly one even- 
 ing with his family, he fell from his chair to the floor; and 
 after the three frightened sons had carried him to his bed, 
 their hearts were torn by seeing their helpless old father 
 in the grasp of violent convulsions which seemed to be 
 trying to tear the spirit from his body. 
 
 One of the younger boys was sent to summon the doctor, 
 and the other ran to a neighbour's house for assistance; 
 while Jesse and his mother removed the garments from the 
 moveless and unconscious man and laid him between the 
 sheets of the wide bed in which Jesse and the other sons 
 were born. 
 
 Stunned by the unexpected blow, and powerless before 
 this experience which comes to every soul as new, and yet 
 is old as life itself, Jesse sat and gazed upon his father's 
 face. His mother and the neighbour, Mrs. Smith, moved 
 quietly about the room from time to time, doing those 
 little services which seem so necessary in the hour when 
 the grim messenger waits outside the door, and which are 
 so pathetically futile to prevent the inevitable entrance. 
 
 When the doctor came, they knew by his manner as 
 he crossed the threshold that he brought no hope to them. 
 He only asked them a few questions, gave some simple di- 
 rections and a little medicine. 
 
 " There is nothing else to be done," he said, in that 
 quiet tone which doctors use when they realise that their 
 skill is useless. " I have known for a long time that he 
 would finally go in this way ; it is almost always so with his 
 disease. The end may come in a day, perhaps; there will 
 be no lingering, at his age. Do not be alarmed if he should 
 have another convulsion, but let us hope for the best. I 
 will come again in the morning." And he went away. 
 
 64
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 65 
 
 Jesse and his mother watched together in silence through 
 the long night. Toward morning the boy said: 
 
 " Mother, do you think he knows what is going on 
 around him? " 
 
 " No, my boy, your father will never speak to you again, 
 will never know if you should speak to him. I asked the 
 doctor at the outside door as he was going away, and he 
 says that your father is in the coma that precedes death." 
 
 The coma that precedes death! Jesse mentally repeated 
 the words, weighing their meaning. Was there also a coma 
 that followed death, he asked himself, or and here his 
 mind moved cautiously, step by step could they be right, 
 the people of that new sect whose extraordinary belief in 
 the future of the human spirit had fascinated the man who 
 now lay helpless here, in the coma that precedes death? 
 He could not determine, by any process of reasoning that 
 was satisfactory to his mind, what would be the immediate 
 future of the soul which waited here the moment of its 
 passing. 
 
 He looked across to where his mother sat with her eyes 
 closed, her lips moving in prayer. He knew the questions 
 troubling her simple and deeply religious mind. Accord- 
 ing to the tenet she believed in, the soul which died with- 
 out accepting God would never taste the joys of the here- 
 after reserved for the beloved of God. And his father 
 was dying without that acceptance. How would it be 
 with him in the event that his mother's belief were true? 
 But was it true? Somehow, for all his church training, he 
 doubted that his kind old father's soul was going to the tor- 
 ment. Then where was it going? Would it go to the 
 God who had no existence for him, the God in whom he 
 had no faith? That would be as if a son who denied the 
 paternity of his father should yet demand inheritance from 
 that father. But, even so, could not the father forgive, if 
 his love were great enough? 
 
 Then to his mind, so striving to perceive a glimmer in 
 the darkness, came again those potent words which he had 
 carried in vivid remembrance for eighteen months: " God 
 is the Power, and I am the expression of the Power." 
 Surely, the expression of the Power included the power of 
 forgiveness.
 
 66 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 He bowed his face upon the helpless hand of the dying 
 man, and, in the name of that Power of which he was the 
 expression, he forgave his father's unbelief. 
 
 They who shall deem this spiritual act of faith and love 
 a baseless, blasphemous presumption, should remember that 
 the ministers of the most powerful church on earth do this 
 thing every day. Truly, " Perfect love casteth out fear," 
 even the fear of seeming presumption. 
 
 The next day, at sunset, the father of Jesse passed from 
 breathing oblivion into that deeper and breathless sleep 
 which waits for every man. Two days later he was buried 
 in the little graveyard shaded with pine-trees, where three 
 generations of the Bethels were hidden away from the too 
 inquisitive eyes of the sun and moon. 
 
 During the two days when the body lay in the house, 
 Jesse had moved about in a haze. Not until they came 
 back from the graveyard after the burial did he fully 
 realise that his father's chair was empty, his father's voice 
 for ever silent. It all seemed so incredible that he still half 
 doubted the evidence of his senses, the evidence of his mem- 
 ory of the last three days and nights. Still moving in that 
 haze which sometimes hangs over the imaginative minds 
 of the young in times of grief or change, Jesse went to his 
 bed the night after his father's funeral. In the middle of 
 the night he opened his eyes in the darkness, startled wide 
 awake by a strange dream. 
 
 He had seemed to be in a house similar to the one in 
 which he lived with his family. Several women sat by the 
 window sewing on garments of various kinds, some plain, 
 some ornamental; and they were all talking together of 
 commonplace things. He spoke to them of uncommon 
 things, of beauty and aspiration; but they only stared at 
 him, and went on sewing and chattering. 
 
 He passed out into a field where men were making hay. 
 They were also talking together of small and sordid mat- 
 ters. He spoke to them of large pure purposes, of faith 
 and social destiny; they also stared at him, even as the 
 women had done, and went on making hay. 
 
 Lonely and sad at heart, he turned away down a narrow 
 lane between irregular lines of ancient trees. Then, look- 
 ing up, he saw standing before him a tall figure wrapped
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 67 
 
 in a long hooded garment, its face covered by a veil. It 
 beckoned him to follow. 
 
 Walking behind this figure, he passed into a large build- 
 ing, like a church, an old building; but instead of pews, 
 the floor space was filled with cheap modern chairs set 
 regularly in rows. Passing down the middle aisle, they as- 
 cended the stairs before the altar, and turning to the right, 
 went through a small side-room like a chapel, and out by 
 a door at the back. 
 
 Here everything was changed ; here was the side of a 
 mountain, steep and wooded. The air was pure and rather 
 cold; it smelt of pines. On before him passed the tall 
 figure, and Jesse followed. There was no path, though 
 footprints here and there showed that the way had been 
 already travelled by someone. It was very steep, thick 
 brush impeded his progress, rough stones cut his feet, and 
 brambles tore his clothes. Now and then he had to climb 
 over the trunk of a fallen tree, and in one place a sheer 
 cliff rose, up which he worked his hard way, finding a 
 perilous foothold by crevices and jagged points of rock. 
 This cliff surmounted, he came to a small level space a 
 little further on, and here the guiding figure stopped and 
 waited for him. They were still only on the side of the 
 mountain, but the summit was invisible, lost in grey cloud 
 and mist. And then he heard a voice which said: 
 
 " The foot of mortal can ascend no further. Look up ! 
 Behold the iron face of the Law, on which no man may 
 look and live." 
 
 He raised his eyes to the zenith, and there above him was 
 the awful Face, hard, black, shining with its own efful- 
 gence; and in the eyes, which were as balls of fire, there 
 was no pity and no love, only implacable judgment, stern, 
 forbidding. He gazed and gazed, until the terror of the 
 thing drew all his strength away, and he sank backward 
 on the ground, still gazing, until his eyes grew dim 
 and merciful unconsciousness came with its veil to cover 
 him. 
 
 Then slowly the haze of his weakness passed away. And 
 he saw again the iron Face, but now how changed! It 
 smiled, it softened, glowing with unearthly beauty, and the 
 eyes were tender as a mother's looking on the loved face
 
 68 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 of her child. Dizzy with ecstasy he closed his eyes, and 
 when he opened them again the Face was gone. 
 
 He rose from the damp ground and looked about him. 
 The tall figure of the guide was gone; he was alone on the 
 side of the mountain, and the wind blew cold upon him, 
 keen with the odour of pines. 
 
 Down the mountain again he went, back to the valley 
 where the people made hay and sewed their garments and 
 talked .of sordid things. Passing along the road, he was 
 pointed at and ridiculed, for the sharp rocks and brambles 
 of the immortal mountain had torn his clothes, and some- 
 where on the way he had lost both his shoes. He was 
 footsore and weary, and knew not where to go. 
 
 That was the end of the dream, and he had opened his 
 eyes in the darkness, startled wide awake by the strangeness 
 of it. 
 
 On the following night he had another dream. 
 
 He seemed to be wading in snow, making his way slowly 
 up a long hill toward the small back-door of a great build- 
 ing. A strong and icy wind blew in his face, and now 
 and then he stumbled in the deep drifts, falling, only to 
 pick himself up again and struggle on and upward. When 
 after a long time he reached the door, someone standing 
 there said, " You are waited for." But no one opened 
 the door. He shook it, he beat his hands upon it; but no 
 answer came from the inside. Finally he threw himself 
 against the door with all his force, and it gave way before 
 him; but the room in which he found himself was empty. 
 It was a large room with a waxed and shining floor, a 
 ball-room, and at one end were the chairs and musical in- 
 struments of an orchestra; but the musicians were not 
 there, the chairs were empty. 
 
 Passing on into another large room at the right, he saw 
 a table dressed as for a banquet; but no man was there. 
 At the side of this room and on the front of the building 
 was a great doorway. He went through it and stood 
 again in the open air, at the top of a wide flight of marble 
 steps. On this side of the building it was summer: before 
 him lay a garden, with trees and flowers and winding 
 walks. Slowly he descended the broad stairs; they were
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 69 
 
 covered from top to bottom with a crimson carpet which 
 clung to his feet at every step, clung so tenaciously that 
 he had to shake it off as he stood upon each stair before he 
 could pass down to the next one. 
 
 When he reached the ground, he turned to the right and 
 found himself near a little company of gay people who 
 laughed and chatted together under the shade of a tree. 
 They glanced at him indifferently, but paid no further at- 
 tention. He was lonely, and yearned for the company of 
 these graceful and well-dressed men and women who 
 seemed to have so little need of him. 
 
 But he passed around them and stood before the other 
 half of the wide building's front, for only half of it was 
 taken up by the red-carpeted steps down which he had 
 come to the garden. He found himself facing the other 
 half of the building's front but how strangely it was built! 
 Parallel with the marble steps, and under the eastern half 
 of the wide portico, the wall fell sheer to the ground, some 
 forty feet. But, instead of a wall of stone, it was a cor- 
 rugated wall of dark stained leather, padded in ridges large 
 as pillows great rolls, lying one above another, each roll 
 corresponding to a step in the adjacent stairway. 
 
 Slowly it dawned upon his consciousness that he must 
 climb this ladder of slippery leather rolls; that he must 
 reach the top and stand in the portico above the highest 
 branch of the tree in whose cool shade the careless people 
 prattled on, indifferent to his presence. And he began 
 to climb. There was no foothold save in the folds between 
 the hard and slippery leather cushions; there was nothing 
 for his hands to grasp except the slippery cushions straight 
 above his head. Slowly, with beating heart and aching 
 limbs, he made his hard way upward. He had forgotten 
 there was anyone below that watched him; he was only 
 conscious of the height he struggled toward, the end to be 
 achieved, the difficult and perilous ascent. 
 
 At last he gained the level marble slab above the high- 
 est rung of the rolling ladder; at last he stood up straight 
 and drew a long breath. A great joy rilled his soul. 
 Glancing down, he saw the men and women under the 
 tree whom he had forgotten. They were now looking up 
 at him with wide eyes of amazement, and their faces were
 
 70 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 alight with enthusiasm. Then they raised their arms to 
 him in supplication ; they yearned to him with tears of ador- 
 ing love. 
 
 And he awoke. 
 
 Again, on the third night, he had yet another dream. 
 
 He seemed to be lying in a place he knew near the sum- 
 mit of old Thunder Mountain. It was the hour of dawn, 
 and the air was musical with the voices of awakening birds. 
 Lying there, still with happiness, he saw again before him 
 the veiled figure of his first strange dream, the one who had 
 led him up the mountain and shown him the two visions 
 of the dual face of the Law. 
 
 The presence now spoke to him, saying: " Faith in the 
 Higher shall give to the lower all the powers of both." 
 
 He rose to his feet, and bowing low to the ethereal vis- 
 itor, asked that he might behold its face. 
 
 Then, without a word, the presence drew aside its veil 
 and stood revealed before the startled dreamer. 
 
 The eyes which looked into Jesse's were his own eyes, 
 the face he saw was his own face his own, and yet how 
 different! Had the morning taken human form and ap- 
 peared before him, it could not have been more beautiful 
 than this unearthly semblance of his earthly self. 
 
 Again the presence spoke to him, saying: " I am the 
 Higher, and you are the lower; but we are one." 
 
 Filled with wonder, he awoke. It was really the hour 
 of dawn, as in the dream. He arose and crossed the room 
 to a mirror which hung on the wall, that he might look 
 again into his own eyes, as he had done in the dream. 
 The mirror faced the uncurtained eastern window; and as 
 he stood there, the sun came up over the top of the blue 
 mountain and was reflected behind him in the glass, like a 
 halo around his hair. And from that hour he knew with 
 an absolute knowledge that he was one of those who have 
 to walk alone in the waste places of the world, who 
 walk alone though multitudes surround them; that he 
 was one whom the iron-visaged Law had chosen for its 
 minister and interpreter. And as he was young and full 
 of the love of life, the knowledge was a burden of joy and 
 pain almost too heavy to be borne.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BEING the eldest son of a widowed mother, Jesse had 
 now to face the question of the material welfare of the 
 family. His father's little farm was mortgaged for about 
 half its small value. His two younger brothers, one fifteen 
 years of age and one sixteen, could not be depended on to 
 give him any substantial help for a time, at least; so upon 
 his shoulders lay the responsibility of providing for his 
 mother, and of so guiding the course of the younger boys 
 that they should become self-supporting and helpful in their 
 turn. 
 
 On the fourth morning after the funeral he called a 
 family council. They sat around the square dinner-table 
 in the old kitchen, the mother and the three boys. Jesse 
 had now taken the foot of the table and sat in the chair 
 left vacant by the father; Fred sat on Jesse's right and 
 Henry on his left, and Mary Bethel sat opposite Jesse. He 
 had brought pencil and paper, his father's old account 
 book and the little black tin box from the top shelf of the 
 parlour closet, in which the father had kept his business 
 papers for forty years and more. When they were seated, 
 Jesse was the first to speak. 
 
 " Mother," he said, " and you also, Fred and Henry, 
 I think we should now talk over together the questions 
 of the future. We know that Father died heavily in debt, 
 and we may take it for granted that Taylor is going to 
 make it as hard as he can for us in the matter of the 
 mortgage. I had a talk yesterday with Olin Madison, and 
 I think we should ask him to be administrator of the es- 
 tate. My first idea was that Mother should be administra- 
 trix, in order to save the fees; but I think, on account of 
 Taylor, that we should have a man who knows more about 
 such business than we do." 
 
 "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the mother. "I'm sure Mr. 
 Madison will not charge us much, and I know nothing 
 whatever of business." 
 
 " There's a legal fee," said Jesse, " which he will prob-
 
 72 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ably accept. It will not be much, so let us call that settled. 
 And now I want to tell you about a talk I had with Father 
 the summer we built the schoolhouse. He made me prom- 
 ise that when he died we would sell this place, pay off the 
 mortgage, and leave Nashburgh." 
 
 His mother gasped. " Leave Nashburgh ! Oh, Jesse ! 
 And where would we go? " 
 
 " That we have to decide. Father said I would never 
 be able to make enough at my trade to support us, and keep 
 up the mortgage interest, if we should stay in this dull 
 place. He made me promise, Mother. He wouldn't talk 
 with you about it, because he knew how you worried over 
 things. Mr. Smith has a note of Father's for a hundred 
 dollars which he never mentioned to you, and there are 
 other debts." 
 
 The mother's eyes were swimming in tears. " If we leave 
 here," she said, " we won't have any home at all. How 
 shall we live, Jesse? " 
 
 He leaned across the table and clasped the hand which 
 she held out to him. " Mother, dearest," he said, " we 
 will rent a little house in some village where I can get 
 carpentry work, and maybe the boys can take care of a 
 small market-garden before and after school hours." 
 
 " You want them to keep on going to school ? " asked 
 the mother, in surprise. " Why, Jesse, you yourself haven't 
 been to school since the winter you were fourteen ! " 
 
 "Yes, Mother, but I am different. I study all the time 
 when I'm not working; I read and study all the time. It 
 isn't necessary that I should go to school. But the boys 
 ought to be taught a little while longer, because they can't 
 teach themselves." 
 
 " I don't go to any village school," declared Fred, the 
 second boy. " They'd only point me out as a gawk and 
 a know-nothing. I'm sixteen years old now, and I'm going 
 to work with Jesse. Let Henry go to school." 
 
 So that point also was settled. 
 
 "And what shall I do to earn money?" Mary asked, 
 the thought of being a burden to her boys making her 
 heart heavy. 
 
 " You will keep house for us," Jesse answered quickly. 
 " We couldn't afford to pay our board anywhere ; but if
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 73 
 
 we have a little garden and keep one of the cows, we can 
 live very economically, and still have a home together. 
 You will do more than your share, Mother, if you look 
 after the house." 
 
 " I'm going to learn to be a carpenter," said Fred, " then 
 there'll be two of us earning money. Oh, we'll be all 
 right! Now don't you worry, Mother, any more." 
 
 "And I'll go to school another year, and take care of 
 the garden and the cow," said Henry. " Yes, we shall be 
 all right." 
 
 "But where shall we go?" was the mother's trembling 
 question. " Where shall we find a home ? " 
 
 Jesse drew a deep breath. He looked from his mother 
 to the boys, then back again to his mother. Then he said 
 the memory of his childhood's wish still vivid in his 
 mind: 
 
 " We will go over the mountain to Myra." 
 
 The details of settling the estate and disposing of the 
 farm dragged over several months. As Jesse had an- 
 ticipated, Thomas Taylor made them as much trouble as 
 he could about the mortgage; but Olin Madison, the 
 friendly administrator, so managed the whole business that 
 they were sure of having a little money in the end. Mean- 
 while Jesse looked about him for a chance to earn some- 
 thing during the final weeks of their stay in Nashburgh. 
 Thus it happened that he again saw Mary Magnus of 
 Vergennes. 
 
 A builder of that city had advertised for carpenters in 
 a Burlington paper, and Jesse had gone up to Vergennes 
 to apply in person for work. Though the builder wanted 
 older and more skilled men than Jesse, he took a fancy to 
 the young man and hired him at sight. Before Jesse had 
 been half a day employed, he discovered that there were 
 many matters of detail about the trade of carpentry which 
 his old-fashioned father had not taught him. These de- 
 tails he set himself to master with the same persistency he 
 exercised in the pursuit of all his objects: from the knowl- 
 edge that is hidden away in books, to that experience in the 
 handling of material things which fits a man to struggle 
 with and conquer his physical environment.
 
 74 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Being so occupied, it was nearly a week before he re- 
 membered that Mary Magnus lived somewhere in Ver- 
 gennes, and that he had promised her three years before 
 that if he should ever be in her city he would go to see 
 her. His employer, to whom he applied for direction to 
 the house of the Magnus family, was much impressed by 
 the fact that his handsome young workman was on terms 
 of friendship with the daughter of the richest man in the 
 city. 
 
 " Well, well ! " the old fellow exclaimed, scratching his 
 grizzled head and looking at Jesse out of the corner of his 
 shrewd blue eyes. " So you know Mary Magnus? And 
 you mean to go and call on her? Well, I'll be blessed! 
 She's the handsomest and proudest girl in Vergennes, and 
 hardly a young fellow here is elegant enough to suit her 
 taste. Why, folks say the inside of their house is like a 
 palace, with rugs from Turkey, and china from France, and 
 pictures from all over. Mary is seventeen or eighteen now, 
 I reckon; and already there's a string of fellows after 
 her from New York to Montreal, and I dunno but from 
 farther off than that. Say, boy, I like you, you know, and 
 I'll give you an old man's advice: be mighty sure she 
 wants you to come, before you go to call on Mary Mag- 
 nus." 
 
 " She asked me to come and see her," said Jesse simply, 
 " and I shall go this evening." 
 
 " Good luck to you, then ! Heaven knows you're good- 
 looking enough to turn the head of any giddy girl." 
 
 "Do they call Mary Magnus a giddy girl?" asked 
 Jesse. 
 
 " Oh, yes! She's wild as a hawk, for all her pride and 
 her money. But she has a good heart, though, a kind 
 heart. There's many a poor child in Vergennes that's 
 walking around in shoes bought out of Mary Magnus's 
 pocket-money." 
 
 Jesse's heart swelled. She was good, then, as well as 
 beautiful, this little friend of his. He was not much im- 
 pressed by the old builder's warning of the elegance in the 
 house of Magnus. Mary was simply Mary, whether she 
 lived in a palace or in a cabin; of that he felt quite sure. 
 Her manners in Nashburgh had been charming. He did
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 75 
 
 not know enough of life to realise where a subtle differ- 
 ence might lie between Mary in Nashburgh and Mary in 
 Vergennes; and so great was the charm of his personality, 
 and so great the power and dignity of his growing soul, 
 that he was really never to know that difference. 
 
 He went to see her that evening. Imposing the outside 
 of the house certainly was, judged by Vermont standards 
 of comparison. And when Jesse, having given his name 
 to the maid who answered his ring, was ushered into the 
 house, he found himself for the first time in his life in a 
 really beautiful room. Subdued in colour and harmonious in 
 every part, the room made on him an impression of pleasure 
 which he did not analyse, a quiet pleasure, yet different 
 from that he found in the woods or under the stars. He 
 did not examine the room in detail; but he saw a grand 
 piano, strange soft-toned rugs, and outlined in vivid relief 
 against a dark curtain at the back a marble head and 
 shoulders which gave him a new feeling of enjoyment. He 
 did not know that it was a copy of the Hermes of 
 Praxiteles; it simply made on him an impression of har- 
 monious being. 
 
 Up-stairs in her own room, Mary Magnus sat reading 
 a novel when Jesse's name was announced by the maid: 
 " Jesse Bethel, of Nashburgh." Yes, she would be down 
 in a moment. The maid went away, and Mary crossed 
 the room to the cheval-glass to smooth her hair. What 
 was he like, she wondered, after three years of growth? 
 Why, he was eighteen now, really a man! She remem- 
 bered vividly his appearance at fifteen, as she saw him last 
 in Nashburgh, at the croquet-party given by the eccentric 
 woman with the two stolid sons she had forgotten the 
 name. Would he find her much changed? Then she 
 smiled, the smile of conscious beauty which is never in 
 doubt of its own power over the eyes of others. The rose- 
 coloured gown she wore was becoming, lending a little of 
 its brighter tone to the soft rose-colour of her cheeks, and 
 subtly calling attention to the darkness of her hair and 
 eyes. 
 
 She went down the broad stairs and paused for a mo- 
 ment in the door of the drawing-room. He was standing 
 by the mantel opposite, tall, slender, beautiful in his simple
 
 76 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 dark blue garments; the same Jesse she had known before, 
 but magnified by the magic of manhood. The slight beard, 
 allowed to grow naturally, made him seem older than he 
 really was. 
 
 They stood for a second looking at each other; then 
 both put out their hands, and they met in the centre of the 
 room. 
 
 ' I am so glad to see you, Jesse! " 
 
 ' I am so glad to see you, Mary! " 
 
 'When did you come to the city?" 
 
 ' About a week ago." 
 
 ' So long ? And you have not been to see me till to- 
 night!" 
 
 "I have been busy; I know you will pardon me." 
 
 She led the way to a little sofa, and they sat down to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Tell me what you're doing in Vergennes," she said. 
 
 " I'm working for Peter Mack, the builder." 
 
 "Working? At what?" 
 
 "Carpentry; I learned my father's trade." 
 
 " And you are a carpenter ? How strange how strange 
 and interesting! " She looked at him with a curious smile, 
 which he could not have interpreted. 
 
 " Yes, I find it interesting," he answered. " And what 
 are you doing, Mary? " 
 
 "I'm keeping rather quiet this summer. Mother is not 
 well, and we're not having any company. She isn't dan- 
 gerously ill, but too much exhausted to go anywhere, and 
 very nervous. Maybe we will take her to California for 
 the winter, if she is well enough to travel. I wanted to go 
 to Egypt; but our New York doctor, who was here last 
 week, says that California is best for Mother. Father 
 doesn't want to leave the bank this year for such a long 
 time, so Mother and I will go alone, with a nurse, and 
 maybe with a young doctor here whom Mother has taken 
 a fancy to. Were you ever in California ? " 
 
 He smiled. " I've never been anywhere, Mary. But 
 in the fall we are going to leave Nashburgh. My father 
 died in June." 
 
 "Oh, Jesse, I'm so sorry! " There were quick tears in 
 her eyes.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 77 
 
 " We are going to sell the farm and go over the moun- 
 tain," he went on. " I can get work over there, and there's 
 no work in Nashburgh." 
 
 "And you are going to work at carpentry to support 
 your mother and brothers? " 
 
 " Yes. Fred will be able to help me a little, perhaps." 
 
 "Jesse, how great you are!" She looked at him with 
 eyes full of admiration. " How wonderful you are! " 
 
 He was puzzled by her enthusiasm. " Is there anything 
 wonderful in a young man's taking care of his mother? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I suppose not," she replied ; " but all the young men 
 of your age whom I know are a heavy expense to their 
 parents, always getting in debt and writing home for 
 money." 
 
 " Tell me about them," he said. " I like to learn about 
 all kinds of. people." 
 
 She told him stories of several rich young men whom she 
 knew, students at this college and that. From her words 
 he gathered ideas of the lives of these young spendthrifts, 
 as he felt inclined to call them, ideas of their selfishness 
 and general inutility in the great work of noble living. 
 What she said tallied well with much that he had read 
 about the sons of wealthy parents; and in his mind he 
 classed them all together as the selfish rich. He felt no 
 envy of them, only pity, touched with a noble scorn. 
 
 "What are you going to do with your life, Mary? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I hardly know, Jesse; I'm still so young. I've never 
 been sent to school like other girls; but have had gov- 
 ernesses, and tutors, and music-teachers, and teachers of 
 this and that, since I can remember, my lessons constantly 
 interrupted by journeys here and there. I've been allowed 
 to go about in society like a girl of twenty for the last 
 year. No wonder I don't know just where to find myself. 
 But you, Jesse, what are you going to do with your life?" 
 
 He looked at her, leaning forward, and a flame slowly 
 kindled in his mysterious eyes. " I wonder if you would 
 understand," he murmured, half to himself. 
 
 " Yes," she whispered eagerly, " I shall understand any- 
 thing you tell me. You are going to do something great,
 
 78 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 I know. I've always known it. You are different from 
 everybody else in the world. You make me feel Oh, I 
 can't tell what you make me feel whenever I am with 
 you!" 
 
 "Then you believe in me, Mary; you believe . . . 
 But what am I saying? You really know nothing about 
 me, and I can tell you nothing. My time is not yet come. 
 I am only Jesse, the carpenter, to you and to everyone else, 
 until the time comes when I shall find my way up the 
 mountain where the face of the Law shall be revealed to 
 me, the iron face of the Law that is terrible and beautiful, 
 that no man may look upon and live; for when a man looks 
 on it he is outside of and beyond mere personal life. And 
 after that I must make my way up the hill of the world's 
 desire, and through the mansion of the world's revelry and 
 feasting, and find it empty of music and empty of com- 
 panionship. I must do down the broad stairs of the palace 
 of the world's desire, and the scarlet softness which covers 
 the hard stones will cling to my feet and impede my pass- 
 ing, and I shall have to shake it off. And in the garden 
 of the world the careless ones will give no heed to me, and 
 I shall walk there lonely. And I must climb the slippery 
 ladder which is almost impossible to climb, the ladder 
 whose every rung is made of a slain desire, must climb 
 up, and up, from the ground of loneliness to the high place 
 on the other side of the palace of life the side of real 
 and immortal joys. And when I stand at the top of the 
 perilous ladder, and have forgotten myself in the rapture 
 of the vision, then the ones below who were indifferent 
 shall call to me to help them, shall reach to me with 
 love . . . with love." 
 
 He was speaking, half to himself, of the truths revealed 
 to him in the dreams which followed his father's death, 
 things of which he had spoken to no one, but had carried 
 in his heart as too secret and too sacred to share with any 
 other. He was speaking of them to this girl whom he 
 had not seen for years this girl of whom he knew so little, 
 and from whom he was separated by all those artificial bar- 
 riers which make the world of caste and privilege. 
 
 And she? She did not understand with the mind, but 
 she had the deeper understanding of the heart. She gazed
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 79 
 
 at him, speechless in the face of some unknown power which 
 transcended her experience of the sublime and beautiful. 
 
 When a moment later he arose to go, she clung to his 
 hand, asking for a promise that he would come to see her 
 again the following evening. He thanked her and as- 
 sented; then, after a quick good-night, passed out of the 
 great house into the quiet, dimly-lighted street. For an 
 hour or more he walked about under the stars, then turned 
 down the little by-street to the lowly cottage where he was 
 making his temporary home with the family of one of his 
 fellow workmen.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 "Do you care for music? Shall I play for you?" 
 asked Mary the next evening, when Jesse came again to 
 see her. 
 
 " Yes, I believe I love music better than anything else 
 in the world except, possibly, my blue mountains." 
 
 She began to play, and after the first moment Jesse 
 realised that he had never before heard real music. He was 
 in heaven, listening to the voices of immaterial beings; he 
 was face to face with the Ideal, which spoke to his soul 
 in this wordless language which he understood, but could 
 not have translated into the set forms of earthly speech. 
 Dreams and hopes and wistful yearnings after joys he had 
 never known came to him in the music; dim memories of 
 all the ages of the past, prevision of the unaccomplished 
 ages of the future. Hidden somewhere in these moving 
 tones was the answer to every question of his heart; this 
 music was the voice of the one Friend for whom his lone- 
 liness was ever crying. Impalpable intelligences came and 
 mixed their thought with his; bodiless feelings surged 
 against him in the familiar intercourse of sound with 
 hearing. As the last notes died away, his soul reached for 
 them through the air and sighed to let them go. 
 
 He had listened with closed eyes, but now he opened 
 them and saw Mary standing before him. He was so 
 grateful to her for the wonders she had revealed to him, 
 that he had no thought to thank her; it would have seemed 
 like thanking the moon for shining, or a bird for singing. 
 As she stood there, all in white, under the light of the 
 chandelier, she seemed to him like one of those unearthly 
 beings which had spoken to him in the music. He had for- 
 gotten, for the moment, who she was and how she came to 
 be there in his presence. With a start, he forced his con- 
 sciousness back to the limitations of time and place, to a 
 realisation of his surroundings. 
 
 " How marvellous it seems," he said, when he found 
 
 80
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 81 
 
 voice, " how marvellous it is that you can have the power 
 to bring such wonder, such beauty, such superhuman feel- 
 ings, out of yourself your little self which was a child 
 only a short while ago out of yourself! " 
 
 "Oh, but I don't bring the music out of myself, Jesse! " 
 she replied. " I am only an emotional machine with lim- 
 ber ringers, a machine the composer and creator of the 
 music uses to express his soul to yours. That is what my 
 German piano-teacher said ; but he also said that I played 
 well, that I was a good emotional machine, and that my 
 fingers were good hammers." She laughed. " He was such 
 a funny man, Herr Hartmann ! " 
 
 " And he taught you to play like that ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I would like to meet him," said Jesse. 
 
 " He isn't here any more," Mary answered. " Father 
 sent him away." 
 
 " Sent him away! " Jesse echoed, " when he could teach 
 you such things. . . ." 
 
 " Oh ! " Mary blushed. " It was this way," she stam- 
 mered a little, " Herr Hartmann made love to me, and 
 Father was angry." 
 
 " Made love to you? " He was dazed for a moment; it 
 was the first time he had realised that she was now a 
 woman, not the child he used to play with in Nashburgh. 
 So Mary was a young woman now, and men made love to 
 her! Somehow, the idea worried him. 
 
 Just then the door-bell rang, and through the open win- 
 dow came the mingled voices of several young people, laugh- 
 ing and talking. Jesse rose at once to go, and Mary did 
 not try to detain him. But she said, as they went together 
 to the door of the drawing-room: 
 
 "Will you come to see me on Thursday evening?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered. 
 
 In the hall he passed two young men and two young 
 women, preceded by an older woman with grey hair. As 
 he was going out, he heard a voice say: 
 
 " We came early, thinking you might like to go with 
 us to the Boardmans." 
 
 The thought came to him that if these other callers were 
 early, he must have called very early indeed. She had
 
 82 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 asked him to come again on Thursday, and this was Tues- 
 day evening. He wondered what she meant to do on Wed- 
 nesday. Would she play for him again the next time he 
 came? Then, walking alone under the stars, his favourite 
 way of passing an evening, he tried to recall the impression 
 so recently made on him by that entrancing music. But 
 only a vague remembrance of mingled thought and feeling 
 came in answer to his call. So he asked himself, as many 
 others have asked before, if music were not really the lan- 
 guage of the soul, the wordless message to the world from 
 the realms of the Spirit. What a power was there, he 
 thought, for those who knew how to invoke this voice of 
 the Unseen! What possibilities were in this universal 
 language to appeal to the souls of men and women! 
 
 On Thursday evening, when he went again to see Mary 
 in accordance with his promise, she met him in the door 
 of the drawing-room. Her first words were: 
 
 "Will you come up to the library and meet my father? 
 He has been away for a few days or you would have met 
 him before. She seemed to be rather nervous; her manner 
 was less quiet than usual. 
 
 He followed her up-stairs to a large room at the front 
 of the house. He could see through the open door that 
 the walls of the room were lined with books. At the 
 sight his heart beat faster, and his mind, ever responsive 
 to the least stimulus of eye or brain, glowed at the vision 
 of these rows on rows of volumes, the embodied thought 
 and feeling of generations of seekers for intellectual and 
 moral beauty. 
 
 A large man, with iron-grey hair and strong, smooth- 
 shaven face, was standing by a desk in the centre of the 
 room. Jesse acknowledged the introduction to Mary's 
 father with that instinctive courtesy which was the aroma 
 of his soul, the very quintessence of manner which came to 
 him by nature, and which any amount of formal training 
 could not have made more perfect. 
 
 The banker offered Jesse a chair which stood at the 
 right of his desk, while Mary seated herself demurely on 
 the other side of her father. He asked the young man 
 about his work in Vergennes, what kind of an employer
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 83 
 
 he found Peter Mack, how they were getting on with the 
 building, and so forth. 
 
 " My daughter tells me that you are a great reader," he 
 said, after a few minutes' conversation about these other 
 things ; " she says that you have read much more than she 
 has." 
 
 " I am older than she," said Jesse modestly. 
 
 The banker laughed. " I think you are more studious 
 than my pleasure-loving little girl. Are you reading any- 
 thing in particular just now?" 
 
 Jesse mentioned the name of the book he was then 
 studying, a history of Vedic India. 
 
 Now the one great enthusiasm of Herman Magnus was 
 India: the history, the religions, the people of that mys- 
 terious peninsula, whose civilisation was supreme and an- 
 cient when Europe was a waste of barbarism. At Jesse's 
 mention of the subject, the face of his host lighted with in- 
 terest; he leaned forward in his chair, and looked at the 
 young .man with quite another expression than the one of 
 perfunctory and studied politeness which had made his 
 handsome, strongly-chiselled face seem cut from ivory. He 
 began to speak of a journey which he had made through 
 India seven years before, and of a certain Maharajah who 
 had entertained him for a week with royal and incredible 
 magnificence. He told about the temples he had visited, the 
 stories he had heard of holy men, the magical doings of a 
 certain wonder-worker whom he had encountered at Bom- 
 bay. He dilated on the beauties of the Taj-Mahal, and 
 reminded Jesse that this comparatively modern structure, 
 this thing of yesterday as measured by the Indian standard, 
 was older than almost anything in our country. 
 
 He went to one of the great book-cases and brought out 
 a volume of coloured plates, views and details of that 
 marvel of Agra of which he had been speaking. Then, 
 laying this volume on the floor, he brought another, Moor's 
 " Hindu Pantheon," and briefly explained to Jesse cer- 
 tain differences between the Vedic and the modern gods 
 of India. He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a 
 handful of little bronze figures, Buddhas and Shivas; he 
 carefully unrolled the tissue wrappings of a dried natural 
 leaf, which he told Jesse was a leaf of the sacred Bo-tree;
 
 84 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 he showed him a rosary of tulsi-beads which a Krishna 
 yogi had given him in Calcutta. 
 
 Jesse was so absorbed that he could not have told after- 
 ward whether this extraordinary man had been talking to 
 him for fifteen minutes or for two hours. But at last 
 Herman Magnus glanced at his watch. 
 
 " Please excuse me," he said; "but I have been so in- 
 terested that I have made myself late for an important en- 
 gagement. No, do not go away," as Jesse rose also to take 
 his leave ; " stay and talk with Mary for an hour. She has 
 little enough to interest her these days of her mother's ill- 
 ness, poor child ! And I hope you will come to this house 
 whenever it pleases you, so long as you are in our city. If 
 I have any books here which you desire to read, you are 
 welcome to take them, merely giving Mary the titles of 
 those you select, that I may know where they are." 
 
 He shook hands with Jesse warmly, kissed Mary on the 
 cheek, and went away. 
 
 As soon as the street door had closed after him, Mary 
 began to jump about the room like a delighted child of ten. 
 She laughed, she clapped her hands; then, seeing the 
 puzzled look on Jesse's face, she came over to him, laid 
 her two little flowers of hands on his shoulders and looked 
 seriously into his face. 
 
 " My friend," she said, " whatever you may do in future, 
 whatever conquests you may make of people or things, 
 you will never do anything half so extraordinary as what 
 you have done to my father this evening. He is literally 
 charmed with you he who cannot endure any of my young 
 men friends ! " She looked up at him archly, taking away 
 her hands from his shoulders and half turning aside. 
 
 " I've a great mind to tell you something," she said ; 
 "you are so sensible that you will understand. Well, when 
 I told my father how you had been coming to see me in the 
 evening, how we had talked alone together, neither he nor 
 Mother knowing anything about you, he was furious. Oh, 
 he is dreadfully stern, this gentle parent of mine! He 
 demanded that you should be shown to him, as an old King 
 of Babylon, if Babylon had kings, might have demanded 
 your beautiful head, Jesse. I was frightened half to death 
 when you came this evening, and I brought you right up
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 85 
 
 to Father's study." She drew a deep sigh of relief, that 
 ended with a laugh. " Father didn't understand how any- 
 body of your profession, or trade, or whatever it's called, 
 could be so colossally my superior as he now realises that 
 you are. He will be quoting you to me now as an example, 
 whenever I'm idle or stupid. Oh, Jesse, how very wonder- 
 ful you are!" Her face softened, all the merriment went 
 out of it, and a wistful something he could not have named 
 passed like a shadow into her dark eyes. 
 
 " Do you want to make me very happy? " he asked, half 
 hesitating to express his dearest wish. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Play for me again, as you did the other night. It is 
 ecstasy for me." 
 
 They went down to the drawing-room, and she played 
 more wonderfully than before, haunting music full of in- 
 effable desires and melancholy. 
 
 When the time came for Jesse to go home, Mary de- 
 tained him for a few minutes by the reminder that he was 
 to choose a book or two from her father's library. Of 
 course, after the talk on India, he chose a volume about that 
 country of strange ways and strange religions. Embodied in 
 this volume was a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, that 
 deathless little Indian classic, which has been to generation 
 after generation of high souls as a finger pointing the way 
 to a path too steep and perilous to be trodden by any feet 
 save those of the immortals. 
 
 And he chose also another little book of ancient time, 
 the Tao-te-King of Lao-tsze, old philosopher of China, 
 whose half-veiled words have influenced those whose un- 
 veiled words have influenced the ages. 
 
 Far into the night and every night he read these mys- 
 tic books; he even gave up walking under the stars; and all 
 day long when busy about his work he thought of them. 
 His subtle poet's mind went deep into their mysteries. At 
 last the boy stood face to face with those whom he felt to 
 be his spiritual brothers; and though the centuries divided 
 them, yet were they of one family, true sons of the all- 
 seeing Father. 
 
 At first his fellow workmen were inclined to chaff him 
 on his abstraction; but as he did his work better than they
 
 86 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 did theirs, and was always ready with a gentle word and a 
 smile, they began to respect him and even to silence their 
 own chatter that he might have peace for his thoughts, 
 which, as they somehow perceived, were too high for their 
 dull comprehension. His natural reticence grew deeper 
 day by day. There was no one about him to whom he 
 might speak his thoughts; even his mother, had she been 
 with him now instead of miles away, would not have un- 
 derstood him any longer. Another door had been opened 
 for him into the celestial mansion; but he could not take 
 his loved ones with him, for the place while warm enough 
 for him whose body and soul were burning with the un- 
 quenchable inner flame would have been too high and 
 cold for their cold natures, a place too far from the domes- 
 tic hearth-fire where they were wont to warm themselves. 
 At times he felt almost too much alone, and he would en- 
 courage his fellow workmen to talk to him about their small 
 affairs, merely that he might feel closer to them. The 
 time was to come when his inner fire would be hot enough 
 to warm himself and every other being who came near 
 him; but that time was not yet. At this period of his life 
 he was still only a boy, and he sometimes suffered from 
 spiritual growing-pains. 
 
 One night he sat reading his two ancient books. He 
 was now sufficiently familiar with them to turn from one 
 to the other, seeking in the old philosopher of China the 
 answer to some question awakened in his mind by the sage 
 of India, going to the latter for the parallel of some 
 illuminating paradox which in the former had startled him 
 to his feet. He had come to feel the underlying unity in 
 all philosophies; had come to feel that Truth is a gem with 
 many faces, and that from the one white jewel may sparkle 
 myriad-tinted lights. 
 
 In the book of the wise one of China he read : " By 
 non-action there is nothing that may not be done." " There 
 is a purity and quietude by which one may rule the world." 
 "To act and expect not. . . . This is called sublime 
 virtue." 
 
 In the book of the wise one of India he read, as being 
 the words of the god: " Perform thou that which thou 
 hast to do, at all times unmindful of the event; for the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 87 
 
 man who doeth that which he hath to do, without attach- 
 ment to result, obtaineth the Supreme. . . . There is 
 nothing in the three regions of the universe which it is 
 necessary for me to perform, nor anything possible to obtain 
 which I have not obtained, and yet I am constantly in 
 action." 
 
 In the one book he read : " The name which can be 
 named is not the Eternal Name." In the other he read: 
 "I am the Ego that is seated in the hearts of all beings; 
 I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all existing 
 things. . . . But what, O Arjuna, hast thou to do 
 with* so much knowledge as this? I established this whole 
 universe with a single portion of myself, and remain sepa- 
 rate." 
 
 Again, in the first he found : " The sage wears a coarse 
 garment and hides his jewel in his bosom." And in the 
 other, these were the words of the god : " Among the wise 
 of secret knowledge I am their silence." 
 
 He closed his books and sat a long time in meditation on 
 the mystery of mortal life, the never-answered questions of 
 the before and after. He had seen little of the world, as 
 yet; but that little had been enough to show him that all 
 beings ever swing like pendulums between the opposites of 
 pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, good and 
 evil, desire and disappointment. They come into the world 
 in pain, where for a little time they laugh in the sunshine 
 and weep in the shadow, and then they die in pain, and the 
 grave receives them, to make room for others, who in their 
 turn are born in pain, who laugh and weep awhile, who die 
 in pain, and the grave receives them, to make room again 
 for others. And so on and on, from everlasting unto ever- 
 lasting. Why? Whence? Whither? 
 
 And then and there he vowed himself anew to the great 
 quest. Somewhere, surely, among the mountains of life 
 was the well of understanding. Surely he should find it 
 if he sought without ceasing; and, having found, he would 
 give all the world to drink of the well, and they would 
 follow him and love him for ever. He remembered the 
 words of the old philosopher of China: " If, for the 
 sake of dignity, one seek to make himself ruler of the 
 world, he may be permitted to rule it temporarily; but if
 
 88 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 for love, one seek to make himself ruler of the world, 
 he may be entrusted with it for ever." 
 
 With heaving bosom and eyes suffused with tears, he 
 threw himself face downward on the floor of his narrow 
 room and prayed: 
 
 " Power of the Universe, Thou who art the source, 
 the restless stream, the endless ocean of existence, reveal 
 to me the secret of Thy being. Thou who art One and 
 everlasting, whose purpose is the tendency of all our pur- 
 poses, make known to me mere drop among Thy myriad 
 drops the meaning of myself."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FOR more than a week Jesse had not thought of Mary 
 Magnus, so absorbed was he in the books which her father 
 had lent him; but one day he saw her driving by in her 
 little pony phaeton, and promised himself that he would go 
 that very night to call on her again. He had not meant 
 to stay away so long; but the nights were all too short 
 for his reading and meditation, and from seven in the morn- 
 ing until six in the evening he hammered and sawed and 
 planed for Peter Mack, the builder. 
 
 It was a lovely August night, warm and softly scented. 
 The full moon was just rising over the mountain as he 
 went down the street to Mary's house. At the door he 
 called for both the father and the daughter; but the maid 
 said : 
 
 " Mr. Magnus is away from home ; Miss Mary is in 
 the garden. Will you go out there?" 
 
 He found her sitting in a hammock hung between two 
 drooping maple-trees, idly swinging herself with one red- 
 slippered foot. Her face, uplifted to the rising moon, was 
 wistful and rather sad; but when she caught sight of him 
 a light came into her eyes which was not borrowed from 
 the moon, and as she rose and gave him her hand, it seemed 
 to him that she was all a-tremble. 
 
 " You have been a long time away," she said. 
 
 " Yes, I have been reading your father's books. See, I 
 have brought them back." 
 
 " My father is in Boston to-night. He said that I 
 might give you the books." 
 
 She felt the tremour of gladness in his voice as he 
 thanked her. 
 
 " Have the books meant so much to you? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, very much ! I find myself in them in both of 
 them. I do not find myself in many modern books." 
 
 She motioned him to a seat beside her in the wide 
 hammock. 
 
 89
 
 go THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I think you love my father's books better than me," 
 she said. 
 
 He turned to her in distress and self-reproach. 
 
 " I have been neglectful of your friendship, Mary. Will 
 you forgive me ? " 
 
 " What else can I do but forgive you ? " 
 
 " I did not know that you would really miss me. If 
 I had known " 
 
 " You did not know ! " 
 
 " Believe me, I did not." 
 
 " I think your heart is rather cold, dear Jesse, for all 
 your gentleness." 
 
 But when she looked at him she saw that his eyes were 
 full of tears. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean that! " she cried, breathlessly. " In- 
 deed, I didn't, Jesse." She caught his long cool hand in 
 both her hot little hands. " Don't mind what I said, dear 
 friend. I think the moon has turned my brain to-night." 
 
 " But you did mean it, Mary. Have I really failed in 
 friendship? No one ever told me that before." 
 
 " No, no, a thousand times, no. I am foolish ; it is 
 nothing, indeed, it is nothing." She was wiping her eyes 
 on her wisp of a handkerchief before he realised that she 
 was crying. 
 
 Then his great tenderness overcame him, his great pity 
 for every hurt thing under heaven. He took her quivering 
 hand between his quiet palms and looked her deep in the 
 eyes. In the one long look she gave him in return she told 
 him everything without a word. He understood that Mary 
 the woman loved him the man loved him! The shock of 
 the revelation made his face turn white. Something at 
 last which she saw in his eyes made her drop her own and 
 cover her bowed face with her hands. Gently he laid his 
 hand on her dark curls. 
 
 " Why do you hide your face from me, Mary? " 
 
 " Because I am ashamed." 
 
 " Why are you ashamed that I should know " he 
 
 hesitated. 
 
 " Say it, Jesse." 
 
 He was silent. She raised her head and looked atjiim 
 again.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 91 
 
 " No, you dare not say it ; but I dare. It is something 
 I have never said to any man, though many have said it to 
 me. Yes, I love you, Jesse. I have loved you since that 
 day, nine years ago, when you came late to school and 
 stood in the doorway with the morning sunlight making a 
 halo around your head. I shall love you till I die." 
 
 He opened his lips then closed them, knowing not what 
 to say. 
 
 " You are so different from all other men, Jesse. I 
 could not speak like this to any other man; but I'm not 
 afraid in the least to let you know everything, everything! 
 At first I was afraid that you would know, but now 
 now Jesse! " 
 
 "Yes, Mary." 
 
 " Do you love me a little, just a little? " 
 
 He drew a long deep breath, that seemed to catch in his 
 breast and choke him. Then he said: 
 
 " Mary, little Mary, I think that no one else in the 
 whole world will ever love you as much as I do; but " 
 
 She held her breath while he hesitated for his words. 
 
 " But," he went on, " you will never be satisfied with 
 the kind of love I give you, no matter how great the 
 quantity. I would suffer for a week to save you a mo- 
 ment's pain; but I cannot give you the love which belongs 
 to you. I cannot, Mary, I cannot! It is only when a 
 man is willing to be nothing that he becomes as great as 
 anything and everything. It is only the man who can live 
 without love who shall show the world a better way of 
 loving. It is not till you have found the One, that the 
 many can find you." 
 
 " Jesse, I do not understand." 
 
 " Listen, then. I can never love any woman as she 
 wishes to be loved; yet I shall love every woman in the 
 world better than any other human being loves her. No, 
 do not turn your face away. You must try to understand 
 me. He who would think for others must cease, for a 
 time, to think of others. He who would love the whole 
 world must not love any individual too exclusively" 
 
 " What are you going to do, Jesse ? What is your 
 life going to be ? " 
 
 He went on, as if he had not heard her question:
 
 92 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " The desires of self are not confined to the body, nor 
 even to the mind; they knock at the doors of the soul also. 
 Would you accept the bliss of paradise for self, and leave 
 the suffering world unaided ? " 
 
 "I don't know, Jesse. But what of you? Must you 
 live your life all alone? " 
 
 " He who is willing to stand alone has the gods and the 
 ages for company. Only through isolation does the soul 
 reach union." 
 
 "You seem so far away, Jesse, when you speak like 
 that." 
 
 He turned again to her, and spoke in his usual manner. 
 " You say you love me, Mary. That is my real self, which 
 I have just been showing you. Do you love that? " 
 
 *' Yes, even that because it is you. But I don't un- 
 derstand." 
 
 They were both silent for a time; then she said, slowly, 
 and as if every word hurt her: 
 
 " I think, Jesse, that you have broken my heart." 
 
 " Don't say so, Mary, please don't! I never dreamed 
 that I could cause you pain. Why, you have been so kind 
 to me, and your father " 
 
 " My father gave you the books which kept you ten 
 days away from me ! " 
 
 It was true, and he made no answer. 
 
 Again she was silent for a moment, then her manner 
 changed. A touch of wildness, of recklessness, came over 
 her. She laughed, and her laughter hurt him more than 
 her tears. 
 
 " And what shall I do with my life? " she said. " You 
 have broken my heart. Do you know what that means? 
 Oh, I would have done anything for you everything! 
 My father adores me and would have made any sacrifice 
 to give me happiness, after he had stormed awhile. I 
 could have brought you the world, Jesse. We are rich, 
 rich, rich! In this little town we don't spend the interest 
 on our income. Do you know enough of life to realise 
 what that means? My father could buy Peter Mack, 
 your employer, as he would buy a bunch of bananas. I 
 saw you there this afternoon, as I drove by, bruising your 
 beautiful hands in the service of that vulgarian. You are
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 93 
 
 so great, my Jesse! I have heard people speak of the dig- 
 nity of labour; you are the dignity of labour. You are so 
 superior to everybody that you could go in your working- 
 clothes into the presence of a king, and he would never 
 know that you were not dressed in purple and fine linen. 
 And I loved you ! " 
 
 Her voice sank to a low cry at the last words. Then 
 she laughed again, and a shiver of pain passed over him. 
 
 "What shall I do with my life?" she repeated. "I 
 cannot live like all these stupid, stolid women. Can I 
 marry some heavy blockhead and bear him babies, spend- 
 ing my time between nurseries and tea-parties, church- 
 fairs and dressmakers, Paris and Vergennes? Oh, I shall 
 go to the devil, Jesse, I know I shall! For you I could 
 have been anything, a saint, a housewife, whatever you 
 wanted me to be. But now? Oh, the world is wide and 
 the world is gay, and I have money, and beauty, and wit, 
 and somewhere I shall find forgetfulness. There is wine 
 and song and a world of men, such as they are." 
 
 " Mary, you are breaking my heart." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Have you a heart?" 
 
 He rose, white and quivering with pain. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mary." 
 
 She clutched his hands, all the mockery of her last words 
 giving way to terrible tears and sobs that tore his heart 
 to hear. 
 
 " Don't leave me, Jesse ! Don't go away like that ! For- 
 give me, for .1 am insane out of my mind, and I don't 
 know what I'm saying. I suffer so, I suffer so! " 
 
 He sat down again beside her, and she bowed her head 
 upon his knees and sobbed there. Once, years before, his 
 mother had cried her heart out on his breast; but her cry- 
 ing was not like this of Mary's, it had not hurt him so. 
 He looked out over the purple whispering trees, stirred 
 by the night wind. How tremulously alive the world was 
 how responsive to happiness and pain! The breeze upon 
 his face was soft as Mary's hair. He lightly touched one 
 loose dark lock which lay across his arm. 
 
 " Oh, Mary, little Mary! Do not weep so. Your 
 tears are drops of blood upon my soul."
 
 94 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Her sobbing ceased, and she lay quite still. 
 
 Somewhere off in the darkness a cricket was calling 
 ceaselessly, insistently. There seemed to be no other sound. 
 In the expectant hush, something opened like a window 
 in his consciousness, and he perceived with startling vivid- 
 ness a new and hitherto undreamed-of world, lying just 
 outside the small but intense sphere wherein he had lived 
 alone for eighteen years. The perception was not joy, it 
 was not suffering, but something too still to be either suf- 
 fering or joy; it seemed as if he saw into the rarefied 
 crystalline atmosphere surrounding the soul of the world. 
 In that moment of clear sight he had forgotten where he 
 was; but a long sigh from Mary brought him back to the 
 groping earth. 
 
 " What shall I say to you, little sister? You have given 
 me a pearl, a wonderful pearl, and " 
 
 " And you don't want it, Jesse. So, as I can't give it 
 to anyone else, I'll crush it, grind it to powder. No, I 
 cannot give it to anyone else, my pearl; but I have other 
 jewels rubies red as my blood, topazes yellow as the 
 eyes of my cat, sapphires blue as your eyes, Jesse, and 
 opals full of fire and moonlight, tears and evil. Oh! I 
 will lavish all the vari-coloured jewels of my heart and 
 soul on others, on anybody, everybody; for I have crushed 
 my one white pearl, and nothing else has any value for 
 me." 
 
 "When you talk like that, you make me afraid." 
 
 "Afraid, Jesse?" 
 
 "Afraid for you, Mary." 
 
 " Oh, do not trouble about me ! " 
 
 He looked far out over the purple trees. " I am going 
 home the day after to-morrow," he said. 
 
 " The sooner the better, Jesse." 
 
 "Why, Mary!" 
 
 " Yes, the sooner the better, my friend. I shall find it 
 easier to live when you are gone." 
 
 " You hate me so ? " 
 
 " Hate you? I could never hate you; but when you 
 are here, I hate everything else." 
 
 " Do you want me to leave you now?" 
 
 "Yes. I would like to be alone for a little while."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 95 
 
 He arose and stood before her, tall and dark against the 
 moonlight. There was a brief silence, then she said: 
 
 "Jesse, when my little brother died, before they covered 
 his face I kissed him. It is a fearfully beautiful thing to 
 kiss the dead. I think I wish to kiss you before you are 
 covered out of sight for ever." 
 
 She arose from the hammock, and he bent toward her. 
 Taking his face between her now cold hands, she looked 
 a long time into his eyes. But she did not kiss him. 
 
 " No, you are not dead, Jesse ; but vividly, terribly 
 alive. Good-bye." 
 
 She withdrew her hands from his face. Then, without 
 a word, he turned and went away. 
 
 An hour later the young workman with whom Jesse 
 lived, coming through his little orchard on the way home, 
 saw a motionless figure lying on the grass, long and slen- 
 der, its arms extended straight out in the form of a cross. 
 Coming nearer he saw that it was Jesse. 
 
 "Why, man," he said, "what are you doing here? " 
 
 Jesse opened his eyes and gazed at his friend, and in the 
 moonlight his face was like that of a spirit. 
 
 " I am trying to remember something," was all he said. 
 And the man went away and left him there.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Two days later, when Jesse stepped off the train at the 
 Nashburgh station, he felt a hand clutching his arm. Turn- 
 ing, he looked into the drawn face of Marty White. 
 
 "Jesse, are you my true friend?" the boy asked, in a 
 hoarse whisper. 
 
 "Yes. What is the matter?" 
 
 " I'll tell you as we're going down the creek road, where 
 nobody can hear. It's something awful, Jesse." 
 
 They passed the few scattered houses beyond the station, 
 and crossing the old wooden bridge, turned north along 
 the river. Jesse did not say a word, but waited for Marty 
 to speak. After a few rods, he heard the boy sobbing. 
 Then he put his strong arm around the bent shoulders of 
 his friend. 
 
 " What is it, Marty ? Is your mother dead ? " 
 
 " No, no ; but I wish she was, before she finds out what 
 I've done. I wish I was dead, too." 
 
 " Tell me all about it." 
 
 " Oh, you'll turn against me, maybe! I wouldn't blame 
 you if you should; but, somehow, I know you won't, Jesse, 
 will you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Not when I tell you I'm a thief? " 
 
 Jesse tightened his arm around Marty's shoulder. " If 
 that is true," he said, " it seems to me that you need my 
 friendship more than ever." 
 
 " God knows I do ! Oh, how could I ever have done it ! 
 How could I ever have done it ! " 
 
 " Temptation," Jesse said. 
 
 " Temptation ? Oh, you don't know what temptation 
 is, Jesse ! " 
 
 " Perhaps I do." 
 
 " I stole one of Olin Madison's cows," Marty confessed, 
 " and I drove her in the night to Wheelerville and sold 
 
 96
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 97 
 
 her for twenty dollars to the fellow from New Hampshire 
 that's leased the Croly farm." 
 
 Jesse drew a long breath. "When was that? " he asked. 
 
 " Night before last." 
 
 " Night before last . . . Does Olin Madison 
 know?" 
 
 " He'd have me arrested if he knew. He's notified the 
 constable, and they're looking everywhere. They'll find 
 out the truth, Jesse, I'm afraid; because, as I was coming 
 out of the village after selling the cow, I met Thomas 
 Taylor driving in, and " 
 
 Jesse cut him off: "Have you spent the money?" 
 
 " Of course. Do you think I'd have stolen if it hadn't 
 been a matter of life and death ? " 
 
 Jesse made no answer, and the two walked on in silence 
 for half a mile. When they came to the gate of Marty's 
 neglected dooryard, Jesse said: 
 
 " Go to Wheelerville to-morrow, buy back that cow 
 here's twenty-five dollars, and turn her loose in Olin's pas- 
 ture to-morrow night. If Olin were like some men, I 
 would advise you to go to him, tell the truth, and pay for 
 the cow; but you could never make him understand. And, 
 then, he would tell everybody. Open confession may be 
 good for the soul everywhere; but open confession is not 
 good for the reputation in Nashburgh. If you return 
 the cow, he will only lose the value of a few pails of milk; 
 and I'll see that he gets that back at the auction of our 
 farm-things in the fall. . . . No, don't thank me, 
 Marty." 
 
 " I can't," said the boy, " for my heart's too full. We 
 don't thank folks for saving our lives, we just love them. 
 I'd have killed myself, I know I would, if I had been 
 found out and sent to jail. But, Jesse, aren't you afraid 
 to trust me with this twenty-five dollars? Aren't you 
 afraid I'll " 
 
 Jesse bent quickly and kissed the boy's rough cheek. 
 
 Marty clung to him a moment, while the tears rolled 
 down his face. " Oh, Jesse, you aren't just human; you're 
 something more. I'll be your dog for this." 
 
 " Be my friend instead. You had better start early in 
 the morning for Wheelerville. Remember that you have
 
 98 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 an errand for me with Brown the carpenter, on the other 
 side of the village. Ask him if there's any building going 
 on over there. Good-night." 
 
 Jesse was not easy in his mind. He had chosen what 
 seemed to him the least of the many evils growing out of 
 Marty's theft; yet he felt that, somehow, he had done 
 wrong in trying to do right. He began to realise that the 
 line dividing right and wrong was not so sharply defined as 
 he had been led to suppose; began to realise the complexity 
 of the human problem. And what if Marty should be 
 found out, after all? Men offering cows for sale do not 
 spring out of the ground; men offering to buy back to-day 
 at an advance the thing they sold two days before, excite 
 curiosity if not suspicion. 
 
 Jesse knew that he should have won Marty's consent 
 to his going to Olin Madison, telling the truth and offering 
 to pay for the cow. In all his life before he had never 
 had to keep an incriminating secret. His own words to 
 Marty came back to mock at him : " Open confession is 
 not good for the reputation in Nashburgh." Oh, to re- 
 call that heedless speech! 
 
 That night he laid down a rule for himself which he was 
 able to live by all his life: "Guard your speech within 
 your mouth as a sword within the scabbard, and only draw 
 it forth when certain of your purpose." Jesse thought out 
 many puzzling things before he went to sleep that night. 
 
 " He who deviates from the straight path learns, at least, 
 that the path is straight," he wrote down in his note-book 
 the next day. 
 
 On the second morning Jesse found Marty waiting for 
 him on the door-step when he came out, a little after sun- 
 rise. 
 
 " It's all right," the boy said, in a low tone. " I put the 
 cow back in the pasture this morning before daylight. I 
 told the man my mother felt so bad about my selling her 
 pet cow that I wanted .to buy her back again. He dickered 
 awhile, and finally gave her to me for twenty-two. Here's 
 the three dollars change. And the carpenter says there 
 isn't any building going on over there now; but if there 
 should be any, he will let you know. I told the other man 
 my name was Reed, and that I came from Bartown. He's
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 99 
 
 a stranger in these parts, so he won't remember; but I'll 
 fight shy of Wheelerville from now on to the day of 
 judgment." 
 
 " That's a very wise idea," Jesse assented. 
 
 After Marty went away Jesse sat down on the well-curb, 
 in the fresh morning air. The story of the grief of the 
 fictitious mother of the fictitious Reed from Bartown over 
 the sale of the family cow, made his eyes twinkle. " Trag- 
 edy and comedy," he murmured to himself, "truly they 
 are the right and left sides of the mirror of human life." 
 
 That afternoon he went down to see Olin Madison 
 about some trifling matter in relation to the Bethel es- 
 tate, and heard from the farmer a highly-coloured account 
 of the theft and final restitution of the cow. 
 
 " Sure's you're born," said Olin, ending his narrative, 
 " when I went out to the pasture before breakfast, there 
 stood old Betsy a-looking over the bars, lashing her tail at 
 a fly, as unconcerned and smiling-like as if I hadn't been 
 scouring the neighbourhood after her for days. I dunno's 
 I ever wished before that animals could talk; but if that 
 old cow of mine could tell the story of her adventures for 
 the last three days and nights, 'twould make the history of 
 old Ethan Allen look like a dish o' soap-grease. All yes- 
 terday and the day before I was so darned mad I went 
 around cussing up hill and down dale, till my wife said 
 she'd go away on a visit if I didn't shut up. But when 
 I saw old Betsy standing there this morning, a-lashing 
 her tail at the flies, I was so took back I broke my 
 galluses. 
 
 " Do you know," he went on, " I've been thinking it all 
 over, and I don't believe anybody stole that cow. I be- 
 lieve 'twas all a put-up game of some of them station fel- 
 lows, just to pay me back for putting water in their cider 
 barrel the day of the circus. Gosh! but they got the laugh 
 around on me all right, if 'twas them; got the laugh on me 
 and the constable that threatened to arrest them all at the 
 circus for rowdying around the cider barrel. I'll bet I 
 won't hear the last of stolen cows till all my unborn grand- 
 children have cut their wisdom-teeth. It'll be like Thomas 
 Taylor's cup of cold water, which you handed out to him 
 at the milk meeting when you were a little fellow."
 
 ioo THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Jesse walked slowly home along the yellowing September 
 road. He had saved his friend from disgrace, and yet he 
 felt that he had done his friend an injury. He who had 
 apparently separated the cause from the effect for a friend's 
 sake, now owed that friend the true teaching: That cause 
 and effect can never really be separated; and that he who 
 seeks to remedy one evil by the commission of another, 
 will eventually have to reckon with the full results of 
 both. 
 
 A line from the Bible kept running through his mind: 
 " And the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." 
 Could it be that the stars in their courses fought for the 
 triumph of all his purposes? Or was it only the potency 
 of his will which moved the minds of others in some mys- 
 terious way? He had wished to save Marty White from 
 punishment for his theft, and now the very man from 
 whom the poor boy dreaded punishment declared the whole 
 affair a practical joke by some unknown but amiable rascal. 
 And Jesse's mother had not asked him why he brought 
 home so little money from Vergennes. 
 
 When, in the fulness of time, he should attempt the 
 great but still vague and unoutlined project of his life, 
 would all his difficulties melt away like this? Would 
 he be able to achieve so easily the vast, undreamed-of 
 things? Then a sadness came over him, and his eyes filled 
 with tears. Somehow, his lovely visions of the future were 
 often clouded; but often again they shone with diamond 
 clearness, filling his soul with such wild joy that he longed 
 to cry out to a listening universe the message which he him- 
 self yet only half understood. 
 
 About midway between his home and Olin Madison's, 
 on a knoll beside the road, stood two brother trees, an oak 
 and a maple; their spreading branches intertwining made 
 one continuous shade. Since childhood Jesse had loved to 
 sit on the ground between these trees, drawing into his be- 
 ing their mingled influences. It seemed to him that the 
 maple-tree was like the softness of his nature, the oak-tree 
 like his austerity. 
 
 Walking home that afternoon from Olin Madison's he 
 stopped at the two trees, and, sitting down between them, 
 looked dreamily out across the many-tinted marshes toward 

 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 101 
 
 the red, descending sun. How many centuries, how many 
 centuries of centuries, had the sun gone down in splendour 
 or in cloud behind the mountains of the world? How 
 many men, how many races of men, had gazed like him at 
 that stupendous orb since human life began? No wonder 
 that in former ages they had worshipped the sun as God; 
 no wonder that his progeny of planets, including our green 
 earth, should yearn to him as father, source, sustainer. All 
 this he was to the body, this vast, material sun; but hidden 
 behind the veil of his unendurable glory, as sight is hid- 
 den in the eye, was the ^material source and father and 
 sustainer, the essential, immanent One. 
 
 Then suddenly it came to him that not only was he the 
 offspring of that inconceivable One, but that he was that 
 One, he, now known as Jesse Bethel; and, being the One, 
 he was immortal and indomitable, had always been and 
 always would be. This, then, was the elusive mystery 
 which had beckoned him for years beyond the outposts of 
 thought: how the One, to realise Itself, becomes the many; 
 how every atom of that multitudinous many is essentially 
 the One, containing all Its powers. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, and stretching out his arms to the 
 universe, shouted aloud with joy and consciousness of 
 power: "I myself am God!" 
 
 He beheld a light unseen before upon the surface of all 
 things; he felt a power unknown before in the inmost deeps 
 of himself, in the deeps of everything. And in the exalta- 
 tion of the hour it seemed to him that his body was free 
 as air, that his thought was limitless, that his rapture filled 
 all space, that his love went out like light in all directions. 
 No wonder the earth was beautiful to him with more 
 than earthly beauty, for did he not see it with the eyes 
 of its Maker? No wonder his will could bring seemingly 
 impossible things to pass, when he was God. No wonder 
 his body seemed light and free as ether, for was it not the 
 vehicle of the immortal Wanderer? No wonder his 
 thought knew no limit, when He who was himself was the 
 untrammelled Thinker. No wonder his rapture filled all 
 space to running over, for was not space so vast because no 
 smaller compass could contain the vastness of God's joy? 
 No wonder his love went out like light in every direction,
 
 102 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 for was not God's love the omnipresent flame, the very 
 source of light? 
 
 All the rest of the short way home he kept repeating, 
 " I myself am God. ... I myself am God. . . ." 
 
 When still a few rods from the house, he saw his 
 brothers standing in the dooryard. If he should tell them 
 what he had discovered, what answer would they make? 
 When he came up to them, they mentioned the price which 
 the travelling chicken-dealer had just offered for their 
 flock. This did not seem to be the time to tell thern the 
 great secret. 
 
 He went into the kitchen to find his mother. She was 
 darning a stocking by the window, and looked up to re- 
 mind him that they had waited supper for him more than 
 half an hour; that the wood-fire had gone out, and the tea 
 was almost cold. Perhaps he could tell her to-morrow 
 . . . certainly not to-night. 
 
 But on the following day the threshers came; and the 
 noisy trampling of the horses in the treadmill, with his 
 mother's anxiety as to the amount of oats which they 
 would have to sell, made such a confidence impossible. On 
 the second day the administrator of his father's estate, Olin 
 Madison, came to discuss with them many details of the 
 approaching auction. And all of the third day a multiplic- 
 ity of small material cares absorbed his mother's mind. So 
 Jesse kept his secret, unshared with anyone; and he was 
 destined so to keep it for many a long year.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IT was arranged that Jesse should precede his family 
 over the mountain to Myra, and find a little house for 
 them, so that the mother would not be obliged to leave her 
 old home in any racking uncertainty as to what awaited 
 her at the end of the journey. After Jesse was gone they 
 would sell everything at auction, except their household 
 furniture and one cow; and when he should send them 
 word to come, they would follow him into the future. 
 
 It was a perfect morning in late September when he 
 bade good-bye to the home of his childhood. While his 
 brother Henry was harnessing old Topsy to take him to 
 Wheelerville, Jesse went into the orchard north of the 
 house and walked about alone among the trees. Every 
 spot was sacred with some memory. Under the old sweet 
 apple-tree he had read many a wise and wonderful book; 
 behind the trellis of the grape-vines he had hidden himself 
 to weep on the day when his father bluntly told him that 
 the story of Jacob's ladder was no more true than the 
 story of Jack and the Beanstalk; in the cornfield, on the 
 other side of the fence, he had searched for brownies all 
 alone in the grey dawnlight, while his brothers slept ; down 
 the old stone outside-steps into the cool summer-cellar he 
 had gone on many a scorching afternoon, to dream of an- 
 cient catacombs and to enjoy the damp, delicious dread of 
 the shadow-haunted underground. 
 
 All these dear and intimate things would nevermore be 
 anything but memories. Even should he return in future 
 years, should he revisit the old scenes, they would not be 
 the same; the transforming hands of strangers would give 
 the place a new, an alien look; maybe they would paint 
 the weather-beaten, blue-grey, nature-tinted clapboards of 
 the old house, overlaying the rough beauty of age with the 
 slick surface of modern ochre or white-lead. 
 
 He went into the kitchen to say good-bye to his mother. 
 
 103
 
 104 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 She was packing a substantial luncheon for him, and turned 
 from tying the package to take him in her arms. Choking 
 back the tears, she gave him motherly admonitions about 
 his health, and made him promise to write to her as soon 
 as he arrived in Myra. 
 
 " All ready now ! " called Henry from the dooryard. 
 
 After a long kiss for his mother and a hearty handshake 
 for Fred, Jesse sprang into the buggy. 
 
 " G'wan ! " said Henry to old Topsy, who started leis- 
 urely down the hill, and Jesse Bethel's boyhood receded 
 into the past. 
 
 At nine o'clock that morning his brother bade him good- 
 bye at Wheelerville, the village at the foot of the moun- 
 tain. With a knapsack on his back and in his heart the 
 joy of the unknown, Jesse turned his face toward the east- 
 ern sun. There was a stage-route from Wheelerville to 
 Myra, fifteen miles over old Thunder Mountain; but Jesse 
 chose to travel this mystic road in solitude, going as a 
 pilgrim on foot, with freedom to muse or worship by the 
 wayside as he should be impelled. 
 
 The crisp autumnal air gave wings to his spirit. He 
 fancied that the scent of pine and hemlock was the incense 
 rising from the censers of an invisible priesthood whose 
 temple was this mountain of mysterious visions; that the 
 sound of the mountain river, which shrilly whispered from 
 the bottom of the gorge a hundred feet below the road, 
 was the ceaseless inarticulate ritual of adoration offered by 
 rainbow-robed communicants to the god of woods and 
 waters. Instinctively he knew that this day's journey 
 meant more to him than a mere change of physical environ- 
 ment. A subtle but mighty power was expanding within 
 him, raising his body to a new stature, his mind to a higher 
 potency. He was no longer the boy Jesse, of Nashburgh, 
 following uncertainly in the footsteps of his elders; in a 
 day he seemed to have become a man, seemed to be mark- 
 ing out already a path for himself of his own choosing, a 
 different and more difficult and straighter path than any 
 trodden by the downward-gazing souls he knew. 
 
 Somewhere in the great world there must be those who 
 gazed up instead of down, those who questioned the sky 
 for other meanings than weather-omens for their crops. In
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 105 
 
 all his short life, until recently in Vergennes, he had never 
 known anyone except his mother for whom the value of 
 a dream in the life-scales weighed more than an acre of 
 land. The solemn-faced ministers of his mother's denom- 
 ination spoke the language of the spiritual life; but they 
 spoke it as the boys at the Nashburgh schoolhouse used to 
 recite the passages from Julius Caesar in the Fifth Reader 
 on recitation days, with more lung-power than understand- 
 ing. It swept over him suddenly, walking the silent moun- 
 tain road, how utterly alone in the world he was. 
 
 About half-way up the side of old Thunder Mountain 
 there is a spring of never-failing water. On the hottest 
 day in summer it gushes cool and keen from the mossy 
 rocks beside the road; on the coldest day in winter it 
 trickles under the ice. Nearing the spring, Jesse was sur- 
 prised to see a man leaning over it, drinking from the hol- 
 low of his hand. Suddenly the man stood up, and his 
 tall, gaunt figure, clad in grey, scanty garments of strange 
 cut, was outlined vividly against the background of pine- 
 trees. His black hair came to his shoulders. At the sound 
 of Jesse's footsteps he turned, as if to disappear among the 
 trees; but something in the young man's face held him. 
 
 " May I drink of your spring?" Jesse asked. 
 
 " It is not my spring. It is free to everyone." 
 
 " All the more yours for that reason," was Jesse's smiling 
 answer. 
 
 " If you have learned that, then indeed are you 
 wiser than most men," the stranger said, with stern, un- 
 smiling lips. He seemed to be in the middle twenties, 
 though his thin face was marked by deep lines, and his eyes 
 blazed with the fire of the fanatic. 
 
 " Your home is in these mountains ? " Jesse asked, as 
 he held his cup under the running water. 
 
 " I have no home, nor do I know the need of one." 
 
 " Maybe the world is your home." 
 
 "The world is a jungle of wild beasts; my second dear- 
 est wish is to escape from it." 
 
 " And your first dearest wish ? " 
 
 "Shall I tell that to a stranger?" 
 
 " Pardon me," said Jesse, gently. 
 
 The man looked over the tops of the trees. " You speak
 
 io6 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the language of the world," he said. " He whom I seek 
 shall speak the language of the spiritual life." 
 
 " If he should speak the language of some other planet, 
 the people of the world would hardly learn of him," was 
 Jesse's answer. 
 
 " His words shall move the world." The enthusiast un- 
 covered his head. 
 
 " And how will you know when you find the one whom 
 you seek? " 
 
 " I shall know him by the glory of his countenance." 
 
 " And will he speak the word of love ? " 
 
 " He will speak the word of power." 
 
 " The two are one," said Jesse. 
 
 " I have not found it so," the man replied. 
 
 Jesse looked long at him. " Perhaps that is the lesson 
 your teacher has for you." 
 
 " I do not know what his lesson will be. I shall know 
 him by the glory of his countenance," the man repeated. 
 
 "Will you not tell me your name?" Jesse asked. 
 
 " My name is John. I have no other." But he did not 
 ask the name of his companion in return. 
 
 " Have you sought long for this teacher? " 
 
 " No ; but I shall seek him long until I find him." 
 
 " You will find him when the time is ripe," said Jesse. 
 "Take my good wishes with you, my prayers." 
 
 " Thank you," responded the stranger, almost warmly. 
 Then he turned abruptly and went on down the mountain 
 road. 
 
 Jesse sat for a long time on the rocks beside the spring. 
 The chance encounter with this extraordinary man had 
 moved him more deeply than the meeting with any human 
 being had ever done before. Alien and unsocial though 
 the stranger was, Jesse felt less alone in the world for 
 knowing that he lived in it. He, too, questioned the skies 
 for other meanings than weather-omens; he, too, was pos- 
 sessed by an idea, had given himself, without fear or reser- 
 vation, to the quest of the unseen. What matter though 
 their ways were different ways? One sought in the soli- 
 tude of the mountain the master with the shining counte- 
 nance who should speak to him the word of power; the 
 other sought in the depths of his own soul, amid the noises 
 and emotions of every-day human life, the will of that God
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 107 
 
 who was himself; but surely they two would meet again 
 at the goal. Would it be after many years? For some 
 reason, Jesse thought more of the intensity of the strange 
 pilgrim's quest than of the unknown master for whom he 
 waited. Jesse was not looking for a master. " I am the 
 God that shall answer my own prayer," was written in his 
 book of meditations. But that he was really the one who 
 should fulfil the quest of the wandering John did not en- 
 ter his mind at that time. 
 
 Half a mile further on he met two wood-cutters walk- 
 ing beside a load of logs, and stopped to speak with them. 
 
 " Do you know anything about a strange-looking man 
 with long black hair, dressed in grey, who passed along this 
 road about an hour ago?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed the woodman who was driving the 
 team, " you must mean John the Hermit. No, I don't 
 know anything about him ; nobody does. I never saw him 
 till this summer, and don't know where he came from. 
 Once or twice he's been down to Wheelerville. Some folks 
 think he's inspired, like those old fellows in the Bible; but 
 most folks think he's crazy." 
 
 "The usual fate of wise men," said Jesse, half to him- 
 self. 
 
 " He's wiser than I am, anyway," said the woodman, 
 " for he seems to know how to live without working. Git 
 up, ponies ! " The horses started ; and with a courteous 
 " good afternoon," Jesse walked on. 
 
 At the highest point in the road which wound round the 
 shoulder of the mountain he paused again, to eat his lunch- 
 eon. The sun was now at the meridian, and he was half- 
 way to Myra. To the west of him lay, far down, the fer- 
 tile valley of the Otter Creek, the theatre of all his past; to 
 the east of him, about seven miles away, lay Myra, the un- 
 known village of his childhood's dreams, the scene of his 
 immediate future. Something was waiting for him there, 
 some revelation which should answer the great question he 
 was always asking as to the real nature of the mission 
 that was calling him. Would it come soon, or after many 
 years ? 
 
 He sat thinking for an hour beside the road, then rose 
 and rapidly descended the eastern slope of the mountain.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IT was in the middle of the afternoon when he saw the 
 church-spires of Myra rising over the tree-tops. A thrill 
 passed through him, his step quickened. But when he 
 came to the cinder-path at the end of a long street shaded 
 on both sides by elm and maple-trees, he went more slowly. 
 A little further on he met two middle-aged men in frock- 
 coats and silk hats. There was something so majestic in 
 the bearing of the young workman, that the two instinc- 
 tively made way for him, lifting their hats; then they 
 looked at each other as if they wondered why they had 
 done it. They were the two wealthiest men of Myra. 
 
 When he reached the main street of the village, Jesse 
 enquired the way to the home of Rose Thomas, the school- 
 teacher " from over the mountain " who had taught in 
 Nashburgh ten years before. They had not met since he 
 was eight years old. She lived in a little white house on 
 a quiet side-street, and when Jesse went up the path to the 
 door he saw her standing in the porch, tall and slender and 
 still dressed in blue, as in the old days; but the soft hair 
 round her placid face was now thickly sprinkled with grey, 
 and there were shadows under her eyes and at the corners 
 of her mouth. 
 
 " Do you remember me, Miss Thomas?" Jesse held out 
 his hand. 
 
 She looked at him a moment, then a smile of wondering 
 surprise lighted her face. " Why, is it yes, it must be 
 Jesse Bethel, of Nashburgh! I would have known you 
 anywhere, and yet how changed you are! Come right into 
 the house, and tell me about your mother." 
 
 He followed her into the plain little sitting-room. The 
 windows were open, and the white muslin curtains fluttered 
 in the breeze. 
 
 They talked of the old days, of the Nashburgh children, 
 now grown men and women, of Jesse's carpentry work, 
 and of his plans for the future of his little family. 
 
 108
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 109 
 
 " I often think of the strange questions you used to ask 
 me," she said, with a puzzled smile. " Have you found 
 out yet what time is the shadow of ? " 
 
 "No. Have you?" 
 
 She shook her head. " I remember also how you used to 
 think that the other side of a mountain was always more 
 beautiful than this side. Now you are on the other side, 
 do you find it so ? " 
 
 " I find beauty everywhere, everywhere." 
 
 "And are you still asking questions?" 
 
 " Yes, but I have to find the answers for myself." 
 
 Jesse enquired of her about a boarding-place where he 
 could live until his family came; but she would not hear of 
 his staying anywhere but in her home. Was he not one 
 of her children? Her mother, who was down in the vil- 
 lage, would return in a little while. Surely, he would 
 stay with them? And so he promised, thanking her with a 
 loving smile. 
 
 She remembered the little boy who used to rescue cap- 
 tured flies from the cruel fly-paper where they struggled 
 helplessly, washing their sticky legs in warm water and set- 
 ting them free. She remembered the little candy-box filled 
 with cotton, where he had nursed a sick and broken bird 
 until its half-glazed eyes grew bright again and it flew away 
 to join its little mates. She remembered how one day he 
 had reproved her timidly for striking the hands of dis- 
 obedient Marty White with her wooden ruler, saying: 
 " God doesn't punish you when you are disobedient. For 
 God said, ' Thou shalt not kill,' and I saw you stone a 
 harmless little garter-snake to death, only yesterday." She 
 had not killed a snake since that day, though the region 
 around Myra was infested with them. All these things 
 she recalled to his memory, as they sat quietly together in 
 the little muslin-curtained room, waiting for her mother's 
 return. 
 
 When at last the old lady came, she was delighted with 
 Jesse. She made hot biscuits for his supper with her own 
 skilful hands, and drew generously on her store of honey 
 and fruit-cake. 
 
 That night he wrote a long letter to his mother, adding 
 as a postscript: " Do not fear the future, nor the inhospi-
 
 i io THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 tality of strange places. Had your spirit been afraid of 
 change, you had never dared the immense uncertainty of 
 being born." 
 
 The next morning he went out to look for a home for his 
 family, and walked directly, as if guided thither, to a small 
 unoccupied house on the outskirts of the village. He found 
 the owner, inspected the premises, engaged them for a year 
 with privilege of indefinite renewal, and wrote again to his 
 mother about the result of the morning's quest, all in the 
 space of an hour. 
 
 That afternoon he found work on a large office building 
 which was being erected on the main street of the town, 
 and the second morning saw him busy at his trade, just 
 forty hours after his arrival in Myra. 
 
 Ten days later his mother and the boys came, and their 
 life flowed on as calmly and simply as in Nashburgh. 
 
 " How easy it is to change your place in the world 
 if only you're not afraid," said Mary Bethel one day, 
 with a fond look at Jesse. 
 
 " Do you know, Mother," he answered, " that the 
 philosophers say there is only one constant thing in the uni- 
 verse, and that is constant change ? " 
 
 A strange light came into Mary's eyes. " I suppose it's 
 almost wicked to say so," she said, " but it seems to me 
 sometimes that I learn more from you than I learn out of 
 the Bible." 
 
 During the first year of his stay in Myra, Jesse was 
 much alone in his leisure hours. He had a room to him- 
 self in their little house; and as he was the bread-winner 
 of the family, his right to solitude in the evening was never 
 questioned. That winter he read the Bible again from be- 
 ginning to end, making a special study of the Psalms, the 
 Proverbs, Isaiah, and Job. 
 
 In the Psalms he marked many passages, including these: 
 
 " Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still." 
 " Thy gentleness hath made me great." 
 
 " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my 
 soul after thee, O God." 
 
 "Be still, and know that I am God."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL in 
 
 " In the multitude of ray thoughts within me thy comforts 
 delight my soul." 
 
 " Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou takest away 
 their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest 
 forth thy spirit, they are created." 
 
 " Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that 
 build it." 
 
 Among the Proverbs he underscored this one for his spe- 
 cial meditation : " Drink waters out of thine own cistern, 
 and running waters out of thine own well." 
 
 And this verse from the eighteenth chapter reminded him 
 of Lao-tsze : " Before destruction the heart of man is 
 haughty, and before honour is humility." 
 
 The Book of Job, from the thirty-eighth chapter to the 
 end of the forty-first, affected him so powerfully that he 
 was never able to read it without falling on his face in 
 humility and adoration before the Lord that answered out 
 of the whirlwind. In those four chapters he found what 
 seemed to him to be the most sublime poetry he had ever 
 read. Surely, he thought, the language of man here reached 
 its apogee, never again to be approached until the great 
 incalculable cycle of genius swings round the zodiac of 
 Time. 
 
 Here are a few fragments from that masterpiece, which 
 Jesse read over and over: 
 
 "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 
 
 " Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowl- 
 edge? 
 
 " Gird up now thy loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, 
 and answer thou me. 
 
 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? 
 declare, if thou hast understanding. 
 
 "Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who 
 hath stretched the line upon it? 
 
 " Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who laid 
 the corner stone thereof; 
 
 " When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
 God shouted for joy? 
 
 " Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, 
 as if it had issued out of the womb? 
 
 " When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick dark- 
 ness a swaddlingband for it,
 
 ii2 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, 
 "And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here 
 
 shall thy proud waves be stayed? 
 
 " Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days ; and caused 
 
 the dayspring to know his place? 
 
 "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou 
 walked in the search of the depth? 
 
 "Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou 
 seen the door of the shadow of death? 
 
 " Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth ? declare if thou 
 knowest it all. 
 
 " Where is the way where light dwelleth ? and as for dark- 
 ness, where is the place thereof, 
 
 " That thou shouldst take it to the bound thereof, and that 
 thou shouldst know the paths to the house thereof? 
 
 "Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because 
 the number of thy days is great? 
 
 " Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow ? or hast 
 thou seen the treasures of the hail, 
 
 " Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against 
 the day of battle and war? 
 
 " By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east 
 wind upon the earth? 
 
 " Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, 
 or a way for the lightning of thunder; 
 
 " To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is ; on the 
 wilderness, wherein there is no man; 
 
 " To satisfy the desolate and waste ground ; and to cause the 
 bud of the tender herb to spring forth? 
 
 "Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops 
 of dew ? 
 
 " Out of whose womb came the ice ? and the hoary frost of 
 heaven, who hath gendered it? 
 
 "The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the 
 deep is frozen. 
 
 " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the 
 bands of Orion? 
 
 " Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or canst 
 thou guide Arcturus with his sons? 
 
 " Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven ? canst thou set the 
 dominion thereof in the earth? 
 
 " Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of 
 waters may cover thee? 
 
 " Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto 
 thee, Here we are?
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 113 
 
 "Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath 
 given understanding to the heart? 
 
 " Who can number the clouds in wisdom ? or who can stay the 
 bottles of heaven, 
 
 " When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave 
 fast together? 
 
 " Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings 
 toward the south ? 
 
 " Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her 
 nest on high? 
 
 "Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a 
 voice like him?"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ONE evening in the following January, about a month 
 after his nineteenth birthday, Jesse received a strange and 
 half-incoherent letter from Mary Magnus. It was post- 
 marked Los Angeles, California; but there was no ad- 
 dress enclosed to which he might reply. Here is the letter: 
 
 " Jesse, incomprehensible one : I, too, can talk philosophy, like 
 you, even when the waves of emotion are breaking over my 
 heart: The inevitable always comes to pass. Have you learned 
 that, I wonder, in your studies of old books? I have learned it 
 of life, red life; I learned it even to-night. 
 
 "It is three o'clock in the morning now;, but sleep is far from 
 my eyelids. Maybe I shall sleep to-morrow next week it is 
 no matter. But to-night I must write to you. I can see you in 
 imagination, bending your beautiful still face over this letter. 
 Will it be so still when you have read it all ? For I have things 
 to tell you which I believe no girl ever wrote to one like you 
 before. Girl, did I say? It seems to me I should be called a 
 woman now, though I am still so young. 
 
 " Surely my faith in you is a great faith my faith in your 
 sympathy and understanding, at least. For I think you are not 
 really so cold and far-off as you seem. The incomprehensible one 
 you are to me, and will ever remain ; but I am not afraid to 
 have you comprehend me. You must be very great to have 
 left me with that feeling, after all your no, I started to say your 
 cruelty, but you have never been cruel to me. Perhaps it was 
 I, after all, that was cruel to you. Who knows? for are you not 
 the incomprehensible one? 
 
 " Oh, Jesse ! turn away your face while I say it, for I can- 
 not bear your eyes / have given myself to a man. Do you know 
 what I mean? No, I am not married, nor shall I ever marry. 
 / will not. Oh, yes, the man loves me! But can you understand 
 this? I do not love him, not as I understand love, and I am not 
 unlearned. Of course I do not really mean that I do not love 
 him, for I do yes, very much. But I think you understand. 
 
 " What is my life going to be ? I do not know. Perhaps I 
 was never destined to be good, perhaps I shall be very bad; 
 
 1 14
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 115 
 
 but, somehow, I do not feel bad at all not even to-night. On 
 the contrary. . . . But maybe you will not understand 
 this. Do you? If so, you are, indeed, very great; but I always 
 knew that you were very great. 
 
 " Pardon the blots on this letter, Jesse. I have been crying 
 since the first word. I don't know why I am crying; for I am 
 not sorry at all I am glad. The inevitable always comes to 
 pass. 
 
 " What are you doing now, I wonder ? Are you still study- 
 ing that old Chinaman with the unrememberable name ? I never 
 could study Chinamen, not even dead ones, so I study live Cau- 
 casians. (This is not meant in recklessness, but seriously.) 
 
 " What puzzles me most is that I do not feel at all wicked. 
 I expected to feel wicked. Why, I even said a prayer a little 
 while ago, for the first time in weeks and weeks; but perhaps that 
 was because I was going to write to you. I think really I do 
 that if I could have seen you sometimes and had you talk your 
 beautiful thoughts to me, I could have been good. I don't mean 
 merely not bad, but truly good, actively good. I've always given 
 away half my pocket-money, and to-morrow I'm going to buy 
 a soft new mattress for an old sick woman whom our doctor 
 visits for charity. 
 
 " Oh, Jesse, Jesse ! I have been so unhappy ! Can you imagine 
 what it is to have one face always between you and the sun- 
 light a face which is not for you? I have tried so hard to for- 
 get. Perhaps now I shall be able to forget now I have built 
 a solid wall between me and the cause of my unhappiness. For 
 this is a solid wall O, an impenetrable wall ! and this letter is 
 the last great stone in it. Yes, now when I have made it impos- 
 sible that you should ever love me, perhaps I shall be able to 
 forget you. 
 
 "Why have I done this thing? Because I must love somebody. 
 I must be loved by somebody, must feel something near me. 
 My heart is too full, my love is a burden too heavy to carry. 
 
 " Do not write to me do not answer this letter. There is 
 nothing you can say that will not be more cruel than silence. 
 
 " MARY." 
 
 The letter dazed him. Three times he read it over, 
 then burnt it. He had been afraid for Mary ever since 
 that summer night in her father's garden; things she had 
 said still haunted him with dark premonitions. After 
 burning the letter he sat a long time with his head between 
 his hands. His pity and grief were coloured by a touch 
 of virgin shame, new and unwelcome. With all his
 
 u6 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 subtlety for analysis, he did not try to analyse the feeling. 
 But he did not murmur any cant phrases about virtue and 
 self-control; his mind was of a different order, and he 
 knew the meaning of virtue and self-control, known least 
 by those who talk about them most.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EVERY Sunday afternoon during the winter Jesse went 
 to see Rose Thomas, if only for a little while. She was 
 teaching in a small town a few miles away, but came home 
 to Myra at the week's end ; and he enjoyed his hours with 
 her more than those spent with any other person. Her 
 pale face, under the prematurely greying hair, had still the 
 soft contours of youth; but about the corners of her mouth 
 and in her eyes there was a wistful sadness, a shadow as 
 of some secret grief. Like most New England women, 
 she was rather reticent of her deeper feelings, and her 
 talks with Jesse were generally about impersonal things. 
 Ardent and faithful as she was in her religion, she had con- 
 fessed to him that often doubts assailed her as to certain 
 dogmas of the church. Among other things, the doctrine 
 of vicarious atonement puzzled her; it failed to tally with 
 her ideas of individual responsibility. There was a touch 
 of hardness in her nature, an exaggeration of the sense of 
 justice, not uncommon in conscientious persons who have 
 never known the need of real forgiveness. Her only se- 
 rious failing seemed to be an occasional lack of charity in 
 judgment. Jesse perceived this flaw in his old friend, even 
 as others did; but seeing deeper than they, he knew the 
 hidden cause some secret disappointment, some long and 
 patient hope yet unfulfilled. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon in early spring he asked Rose to 
 go with him after the trailing arbutus, then beginning to 
 show its hopeful stars among the withered leaves. She 
 was delighted, having few pleasures and fewer outings; and 
 they gaily started for the woods, like two children, in the 
 softening April air. In an hour they had filled their 
 baskets with the pink and white waxen blossoms; but hav- 
 ing no mind to return so early to the village, they found a 
 large flat rock in an open space flooded with sunshine, and 
 sat down for a talk. 
 
 117
 
 ii8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "When will your school be out, Miss Rose?" asked 
 Jesse, as he spread a shawl for her on the rock. 
 
 "The middle of June; then I shall be at home with 
 mother, till I have to go back in the fall." 
 
 " What a pity it is," he said, " that you have not a 
 place in the graded school of Myra. I know two or three 
 of the teachers here, and they have neither your knowledge 
 nor your experience. Why is it, Miss Rose? " 
 
 She flushed, and a look that was half pain, half resent- 
 ment, came into her gentle eyes. " I don't know," she an- 
 swered, in a low tone. " I have made application more 
 than once; but I am always set aside for younger women. 
 I shall not apply again, unless unless I change my mind." 
 
 They were only a few simple words, but in them was 
 the history of a soul. To the country schoolma'am, an 
 appointment in the graded school of Myra meant the goal 
 of a life's ambition. Jesse felt in the space of a heart- 
 beat all the sadness of the years of waiting to this woman 
 who had nothing else to wait for; he realised the bitterness 
 of hope deferred, the bitterness of seeing younger and 
 prettier women in the place which she felt to be hers by 
 right of service and essential fitness. Poor Rose Thomas! 
 He felt a tightening in his throat, and he did not look at 
 her, but out across the leafless trees. He knew, rather than 
 saw, that her eyes were full of tears; and he understood 
 the pride, the reticence of the heart that seeks to hide its 
 grief from even the eyes of those it loves most. 
 
 Suddenly there swept over him the most powerful per- 
 sonal desire that he had ever known, the desire that this 
 patient, half-embittered, love-cheated woman at his side 
 should have should have the one thing which yet re- 
 mained for her of hope and pride and satisfaction. 
 
 " You must have it!" 
 
 In the rush of emotion he sprang to his feet, and stood 
 with his back to her, looking straight out into space. He 
 had no realisation of what he was doing, knew naught but 
 his indomitable desire. The woman gazed up at him in 
 wonderment. His whole body seemed to expand. Out- 
 lined against the western sky, he seemed the centre of a 
 great effulgence that radiated from him, as light from a 
 candle-flame. She passed her hand. across her eyes, think-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 119 
 
 ing the appearance was some freak of defective vision; but 
 the illusion still remained, the light was still around him. 
 
 She called to him: 
 
 " Jesse." 
 
 He seemed not to hear her, and again she called: 
 
 " Jesse." 
 
 Still he did not move, but stood like one transfixed, gaz- 
 ing straight out. Then slowly the effulgence round his 
 body faded, his form relaxed; and, after a moment, he 
 turned and sat down beside her on the rock. He spoke of 
 the beauty of the western sky in a voice so gentle that it 
 was a revelation even to Rose, who knew his gentlest 
 moods. The force of his thought had been an arrow aimed 
 straight, and the bow-string was vibrant still. 
 
 She made no reference to his moment of abstraction, said 
 not a word about the luminous ovoid she had seen around 
 him. He was to her an extraordinary being, a being in 
 whose presence any strange thing might happen; and 
 though they spoke now only of impersonal subjects the 
 sky, the early spring, the arbutus in the baskets at their 
 feet the eyes she turned to his were full of vague question- 
 ing. They sat for some time longer on the rock in the 
 sunshine; then Rose remembered that she had promised her 
 mother to get their supper at five o'clock, and they started 
 homeward. 
 
 That evening about eight o'clock Jesse was sitting with 
 his mother beside the grate-fire. The two younger boys 
 were down in the village. Mary Bethel was bending 
 over the fragrant arbutus which Jesse had brought home 
 to her, touching the green leaves softly and inhaling the 
 fragrance of the blossoms. She was happy. On week- 
 days Jesse usually read alone in his own room until bed- 
 time; but Sunday evenings he always gave to his mother, 
 and she looked forward to those hours of quiet communion 
 the whole week long. That evening he had been reading 
 aloud one of her favourite Bible stories, the story of Ruth 
 and Naomi. 
 
 Suddenly the outer door was opened, without even an 
 announcing knock, and Rose Thomas burst into the room, 
 breathless from running. Mother and son both sprang to 
 their feet, startled, fearing they knew not what; but one
 
 120 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 look into her face reassured them. Her eyes were alight 
 with a flame of joy they had never before seen there. She 
 threw her arms about them both, laughing, crying, half- 
 hysterical. 
 
 " They've given me the school," she cried, " the fourth 
 grade, over both the Manning girls, and I'm so happy 
 I'm so happy ! " 
 
 Jesse drew Rose into a chair beside the table. '"'Tell us 
 all about it," he said, quietly. 
 
 Rose wiped the tears from her eyes; her voice was 
 unsteady, her sentences broken by little catches of the 
 breath. 
 
 " I heard about it this evening, right after supper. Judge 
 Evans came over to see me, with the principal. The teacher 
 there now is going to be married, she sent in her resigna- 
 tion one day last week. They had a talk this afternoon, 
 the school board, I mean, an informal talk, it being Sun- 
 day. They didn't know whom to have, when suddenly 
 someone suggested me me and like a flash they all 
 agreed to it. There wasn't even any opposition from any- 
 body. And they're going to have a regular meeting to- 
 morrow and appoint me." 
 
 " I am so glad," said Mary Bethel, her soft eyes full of 
 sympathetic tears. " Oh, Rose, I am so glad ! " 
 
 " You don't know what it means to me," the teacher 
 went on. " I've wanted this for years, have asked for it 
 till I was ashamed to ask again. And now, to be put in 
 the fourth grade at the very beginning! They might have 
 advanced the Manning girls and made me begin with the 
 little children, and they didn't, they didn't. It's unheard 
 of it's a miracle ! " 
 
 " Miracles don't happen in our days," smiled Mary 
 Bethel, shaking her head. 
 
 "Oh! don't they?" Rose leaned forward in her chair, 
 grasping the arm of Mary, and speaking with subdued ex- 
 citement. " I tell you it's a miracle. And he did it he 
 Jesse, your son! He did this thing for me." 
 
 " Why, what do you mean ? " Mary gasped. 
 
 Rose told her, in quick, broken sentences, of the talk be- 
 tween her and Jesse that very afternoon ; told her of Jesse's 
 fiery declaration that she must have the school; told of his
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 121 
 
 leaping to his feet as he said it, and how he stood there 
 tall and straight and vibrant, with the golden light all 
 round his form; how she had called to him twice without 
 his hearing her. 
 
 " He did it," she declared, again, " he did it with his 
 mind, his will. You can't make me believe he didn't!" 
 
 Mary gazed in bewilderment from one to the other. 
 " Why how " she began, " I don't understand. . ." 
 
 But Jesse had suddenly left the room, closing the door 
 behind him. He went out under the night sky, his heart 
 pounding in his breast, his breath quick, beads of sweat 
 standing cold on his forehead. He knew it was true; knew 
 that the great dynamo of his will had moved those absent 
 men, driving them in the direction of his thought. And 
 he had not realised that he was doing it. He had known 
 the depth of his unselfish desire, but had not known 
 its potency. The case of Marty White, back there in 
 Nashburgh, came to his memory now; he recalled the un- 
 expected outcome of that threatening incident, when he had 
 put his mind against it. Then also he had been moved by 
 love, moved to desire the seemingly impossible for one he 
 loved. 
 
 Could such power really be his? The answer followed 
 the question as light follows flame: Such power was his. 
 Inexplicable as it might seem, this mighty engine of des- 
 tiny was hidden in his heart. And the power was his to 
 use in any way he chose. Again the words which had so 
 mightily affected him years before came back with new and 
 deeper meanings: " God is the Power, and I am the ex- 
 pression of the Power." 
 
 Half an hour later Jesse returned to the room where 
 the two women sat together. He was very quiet, and in a 
 low, firm tone he charged them that they should tell no one 
 of the occurrence of the afternoon. They promised, and 
 the promise was kept for a long time; though this was one 
 of the stories widely told of him in after years. 
 
 Walking home with Rose that evening, after a little 
 silence he turned to her suddenly: 
 
 "Has what you believe to have happened this afternoon 
 any influence on your doubts regarding the theory of vica- 
 rious atonement ? "
 
 122 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " How strange! " she exclaimed. " I was asking my- 
 self that very question, before you spoke." 
 
 " You know," he went on, " that though we seem to our- 
 selves to be separate, we are really all one, you and I and 
 everybody living. And we are always suffering, and en- 
 joying, and achieving, and atoning, not only for ourselves 
 but for one another."
 
 BOOK II 
 THE PREPARATION
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 FOR several years Jesse lived quietly with his family in 
 Myra, working at his trade in the daytime and in the 
 evening studying and reading many books. At this period 
 of his life he was almost a recluse, going about but little 
 among his fellows. It was only in after years that he be- 
 gan to frequent the places where men and women congre- 
 gated, testing his philosophy by practical application, view- 
 ing his reflection in the eyes of varied individuals. Dur- 
 ing the early months in Myra he used to go to church with 
 his mother on Sunday morning; but as time went on he 
 gradually discontinued these visits to the temples of con- 
 ventional worship. The two younger boys were now self- 
 supporting, the first a carpenter with Jesse, the other a 
 clerk in one of the village stores. Thus relieved of a part 
 of his burden, Jesse even accumulated a little money, the 
 savings from his meagre wages; only a few hundred dol- 
 lars, but the money was his own, to be used for any pur- 
 pose he might deem important. 
 
 In January of the year after his twenty-third birthday, 
 Jesse told his mother one morning that he had decided to 
 go down to New York for three months, to read in the 
 great library; and that he would return about the first 
 of April, in time for the busy season of spring work with 
 the village carpenters. Mary was surprised, even vaguely 
 alarmed; but to oppose Jesse's will was beyond her cour- 
 age. He had done his duty by her, and his right to choose 
 his future way was not to be questioned. 
 
 " I shall miss you sadly, dear," was her answer to his 
 strange announcement. New York seemed very far away 
 to Mary Bethel. She made no reference to what seemed 
 to her a reckless expenditure of money, for was not the 
 money Jesse's own? Indeed, she prided herself a little on 
 her reticence in this regard. To the imaginative woman 
 there was a tremulous satisfaction in the idea of her dear 
 one's seeing something of the great outer world. 
 
 125
 
 126 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I wish I were going with you," she said wistfully, a 
 day or two later. 
 
 He looked long at her, answering nothing. But that 
 evening he followed her into the kitchen where she was 
 preparing their supper. 
 
 " Little mother," he said, putting his arms around her 
 shoulders, " I've been considering what you said this morn- 
 ing. You shall come down for a week at the end of my 
 stay in New York, and we will return together." 
 
 Mary wept with joy, as she had wept that time, nearly 
 fifteen years before, when her husband had followed her 
 into the bedroom to say that she could go to the Grove 
 camp-meeting and take Jesse. 
 
 On the railway journey between Myra and New York, 
 many persons wondered who was the tall and singularly 
 beautiful young man who seemed to be so busy with his 
 thoughts and with the whirling view outside the carriage 
 window. 
 
 During the afternoon one of Jesse's fellow travellers 
 made overtures to acquaintance. He was a young man of 
 the small, dark, nervous type of city clerk, well-dressed 
 and rather commonplace, the kind one meets by thousands 
 in the business quarters of the city. 
 
 " It's tiresome riding all day long," he observed, slipping 
 into the seat beside Jesse, who welcomed him with a friendly 
 smile. 
 
 " I do not find it so. But I never find anything tire- 
 some, not even my daily work." 
 
 '' You are an unusual man, to enjoy work. But your 
 business may be a specially pleasant one." 
 
 " I am a carpenter," was Jesse's answer. 
 
 The stranger turned to look at him. " Pardon me," 
 he said, " but you are not the usual type of working- 
 man." 
 
 Jesse smiled. " Is there a type, then ? I have never 
 found two individuals alike, either among workingmen or 
 others." 
 
 In answer to his companion's inquiry, Jesse told the pur- 
 pose of his visit to New York and the probable length of 
 his sojourn, adding: "You know the city well, while I
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 127 
 
 know It not at all; perhaps you can advise me where to go 
 on my arrival, some quiet place within my means." 
 
 The young man looked at him a moment, then said, with 
 sudden conviction : " Why don't you come and board 
 with my mother and me? We have an extra room in our 
 flat, a small one, but sunny and pleasant. You're just the 
 sort of man I'd like to have around." He mentioned as the 
 price of the room a modest sum, judged by New York 
 standards of comparison, and one which did not seem un- 
 reasonably large to Jesse. 
 
 " Is your home within walking distance of the large li- 
 brary? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, ten minutes' walk," the young man answered, 
 naming a street in the Washington Square district. 
 
 " Thank you," said Jesse, " I will come, with pleasure." 
 
 He had none of the countryman's distrust of the city or 
 the men of the city, and he knew the human soul too well 
 to fear anything from the steady brown eyes of his new ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 " It's strange," he said, half to himself, " but the thing 
 I need always comes to me." Then he added, " By the 
 way, you haven't told me your name. I am Jesse Bethel." 
 
 " And I am Lawrence Lane." 
 
 Jesse knew in figures the magnitude of New York; but 
 he was nevertheless impressed by the mile after mile of 
 closely-builded streets their train passed through before 
 reaching the Grand Central Station. In every one of these 
 innumerable houses were human beings like himself, sad 
 or happy or indifferent, swarming in the monstrous ant- 
 hill called the Empire City. What knew they of him 
 what cared they? He was glad to have Lawrence Lane be- 
 side him, glad that he had a home to go to in this teeming 
 maze. 
 
 The bustle about the station filled him with vague ex- 
 citement. He smiled, remembering the rough platform at 
 the Grove camp-ground, where he had experienced a sim- 
 ilar feeling at the age of eight. How different the two 
 scenes! His reminiscent thoughts were scattered by the 
 business-like voice of his companion. 
 
 " We'll take the Sixth Avenue Elevated down-town, and 
 you can send for your trunk in the morning. I've been
 
 128 
 
 away nearly a week on business for the firm I work for, 
 and Mother will be watching for me from the window. 
 She always thinks I've been run over by a car if I'm ten 
 minutes late in getting home. It's the way of mothers." 
 
 " Very like my own," said Jesse. He was glad to be 
 going to a place where a mother watched for her son from 
 the window. 
 
 Mrs. Lane, after the moment of surprise at seeing Jesse, 
 gave him a kind and almost motherly welcome. All women 
 loved him, at first for his beauty, afterward for the sweet 
 and gentle sympathy radiating from him. 
 
 " I'm glad, indeed, to have you with us," she said, as 
 she helped him to the plain, substantial dinner of her own 
 cooking. " Since the girls went away, we've been rather 
 lonesome, George and I. My two daughters," she ex- 
 plained, " are visiting my sister in Chicago ; they won't 
 be home until spring. That is how we came to have an 
 extra room this winter." 
 
 That night, after Jesse went to bed, Mrs. Lane and 
 Lawrence talked him over in the little sitting-room. 
 
 " How strange and wonderful he is! " the mother said. 
 " Really, he's the handsomest human being I ever saw in 
 my life. And you say he's a carpenter? Well, well! He 
 might be a prince. He has charming manners, too, so sim- 
 ple, so courteous. We hear a lot about gentlemen, the 
 kind that never soil their hands; but this young man is my 
 idea of a gentleman. Did you notice how respectfully he 
 listened to every word I said? Did you see how he held 
 the door open for me, as if I were a queen ? " 
 
 " I wonder where he got such ways," said George. 
 
 " He got them out of his lovely heart, that's where he 
 got them." And Mrs. Lane, half -embarrassed by her own 
 enthusiasm, kissed her son good-night and went off to bed. 
 The next day she wrote to her daughters in Chicago: 
 
 "We have let your room to the most extraordinary per- 
 son, a young man from Vermont whom Lawrence picked 
 up on a railway train. I believe he is a prince in disguise ; 
 but he calls himself a carpenter; and his hands, though 
 beautifully shaped, are the hands of a man who has done 
 manual labour. If you girls were at home, you wouldn't
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 129 
 
 look twice at any of your young men friends, after seeing 
 him. I am really glad you are not here; for I wouldn't 
 want to have your hearts broken, nor see you tearing each 
 other's hair. 
 
 " Strange, isn't it? but I somehow feel that what I have 
 just^said is rather cheap being about him. He is just dif- 
 ferent, that's all; but you won't understand, because you 
 have never seen him. He almost makes me believe in your 
 Aunt Jane's pet theory of Reincarnation. I wonder what 
 he was when he was on earth before"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AT breakfast the next morning Jesse expressed a wish 
 to see something of the city itself, before beginning* his 
 regular reading in the Library. He would spend two or 
 three days in sightseeing, then settle down to a routine of 
 study, varied by occasional pleasure-trips. 
 
 " I wish I could go about with you to-day," said Law- 
 rence, who left the house for business at half past eight 
 every morning and did not return until dinner-time, at 
 six in the evening. " But maybe Mother can go." 
 
 Jesse looked at Mrs. Lane and waited, his eyes alight 
 with questions. 
 
 " Of course I'll go," she said, flushing with pleasure. 
 " We'll start out as soon as I've washed the breakfast 
 dishes." 
 
 They took the Fifth Avenue stage from Washington 
 Square to Central Park, for Mrs. Lane wanted Jesse to 
 see the fine houses along the handsomest street in New 
 York. She was a little proud to be in the company of this 
 young man whom everybody followed with their eyes. 
 
 " An artist," they heard a woman whisper to her com- 
 panion, as they passed along the street. 
 
 The Washington Arch, at the head of the square, roused 
 Jesse's enthusiasm; it was the first really beautiful thing 
 in stone that he had ever seen. But the sky-questioning 
 Flatiron Building, at the corner of Twenty-third Street, 
 made him shudder; and the other office buildings along the 
 Avenue, the many-windowed hotels and the houses of the 
 millionaires, seemed very large to his unaccustomed vision. 
 There was something in these miles of multiple glassy-eyed 
 stone monsters which saddened him. His thoughts were 
 for the people who dwelt therein. 
 
 " When they have climbed to the top of their tallest 
 tower," he said, " are they any nearer heaven ? " 
 
 " The prophets tell us that heaven is in the heart," she 
 ventured timidly. 
 
 " It is also in the eye," he answered. " I see no beauty 
 
 130
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 131 
 
 of earth,, no vision of heaven, in these transplanted marble- 
 quarries." 
 
 But when they came to the great Cathedral he expressed 
 a wish to enter it, and they got down from the stage. 
 
 " This is nearer to beauty," he said ; " this has at least 
 a meaning. If one does not find God here, one finds the 
 desire for God." 
 
 " What strange things you say, Jesse ! I may call you 
 Jesse, may I not? " 
 
 " Of course. You will love me better if you call me 
 Jesse." 
 
 She patted the strong young hand he gave to help her 
 up the steps. "I think everyone who comes near you will 
 love you always," she said. 
 
 " Love me or hate me. Some will hate me. Where 
 the light is strongest, there are the shadows deepest." 
 
 A wave of awe swept over the soul of the young man as 
 he entered the vast, lofty, echoing, empty place. It was 
 the first time he had ever been in a great church. He stood 
 a while near the door, looking far up among the pointed 
 arches, letting the power and mystery of it all have full 
 sway over his feelings. His eyes filled with tears, tears 
 of pity and love for the souls who raised this fane to the 
 glory of the Unseen, for those who dreamed and wept and 
 prayed under these yearning arches. 
 
 His companion touched him on the arm. " Here is a 
 copy of the Sistine Madonna," she said. 
 
 "Why, the face is like that of my mother when I was 
 a little boy ! " 
 
 They sat down in one of the pews, far back, and for a 
 time neither spoke a word. Then Jesse said, in the low 
 voice one instinctively uses under Gothic arches: 
 
 " I have discovered, sitting here, where the great cathe- 
 dral builders found their model : in the aisles of the primeval 
 forest. Others must have seen the thing I see and spoken 
 of it you know I am not learned in architecture. In these 
 innumerable points are the interlacing arms of many trees. 
 The mystery that hovers there above vast, dark, over- 
 powering with suggestions of vague dangers is the menace 
 of the unseen dwellers in primeval tree-tops, the menace of 
 the shadow, of the night, beautiful and terrible to those
 
 I 3 2 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 who lived at the mercy of the unknown, those whose home 
 was under the arches of the forest. Their memories are 
 in our souls, memories of the infancy of the Race; their 
 fears are hidden in the folds of our brains. Their dread 
 of the beings in the dark waving tree-tops ten thousand, 
 a hundred thousand, maybe a million years ago, we feel 
 to-day when resting under this many-pointed roof. Our 
 reason tells us that these points are of motionless cold 
 stone; but, gazing long, we seem to see them move, they 
 sway to and fro, and we hear the wind whistling through 
 them. Hark! Why do you start at that sound? It is 
 only a slamming door in the chapel off there ; but when you 
 heard it, your heart beat fast, your enemy of a million 
 years ago was upon you." 
 
 The woman was gazing at Jesse as at some being from 
 another sphere. 
 
 " Come down farther," he said, " yes, to the very front 
 pew." 
 
 She followed him, and they sat down again. They were 
 now within thirty feet of the high altar, yet how far away 
 it seemed! The six great unlit candles, each one as tall as 
 a man, stood like sentinels on guard before the saintly 
 figures in the reredos. Again they were silent for a time, 
 then Jesse whispered: 
 
 " Look up far up : Do you see the white dove hovering 
 there? It is of stone, and yet its wings seem tremulous; 
 they are vibrant with the prayers that have risen to it, as 
 to the visible Holy Spirit. No wonder its wings seem 
 to be quivering; for prayer, if ardent enough, can make 
 the very rocks tremble. Have you learned that, dear 
 friend?" 
 
 She put her hand under his, timidly, as if for protection 
 from something. He smiled at her, as one smiles at a 
 little child to give it confidence. Then he went on: 
 
 " One should be very careful what one prays for, when 
 all alone in a place like this because the prayer might be 
 granted. On Sundays, when the church is full of people 
 with conflicting desires, the forces are scattered; but when 
 all alone here, one has at one's command a mighty engine 
 of will, the cumulative power that multitudes of souls have 
 left behind them. It is the variance of the many wills
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 133 
 
 that makes them impotent. Why, fill this church, this 
 arched primeval forest of unfeeling stone, fill it with men 
 and women moved by one idea, one hope, one desire, and 
 such a command would go up to the Arch-Magus of the 
 universe as would lift this roof and send it flying like a 
 handful of withered leaves." 
 
 " Come away," she whispered, " O Jesse, come away ! 
 I cannot endure it any longer! " 
 
 They passed out into the bright winter sunshine, out 
 and away from the mysterious place; and not until they 
 had walked several blocks in the crisp air was she quite 
 herself again. 
 
 At the Metropolitan Art Museum they had luncheon, 
 and spent the afternoon among the pictures and statuary. 
 Jesse enjoyed most the Greek casts and the modern land- 
 scapes. He sat a long time before the pedimental figures 
 of the Parthenon; he felt the kinship between himself and 
 these harmonious beings, the broken ideals of a younger and 
 purer age. Their poise, their expression of controlled 
 power, spoke to all that was strongest in his nature. 
 
 " Had I chosen to work in matter instead of in spirit, I 
 would have made such things as these," he said. He seemed 
 unconscious of the stupendous claim his words would have 
 implied to any artist who might have heard them. And 
 he added, after a moment : " But I have chosen the more 
 difficult medium; for the spirit of man, responsive to 
 impression as it may seem, is really far less yielding than 
 marble." 
 
 The next day they went to several places, including 
 Riverside Drive, the Battery, and the Stock Exchange. 
 
 From the visitors' gallery of the Exchange, Jesse looked 
 down upon the howling, tossing maelstrom, whose every 
 wave was a human soul borne round and round by the 
 irresistible current of greed. It was nearly three o'clock, 
 the last few minutes of an excited day, and the roaring 
 mass below him seethed more wildly with every passing 
 second. The noise was deafening. Even in the gallery, 
 conversation in ordinary tones was impossible; and the two 
 visitors stood there without speech, gazing and listening,
 
 134 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 as the minute-hand of the great clock moved slowly toward 
 the hour. 
 
 Suddenly a gong sounded above the din of human voices; 
 then gradually the passionate roar of the great multiple- 
 mouthed Demon of Trade changed to the fitful, rattling 
 murmur of individual tongues in conversation. The rag- 
 ing atoms of the One the Demon had rebecome the 
 many. 
 
 Though Jesse's time in the Exchange was brief, some 
 fifteen minutes by the great clock, it was enough: hours 
 would not have given him a better understanding of the 
 spirit of it all, nor deepened the impression of its utter 
 futility in the ultimate purposes of life. Seated in the ele- 
 vated train on the way home, he said to his companion: 
 
 " How much more involved is their religious symbolism 
 down there than was that of the wiser ancients ! " 
 
 " Religious symbolism ? I don't understand ? " And 
 Mrs. Lane looked inquiringly at Jesse. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a whimsical smile, " I have read 
 of wars between ancient tribes to settle the question whether 
 the symbol of their god, painted on their foreheads, should 
 be painted up-and-down or cross-wise. But these modern 
 idolaters war with one another for the changing of those 
 figures which are merely the symbol of a symbol. The God 
 of Wealth, called by many names since first the mind of 
 man conceived the idea of owning things, the God of 
 Wealth is symbolised for them by the mine, the company, 
 the railroad. But they do not worship the mine, the com- 
 pany, the railroad ; they worship the symbol of these symbols, 
 an~d they seem to change it every day, every moment. At 
 a quarter before three, 99f was the symbol of a certain 
 avatar of their god; at three o'clock they changed the 
 symbol to 100, and to-morrow morning they will change 
 it again. But however they change the symbols, the god 
 remains the same; he is one and eternal, but he has more 
 than the ' ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah.' Yes, I 
 repeat, their religious symbolism is involved. I suppose 
 those men whom I saw and heard in the temple yonder 
 may be called the priests of the faith. Their devotion is 
 evidently sincere, though their rites of worship are dis- 
 tressingly noisy."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THAT night, when Lawrence came home to dinner, his 
 mother beckoned him into the kitchen and carefully closed 
 the door. She stopped to pour some hot water from the 
 tea-kettle into a dish of vegetables boiling on the fire, then 
 motioned her son to a chair on one side of the deal table, 
 and sat down herself on the other side. 
 
 "Well!" she exclaimed. "Have you any idea of the 
 sort of man that is living with us here?" 
 
 " Why, don't you like him ? " he asked. 
 
 " Like him ? I should say I do ! But have you any 
 idea what he is? Of course you haven't; how could you? 
 But I want to tell you that he is the most remarkable 
 human being it has ever been my lot to meet. I never read 
 in any book such things as he says, offhand, as if they 
 were nothing at all and he talking to a stupid old woman 
 like me! Take my word for it, that young man is going 
 to do something which will make the world open its eyes. 
 I don't know what, and I don't know how nor when; 
 but you will have reason some day to remember my words." 
 
 " I am glad you like him," said Lawrence, his imagina- 
 tion kindling at her words, for the spark which had lighted 
 his early youth had not been altogether smothered by his 
 seven years' grind in a business office; and there was some- 
 thing in the personality of this chance-met stranger that 
 tugged at his thoughts all day long. 
 
 A few minutes later, when the three were seated at the 
 table in the dining-room, Lawrence said: 
 
 " I have a little surprise for you two theatre tickets," 
 and he displayed the small pieces of cardboard. " The 
 boss gave them to me, so they must be good seats. His 
 wife is sick, and they couldn't use them. You and Jesse 
 can have these, Mother, and I'll get another seat in the 
 balcony, and meet you at the door when the play is over." 
 
 But Mrs. Lane had promised to spend the evening with 
 
 135
 
 136 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 a friend who had a new-born baby, so she told the two 
 young men to go to the theatre. 
 
 The seats proved to be good ones, in the fifth row of 
 the orchestra, and the play was a classic which Jesse had 
 always desired to see. In the middle of the first act he 
 missed some of the lines through the rustling of a party of 
 young people that came in late and settled themselves in 
 one of the boxes on the right, only a few feet away from 
 him; but after the momentary disturbance, he thought no 
 more about them. 
 
 When the act was over and the lights went up, Jesse 
 looked around him. It was a brilliant audience, the first- 
 night audience of a famous English star, and the house 
 was full of men and women in evening dress; but though 
 Jesse was all unconscious of it, his vivid, singular appear- 
 ance attracted much attention. People all over the house 
 were whispering together about him. Who was he? Some 
 celebrity, no doubt, and what a wonderful head ! 
 
 The roving eyes of Lawrence Lane discovered the inter- 
 est that centred about Jesse, and a thrill of pride lifted 
 the narrow chest of the clerk. 
 
 " I've been trying to feel sorry for the sickness of my 
 employer's wife which was the cause of our having these 
 seats," he said ; " but I really can't, you know. I wonder 
 how he came to offer them to me instead of to one of his 
 friends; he never did such a thing before." 
 
 Jesse smiled. "Who can say? an impulse, a wander- 
 ing thought, maybe. Only this morning I was wishing that 
 I might see a really great drama." 
 
 " I like the audience quite as well as the stage," said 
 Lawrence. " Look, Jesse, what a handsome woman that is 
 in the box at the right, the one in the pale y el low_ dress." 
 
 Jesse looked. He caught his breath for it was Mary 
 Magnus. She sat within ten feet of him, beautiful and 
 proud, as if no shadow of pain had ever touched her. 
 Around her form fell the soft folds of a classic gown; 
 her arms and shoulders were bare and unmarred by any 
 jewel, but round her black hair was a Greek fillet of 
 diamonds. 
 
 It was nearly five years since that evening in her father's 
 garden, when she had opened her strange heart to him and
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 137 
 
 wept her terrible tears. It was four years that month 
 since he had received her letter from California, with its 
 wild and naked revelations. Time had deepened her dark 
 beauty, had given a surer poise to the head, a steadier look 
 to the eyes. Gazing at her, there gradually grew in him 
 a consciousness of some unusual power in this woman. 
 What was it? . . . Something more subtle than her 
 beauty, more potent than her charm. . . . Suddenly 
 it flashed upon him; it startled him, for the idea was one 
 which he could not have shared with the mental and ethical 
 children surrounding him. He was a fearless thinker, a 
 man so pure in heart that he could look upon impurity 
 without shuddeiing. The power he realised in Mary 
 Magnus was her fearlessness, her consistency, in daring to 
 put in practice her own convictions. Could it be that a 
 great sinner and a great saint w r ere made of the same mate- 
 rial? The idea was new to him; but he followed it to the 
 end, as he was wont to follow every new idea. He told 
 himself that fearlessness, that rarest quality of the soul, was 
 a basic quality in the character of those who could touch 
 either extreme of the long ethical ladder. What might she 
 not become, this woman who dared to be herself, if once 
 that self were firmly rooted in the Spirit! The idea made 
 him catch his breath. It should be it must be. It was 
 in accordance with the Law of Life; for power is power, 
 and needs but to be wisely directed. 
 
 At that moment the orchestra began to play. After 
 the first few bars the music seemed familiar to Jesse; some- 
 where he had heard it before. Then he remembered : this 
 was the music she had played for him that night in Ver- 
 gennes when the possibilities of tone were first revealed 
 to him. 
 
 Before this, the woman in the box had sat silent and 
 impassive, paying but slight attention to the chattering 
 group surrounding her; but she now leaned slightly for- 
 ward in her chair, looking out at the sea of faces in the 
 body of the house with searching, restless eyes. Then she 
 saw Jesse. All the bright colour went suddenly out of her 
 face; her eyelids fluttered, and she put out her hands as if 
 groping in darkness. After a moment she rose unsteadily, 
 and turned toward the back of the box.
 
 138 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Jesse saw a tall man putting a cloak around her shoul- 
 ders; he saw the questioning looks in the faces of the other 
 women as they turned to her. Mary leaned toward them 
 and said something; then, followed by the tall man, she 
 passed quickly from the box, down the side-aisle and out 
 of the house, without looking back.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE next morning Jesse began his work in the great 
 Library. He explained to the Librarian that he wanted to 
 study the history of the world's chief religions; that he 
 would be in New York only three months, but could read 
 the greater part of every day. 
 
 " The time is short," said the Librarian ; " but I will 
 help you all I can. You have read much already, I sup- 
 pose ? Where do you want to begin ? " 
 
 " I have read only a little, and I will begin with Egypt." 
 
 He was directed to the reading-room, where he saw a 
 crowd of men, young and old, well-dressed and shabby, 
 poring over piles of books. Books, books, books! The 
 heart of Jesse beat hard. Here was the opportunity he had 
 so long needed, the privilege to examine the records of the 
 world's life. He thought of the library of Herman Mag- 
 nus, in Vergennes, which had once seemed to him so im- 
 portant. What were those few thousands of volumes com- 
 pared with the million in this great dusky place? He would 
 begin with Egypt, the land of the thrice great one Hermes 
 Trismegistus ; then he would pass to India, the cradle of 
 religions and philosophies; then to China, land of Lao-tsze, 
 father and master of the paradox; then down through the 
 centuries. Only three months! It seemed like a day in the 
 building of the pyramids. But he knew exactly what he 
 sought, and that knowledge would shorten the labour. 
 There was no time for ornamental detail; no embroidery 
 of theory upon the fabric of the fact was necessary here, 
 only the knowledge of how the spiritual idea had taken 
 concrete form in the history of the world. He had no 
 need to ask w-hat the masters had taught, but only how 
 they had taught. The spiritual idea was already his own; 
 a lifetime of reading Would not change nor improve it; 
 but as he had studied what his father and other carpen- 
 ters knew of the science and art of building, so he would 
 
 139
 
 i 4 o THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 now study what history knew of the science and art of 
 teaching the knowledge of God. At this period of his 
 life he was very reticent concerning his plans and pur- 
 poses; and there was one idea, one realisation the greatest 
 of a ll of which he never spoke to anyone. 
 
 Jesse's thoughts were interrupted by the return of the 
 Librarian, directing an attendant laden with many books. 
 
 "'This will do for a beginning," he said. " Do you 
 read the European languages?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " That is unfortunate ; out there is much in English. 
 One of the best books on the subject is not here; I have 
 it in my own private library at home. . . . Yes, I will 
 bring it down for you to-morrow." 
 
 Jesse's smile of thanks lighted the room, and the Li- 
 brarian warmed to him at once. This man was a scholar 
 of unusual attainments, quick to observe and to smile at 
 ignorant presumption, but the most helpful man in New 
 York to any serious student. 
 
 " I have some other rare books which are not in the Li- 
 brary," he added. " Perhaps but you had better go 
 through these first." Then he went away and left the 
 young man to his reading. 
 
 That afternoon, in passing through the entrance hall, 
 Jesse again met the Librarian. A lot of heavy cases were 
 being carried into the building more books, to be added 
 to the million already there. 
 
 " I have been thinking," said Jesse, " what a perfect 
 illustration this place is of the interdependence of spirit 
 and matter. The souls of two or three hundred thousand 
 men, their lives, their wrestlings with the unseen, the 
 very beatings of their hearts, their messages to us who 
 come after, all and each of them dependent on a few 
 sheets of flimsy paper, that a spark from a lighted match 
 in the hand of a child could reduce to nothing in a few 
 minutes. And yet I have read the words of men who 
 prate of matter's being an illusion; have read their prepos- 
 terous statements printed on paper, a form of matter; read 
 them with the aid of my two eyes, another form of mat- 
 ter. Verily, a most convincing illusion, this mysterious 
 matter, which they deny. According to them, if a man's
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 141 
 
 head is real, his feet must be an illusion. Outside the end- 
 less universe they place their changeless God, and out of 
 endless change they make nothingness, an illusion. 
 
 " I am a carpenter," Jesse went on, " and the spirituality 
 of such men seems to me about as useful as a ridge-pole 
 without a roof." 
 
 The Librarian went on to his desk, stopping to say to 
 one of his assistants : " There's a young carpenter in the 
 reading-room who talks like a philosopher, and looks like 
 well, I won't say what, but just go in and look at him. 
 He's sitting under the clock." 
 
 The next morning, in glancing over the newspaper, Jesse 
 saw in a list of departing travellers for Europe the name 
 of Mary Magnus. He wondered if she had gone away 
 to avoid the possibility of meeting him again. Did she 
 regret the confidence she had given him in her strange let- 
 ter four years before? Or did she regret the acts which 
 were the basis of that confidence? If she was afraid to 
 meet his eyes, how little she must realise the gentleness 
 of his judgment; how little she must realise the unalter- 
 able nature of his friendship. He was sorry to learn that 
 she had gone away ; but he said to himself, " Mary will 
 come to me some day of her own accord, whatever her mo- 
 tive, whatever her feeling. The fearless soul which could 
 send me s-uch a letter will serve of its own choice the fear- 
 less faith I have to give the world." 
 
 A few evenings later a strange thing happened. Jesse 
 was passing through Washington Square about nine 
 o'clock, when a young woman spoke to him. A loaded 
 wagon was passing by at the moment, and he did not 
 catch her words. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, courteously. 
 
 She repeated her remark. 
 
 " I do not understand " 
 
 As he stood under the electric street-lamp he removed 
 his hat, and the white light, falling straight down, was like 
 a nimbus of glory around his ineffably beautiful head. 
 The girl's eyes widened and stared; her face turned so 
 pale that the dashes of rouge on her cheeks were like two 
 blood spots; then suddenly she gave a wild scream, and, 
 turning, fled away into the night.
 
 I 4 2 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Her life was changed from that hour. " I have had a 
 vision," was the only explanation she would give to her 
 mocking and incredulous companions, and their ribald 
 laughter had no effect on her. The next day she went 
 to work as a waitress in a cheap restaurant; and whenever 
 in future she was not able to earn her bread, she went with- 
 out it. But all this Jesse never knew. 
 
 One afternoon in the early part of February Mrs. Lane 
 went to spend the night with a friend in Brooklyn, leaving 
 her son and Jesse alone together. They ate the dinner, cold 
 but plentiful, which the mother had left on the table for 
 them ; then Jesse proposed a walk in the fresh night air. He 
 had noticed that Lawrence was pale that -evening, and 
 thought that a brisk half-hour of exercise would bring the 
 healthy colour back to his face. 
 
 " I've been working harder than usual," Lawrence said, 
 as they walked up the avenue. " My head is heavy, and 
 there's a buzzing in my ears. Sister Martha says that I 
 stay in the house too much; but then, Martha's always 
 troubling herself about something or other. She's so dif- 
 ferent from Mary, who seems to care for nothing but 
 reading and dreaming. I think you'd like Mary. Yes, 
 and you'd like Martha, too. They're both good girls; 
 but Mary suits me better, because she lets me alone, and 
 Martha doesn't." 
 
 When they reached home Lawrence flung himself down 
 on the lounge in the sitting-room, and Jesse sat in a chair 
 beside him. A real friendship had sprung up between these 
 two young men, so different in every way. The volatile 
 nature of Lawrence, one day nervous to the point of ir- 
 ritability, the next day listless to the point of inertia, 
 found in the sweet, poised nature of Jesse a strength 
 whereon it joyed to Jean. He had always been rather soli- 
 tary in his ways, having few companions and no intimates, 
 seeming to prefer his own lonely and aimless musings to 
 the vulgar or insipid pleasures dear to his fellow clerks. 
 Mrs. Lane had said one day to Jesse that he was the only 
 intimate friend her son had ever made. 
 
 Lying on the lounge that evening, idly smoking his 
 cigarette, Lawrence confided to Jesse his plans for the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 143 
 
 future. He was not satisfied with the limited spaces of a 
 small city flat, with one-quarter of his salary going out 
 each month for rent; he longed for the greater freedom of 
 the semi-country, where he could have a little house and 
 garden of his own. Every year he was laying aside a small 
 amount of money, and when he should have enough to buy 
 a plot of ground and build a house, the venture was to be 
 made. 
 
 "I've already chosen the neighbourhood," he said, with 
 more enthusiasm than Jesse had ever seen him show before. 
 " You have never been across the Fort Lee Ferry and 
 along the top of the Palisades; but that is the place I mean 
 to live in, some day. It's near enough to the city for me 
 to reach the office in a reasonable time; it's far away 
 enough to be beyond the noise, the dust, and the tiresome 
 brick and granite, and to have green trees and grass- 
 long grass that a fellow can tangle his feet in." 
 
 Jesse smiled in loving sympathy. " I hope you may 
 have the home you desire," he said, " and have it soon. 
 One green tree with a bird's nest in it is more of a home 
 than a palace full of princes." 
 
 Then Jesse rose and went into the bedroom to get a book 
 of nature poems; there was a lyric in it which he wished 
 to read to Lawrence. 
 
 Returning to the sitting-room, he was startled to see his 
 friend lying apparently unconscious, with half-open glassy 
 eyes and ash-coloured face. Save for a drawn, anxious ex- 
 pression, his countenance was that of the dead. Jesse took 
 his hand ; it lay cold and flaccid in his grasp. Could this 
 be death? What sudden change had passed over this man, 
 a moment ago in perfect health, that he should wear the 
 mask of the grave? Bewildered by the unexpected visita- 
 tion, Jesse stood over him. But something, a subtle per- 
 ception he could not have analysed, made him feel that 
 this semblance of death was only a semblance, and gave 
 him the will to end the ghastly stillness. 
 
 Firmly he placed his hand upon the head of the uncon- 
 scious man. 
 
 " Lawrence," he said, in a commanding voice, " Law- 
 rence." 
 
 The body stirred, tne eyes opened wider, the lips con-
 
 144 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 tracted, and the light of consciousness came suddenly back 
 to the grey face. 
 
 "Why . . . why . . . what is the matter?" 
 Lawrence stammered. " Did you speak to me ? " 
 
 Jesse drew up a chair and sat down beside him, taking 
 one of the listless hands between his own and rubbing it. 
 
 " You are all right again now," he said, convincingly. 
 " No, do not close your eyes; keep them open, and look 
 at me." 
 
 " It seems so strange," the other murmured, half-ab- 
 sently. " I thought . . . why are you rubbing my 
 hands?" 
 
 " You may sit up now," said Jesse, and Lawrence sat up. 
 
 " I am going to get you a glass of water. Do not lie 
 down no, I forbid you." 
 
 Lawrence drank the water, then Jesse made him rise and 
 walk about the room. After a few minutes of this ex- 
 ercise he let him sit down again. 
 
 " Now, Lawrence," Jesse said, " tell me what hap- 
 pened after I left the room the first time." 
 
 "Why . . . what were we talking about?" 
 
 " The home on the Palisades which you hope to have 
 some day." 
 
 "Oh, yes! And you said something about a green tree 
 with a bird's nest in it. I must have been thinking of the 
 bird's nest, and then ... I wasn't thinking of any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Yes, I understand, " replied Jesse ; then, perceiving 
 that his friend was now in a normal state, he told him the 
 whole story. 
 
 "That's very strange," the young man muttered, "very 
 strange. I'm sure I never had an attack like that before. 
 And -Oh, Jesse! I'm so glad Mother wasn't here! Now 
 promise me that you won't tell Mother, nor anybody else." 
 
 And Jesse promised. But from that night he kept his 
 friend in the open air during the greater part of his leisure 
 time; and often, on Sundays, took him away from the 
 city, down by the winter sea. Though neither of them 
 ever referred to the strange cataleptic seizure, Lawrence 
 understood that Jesse was acting the part of a wise phy- 
 sician, and yielded to him accordingly.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 DURIXG the remainder of Jesse's stay in New York, his 
 days were mostly spent in the Library. He read not only 
 the history of religions, but the history of nations, and their 
 poetry. The ease and quickness with which he mastered 
 the contents of any book were a source of wonder to his 
 friend the Librarian. Given a capacious memory and an 
 ardent, selective interest in the story of the world, one may 
 learn much in even so short a time as three months, espe- 
 cially when one has constantly beside one a man who knows 
 practically everything, and such, a man was that Librarian. 
 But never a word did Jesse speak to him of the great 
 plan which dominated all his studies; no proof of his nat- 
 ural healing power did he vouchsafe to anyone in New 
 York, except Lawrence Lane. With unerring instinct for 
 the inevitable sequence of events, he knew that the time 
 for these things was not yet come. This was his receptive 
 period, the period of gestation for his destined work; the 
 birth-time would be several years away. Not yet were 
 his powers developed to the full. Many times still must 
 the circling seasons, passing round the globe, mellow his 
 soul with toil and silence and meditation. At that early 
 stage of his progress, had he hinted to anyone of the dizzy 
 mountain peak that was the goal of his daring, whose 
 faith would have been strong enough to speed him on the 
 way? Who would not have retarded him by the drag of 
 pardonable doubt ? " To know, to dare, to act, and to 
 be silent " : this was the discipline which should perfect his 
 destiny. 
 
 And not only did he study books; he studied men also, 
 going alone into the poorest and most dangerous quarters 
 of the city, inviting the confidence of those whom misery 
 and injustice had robbed of confidence in all, even God. 
 To the knowledge of beauty and joy he added the knowl- 
 edge of wretchedness, without which no man may aspire 
 to master-wisdom. 
 
 145
 
 146 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 True to his promise, Jesse sent for his mother to meet 
 him in New York for the last week of his sojourn. 
 
 Mary Bethel, following the minute directions given in 
 his letter, passed with trembling heart along the crowded 
 platform of the station, through the gates, and into the 
 outstretched arms of her waiting son. The three long 
 months of his absence had been shortened for her by visions 
 of this hour; for now was to come the realisation of her 
 years of longing to behold the wonders of the great outer 
 world. 
 
 " You'll give your mother every hour of these seven 
 days, won't you, my son?" she pleaded, as they passed 
 along the noisy street toward the train which was to take 
 them to Mrs. Lane's. 
 
 "Yes, Mother, every hour." 
 
 " And shall I see all the great things you have written 
 me about, and all the things in the New .York book you 
 sent me ? " 
 
 " All these and more, dear heart." 
 
 " I wish your father could have lived to see you a grown 
 man, taking your mother on journeys to the city, and mak- 
 ing friends for her among strange people. How proud he 
 would be! Is this Mrs. Lane a haughty woman? Will 
 she think me countrified and awkward ? " 
 
 Jesse smiled down at her. 
 
 " Why, Mother, she is as simple and unassuming as you 
 are, and not nearly so good-looking. There, you're smiling 
 now, and I like to see it; your smile is like sunlight on a 
 bed of pansies." 
 
 " You say such lovely things, Jesse ! I'm always won- 
 dering how a simple woman like me could ever have been 
 the mother of a man like you." 
 
 "Why, it's because you are simple and like a child that 
 you could be my mother. An artificial and worldly woman 
 would never have a son like me." 
 
 " I fear I don't know much about the world." 
 
 " So much the better, Mother." 
 
 As they climbed the stairs of the elevated railway Mary 
 Bethel clung to Jesse's arm. It was six o'clock in the 
 evening, and the stairs and platforms were crowded with 
 people.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 147 
 
 " Here everybody seems to wear their best clothes all 
 the time," she whispered to him, as they stood waiting for 
 the down-train. 
 
 " You look very nice yourself, Mother. That must be 
 a new dress, for I don't remember having seen it before, 
 and your hat is becoming; those blue flowers make you 
 look young. I showed Mrs. Lane your picture the other 
 day, and she said your face was like the face in a famous 
 painting. She is pleased that you are coming to visit her." 
 
 So with sweet and graceful words Jesse put his mother 
 entirely at her ease. With his sure intuition of the human 
 heart, he had observed that when men and women are 
 shyly pleased with themselves, others are almost certain 
 to be pleased with them, and they to be pleased with 
 others. By the time they reached the little house near 
 Washington Square, Mary Bethel felt that she was going 
 to an old friend whom she had known for a lifetime. And 
 Mrs. Lane's enthusiastic welcome confirmed the impression. 
 Jesse's friend received his mother with a sisterly kiss on the 
 cheek, and gave her own room to her, taking the smaller 
 one usually occupied by Lawrence, who was to sleep for 
 a week on the couch in the sitting-room. 
 
 Jesse was even more lovable than usual that evening, 
 his smile, his wit, his affectionate glance, playing from 
 one to another of his charmed companions. The two mid- 
 dle-aged women and the young man hung upon his words, 
 and seemed in spirit to be hanging about his neck. Mary 
 Bethel realised the change, the growth in power and dig- 
 nity, which had expanded the personality of her son in 
 these three months of their separation. The growth had 
 been continual for years; but being with him every day, 
 she had not realised it. Now when she saw it, she was 
 pleased, a little awed, and tremulously happy. 
 
 " There will be two lonely people in this house when 
 your son leaves us," Mrs. Lane said to Mary Bethel, as 
 the four sat around the dinner-table. " He has been to 
 us like a visitor from another planet." 
 
 Mary smiled. " That is what I used to tell my husband 
 about him when he was a baby." 
 
 Jesse sat between the two women, and he laid an arm 
 tenderly about the shoulders of each.
 
 i 4 8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I am happy that you two love each other, because you 
 both love me," he said. " Love is a limitless ocean ; the 
 heart-cups of all humanity may be filled to overflowing 
 with its waters, without lowering its tides by so much as 
 a hair's breadth; the more you take from it, the more re- 
 turns to it again. Is that not so, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " According to mathematics," Lawrence began ; but his 
 mother shook her finger at him. 
 
 " Jesse knows the higher mathematics of the soul, which 
 makes your accurate figuring seem only half true, after 
 all." 
 
 Lawrence smiled across the table at Jesse. He could 
 no more have been jealous of his mother's love for this 
 great friend than he could have begrudged her praises of 
 the morning sun that lighted her chamber. Even at the 
 early age of twenty-three, Jesse inspired an unquestioning 
 devotion in those whom he gathered to his heart. Jealous 
 among themselves they might be of the love which he gave 
 to each and all of them; but jealous of the love which he 
 inspired never. A slight superiority in a fellow being 
 may arouse resentment; a great superiority may be accepted 
 like a fact in nature, a mountain, a cataract, or a star. 
 
 " I will go even farther in the higher mathematics of 
 love," said Jesse, smiling back at Lawrence: "The more 
 love we give away, the more we have to keep; the more 
 we scatter our love among a myriad dear ones, the more 
 concentrated is our love." 
 
 " If Jesse should tell my mother that the sun moved 
 round the earth," laughed Lawrence, " she would dispute 
 all the astronomers on the strength of his bare assertion." 
 
 " And the statement would be relatively true," Jesse 
 insisted. " A relative truth depends upon the angle from 
 which we view a fact. From the standpoint of the earth, 
 the sun moves; from the standpoint of the solar system, it 
 does not. I had not gone far in my observations of the 
 universe before I discovered that everything has two sides; 
 that a fact may be true to itself and seemingly false in re- 
 lation to something else; that a thing, in effect, is both 
 what it is to itself and what it appears to be to others 
 to each and all of the others. For instance: To you who 
 love me, I am one who speaks with the authority of knowl-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 149 
 
 edge; to my friend the learned Librarian, I am a young 
 workingman from the country, with the habit of silence 
 and a taste for books. Now each of these minor truths is 
 a part of the great truth of Jesse Bethel." 
 
 "And what is that great truth about you?" urged his 
 mother. " Tell us, Jesse." 
 
 His eyes deepened until they seemed like wells of fathom- 
 less blue water reflecting the fire of an invisible sun. 
 
 " Is it not enough that you love me and that I love 
 you ? " he asked. " Trust me a little longer to keep in 
 silence the whole truth about myself." 
 
 They gazed at him in bewilderment. Never before had 
 he spoken directly to anyone of a guarded secret that he 
 might not share. With the intuition of love they recog- 
 nised that the seed of some stupendous thing was ger- 
 minating in their presence. They were all suddenly silent; 
 an uneasy seriousness, like a premonition, made them turn 
 and furtively question each other with their eyes. For a 
 moment Jesse seemed lost in thought; then, glancing up, 
 and seeing the look on their faces, he was overpowered by 
 the isolation of one who inspires a respect that merges into 
 awe. He shuddered slightly. Oh! not yet had he to bear 
 the burden of his unique destiny not yet! 
 
 He clapped his hands together, as if to break the spell 
 that lay upon him; he laughed lightly, and rising from the 
 table began to gather the dishes near him into a neat pile. 
 
 " Let us be children together for this evening," he said, 
 " and we will begin by helping Mrs. Lane to clear away 
 the dinner things. Lawrence, you and I will carry the 
 dishes into the kitchen, Mrs. Lane shall wash them and 
 Mother wipe them, and you and I will put them back into 
 the cupboard." 
 
 With the sound of laughter and the clatter of plates 
 the merry work went on. Then Jesse proposed that they 
 should all take a walk up Broadway, that his mother might 
 see the brilliant lights and the crowds of gaily-dressed 
 people. 
 
 They went into a confectioner's place and ate ice-cream; 
 they joined the crowd in a theatre lobby; they examined 
 the giant presses through the windows of a great news- 
 paper building; they looked into the shop-windows; they
 
 150 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 had coffee in a blue and white tiled restaurant, and then 
 rode home in a surface-car at half past ten, tired and 
 happy. In amusing his mother Jesse was able to forget, 
 for the time being, the weight of his great secret. 
 
 For a week he gave almost every hour to her who had 
 given so many hours to him. Mary Bethel saw as much 
 of New York as a woman of moderate means can see in 
 seven days. She, too, like Mrs. Lane on the first day of 
 her sightseeing with Jesse, observed the looks of wonder- 
 ing admiration that followed him wherever he went. His 
 presence was, in a way, a protection to her shyness; he was 
 so interesting that no one looked beyond him to her. 
 
 " It makes no difference what we wear," said Mrs. Lane 
 to her one day as they were putting on their hats for a 
 visit to the Park. " We are like two inconspicuous blades 
 of grass which grow beside a rose-bush." And the heart 
 of Jesse's mother swelled with loving pride. 
 
 At last the hour of farewell came. On a fresh, sunny 
 morning in early April, Mrs. Lane went with them to the 
 station, and her gentle blue eyes were full of tears all the 
 way from Washington Square to Forty-second Street. 
 
 " Oh ! shall I never see you again ? " she whispered, as 
 she clung to Jesse's hand at the foot of the car-steps. 
 
 " Have you not promised to visit us in the summer of 
 next year?" he smiled at her. "And don't you mean to 
 keep your promise ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes; but, somehow Oh, it is so hard to let you 
 go! " And she put her motherly arms about his neck 
 and kissed him with a sobbing good-bye. 
 
 When the train had started, Jesse turned to his mother: 
 " I could not give a reason for the impression; but I also 
 feel that Mrs. Lane and I will never meet again." 
 
 " Do you think she is going to die ? " 
 
 "I cannot tell." But he did not say that such was not 
 his impression. 
 
 Mary was silent for some time. Then she put out her 
 hand and touched Jesse. 
 
 " I wonder if you will think me nervous or fanciful," 
 she ventured. " Maybe I am both ; but through all my 
 pleasure in this great city has run a feeling of dread, of
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 151 
 
 dread for you. Something I don't know what, but some 
 great awful thing has been hovering over me all the 
 while. I have wakened three times with a terrible dream 
 that I had lost you for ever among those crowds. Once I 
 got up at dawn and went into your room to make sure 
 that you were really there, the dream was so vivid." 
 
 " It may be so," he answered. 
 
 " Then promise me, Jesse, that you will never go down 
 there again ! " 
 
 " I cannot promise you that, Mother." 
 
 " But why ? What is New York to you ? It is not 
 your home; you do not belong there." 
 
 "A part of my life belongs there, is inevitably there." 
 
 " I do not understand. . . . Oh, Jesse, you frighten 
 me ! Why are your eyes so strange ? " 
 
 He stroked the faithful hand which lay on his arm. 
 
 " Don't you agree with me that one should not be a 
 coward and run away from one's destiny? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know anything about destiny! I only 
 know that I dread the thought of your going again to that 
 terrible city. Suppose some awful thing should happen 
 to you there?" 
 
 " Well, suppose it should, little Mother. The price of 
 the song is the singer."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 AFTER the death of Mrs. Lane, in the following summer, 
 Lawrence brought his two sisters to Myra for a fortnight's 
 visit to Mary Bethel and Jesse. 
 
 The two girls were very unlike. Martha, the elder by 
 two or three years, was a staid and almost matronly 
 young woman, and in her mourning garments appeared 
 older than she really was. Her dark hair was parted and 
 worn in waveless bands on each side of her face, and her 
 steady grey eyes regarded the world as if it were an in- 
 experienced child which it was her duty to approve, or 
 reprimand, or otherwise guide in the way it should go. 
 
 Mary Lane was slighter and fairer than her sister, and 
 her yellow-brown hair curled softly over a forehead which 
 concealed more intellect than practical judgment. She re- 
 garded herself not the world as the inexperienced child, 
 and she went to wise and beautiful books for instruction 
 to an extent which called forth the constant warnings of 
 Martha that she would spoil her eyes. When Mary was 
 extremely rebellious, for her, she would gently reply, " To 
 what better purpose could I use my eyes ? " 
 
 Mary had not been more than five minutes under the 
 same roof with Jesse Bethel before she perceived that here 
 at last was the fellow dreamer for whom her loneliness 
 had always been yearning. 
 
 " You also love books, don't you ? " she shyly observed, 
 on the morning of her arrival, glancing longingly at Jesse's 
 well-filled shelves. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "better than anything else in the 
 world, except my fellow beings." 
 
 " And you really love your fellow beings ? " 
 
 " Deeply. Don't you? " 
 
 "Y-yes," she hesitated, "when they don't weary me." 
 
 "The books you enjoy were all written by your fellow 
 beings," Jesse answered her. 
 
 " Oh ! " and her blue eyes opened wide. " But I've 
 never known any of that sort of people." 
 
 152
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 153 
 
 " Then rejoice, little sister, for you have met one of 
 that sort now," declared Lawrence, who was also in the 
 room. " Jesse talks in the way those authors of yours 
 write, only better. I'd rather listen to him than to read 
 Epictetus." 
 
 Mary made no answer, and Jesse could not. The time 
 had not yet come when he had so far sacrificed himself 
 that he could exalt himself, as an illustration of the prin- 
 ciples he taught. The price of that privilege he was not 
 yet rich enough to pay. So he was modestly silent when 
 admiring friends compared him to the great ones of the 
 past whom he knew to be his spiritual kindred. 
 
 During this visit Lawrence told Jesse that he had se- 
 lected the site for his future suburban home, had bought 
 the land and was gradually paying for it. An uncle of 
 his had joined in the venture, and when the lot was paid 
 for they were going to build a house. 
 
 " Shall you have a tree with a bird's nest in it? " Jesse 
 asked. 
 
 Lawrence started at the veiled reference to his cataleptic 
 seizure of the year before. " Oh, Jesse ! You won't say 
 anything to either of the girls about that, will you?" 
 
 " Of course not, without your assent. Have you had 
 a recurrence of the trouble ? " 
 
 " No. But if I ever should, I pray God you may be 
 there to bring me out of it! I often wake in the night 
 shivering with fear." 
 
 " I add my prayer to yours," Jesse declared fervently, 
 his eyes deepening and darkening with the force of his 
 feeling. " But do not think about it, Lawrence, and do 
 not permit yourself to shiver with fear at the thought. 
 The thing we fear is a tyrant possessing our souls, and if 
 we fear it hard enough we draw it toward us through the 
 power of attraction by opposites. Still, I think you should 
 tell your sisters, as a precaution against " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " cried Lawrence. " Martha would make my 
 life a burden to me by her ceaseless admonitions, and the 
 knowledge would make Mary unhappy." 
 
 " The right of decision is unquestionably yours," Jerse 
 returned ; " my duty my privilege, even is limited to the 
 offering of counsel."
 
 154 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 One afternoon when Martha went upstairs to the room 
 the two girls occupied together, she found her sister in 
 tears. Going to the bed where Mary was lying, face 
 downward, she placed her motherly hand on the girl's 
 forehead. Mary was gentle and subdued, even in weep- 
 ing; to have torn her sister's heart by distressing sobs would 
 have seemed to her unkind. But Martha felt, by the 
 quivering of the slight form on the bed, that whatever 
 emotion Mary might be struggling with, it was something 
 out of the ordinary course of her quiet, book-filled life. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Martha sympathetically, 
 for she deeply loved her dreamy sister. 
 
 " I don't know," was Mary's answer, though her tears 
 trickled afresh over Martha's hand. 
 
 "You can't possibly be crying about nothing. Why do 
 you tremble so? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 Martha pressed a soft kiss on the girl's cheek, and went 
 downstairs to consult with Mary Bethel. 
 
 " I never knew my sister to act like this before," she 
 said, after telling the older woman all she knew about the 
 matter. " Can it be possible that she is going to have an 
 illness?" 
 
 " I do not think so," replied the mother of Jesse. 
 
 " Then why does she quiver so ? and why does even my 
 touch seem to hurt her? I have never understood my sis- 
 ter, though she is dearer to me than anything else in the 
 world; that is why I have come to you now. Did you 
 ever cry like that when you were a girl? I'm sure I never 
 did." And the usually stolid Martha rocked rapidly back- 
 ward and forward in her little wicker chair. 
 
 Mary Bethel, who was sitting opposite, slowly threaded 
 a needle and sewed several stitches in the cambric garment 
 she was making for her eldest son, before answering her 
 puzzled guest. Finally she said: 
 
 " I don't think you can help the girl any by making 
 yourself unhappy about her. A long time ago it seems 
 to me now a very long time ago I was myself much like 
 this other Mary. She reminds me of my own youth con- 
 tinually. And there was a season in my life, when I was 
 about her age, that I used to cry myself to sleep every
 
 155 
 
 night. And all day long, as I went about my duties, the 
 tears were waiting for the night behind my eyes. But 
 no one ever knew anything about it. A few years later I 
 married, and my husband always told me that I was a good 
 wife and mother. I am sure I have been happy yes, hap- 
 pier than any other woman I know. So, if I were you, 
 I wouldn't trouble about my sister, and, above all, I 
 wouldn't tell any one else that I had found her crying; 
 for she would not want them to know." 
 
 " Probably you are right," Martha reluctantly admitted; 
 " but still I don't understand." 
 
 Then she rose quickly and went out into the yard, to 
 warn Lawrence that he would catch cold if he sat on the 
 wet grass, for it had been raining. 
 
 When she was gone, Mary Bethel's hands lay motionless 
 in her lap, against the soft garment she was making, and 
 her glance turned to the open window turned to_ the 
 place, a short distance away, where Jesse was standing 
 bareheaded beneath a tree, talking to Lawrence and Mar- 
 tha, his face alight with the beauty of some flaming 
 thought. 
 
 The mother knew why the girl upstairs had stolen away 
 to weep alone; but she would not betray her secret to the 
 unimaginative sister, and she had wisely provided against 
 Martha's inadvertently betraying it by making a matter of 
 household curiosity the mystery of Mary's tears. 
 
 Soon the three who had been talking in the yard came 
 together through the doorway of the room where the 
 mother sat. Jesse was between the brother and sister, 
 a fraternal arm thrown lightly about the shoulders of each. 
 
 "Does anyone know where Mary is?" he asked. "I 
 haven't seen her for an hour." 
 
 " Mary is lying down," replied Martha. " She often 
 takes a nap in the afternoon." 
 
 A few days later came the end of Lawrence's vacation, 
 and he and his sisters returned to New York.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 FOR five years longer Jesse lived quietly, and meditated, 
 and worked at his trade as carpenter in Myra. He saved 
 some money, and began building independently, thus win- 
 ning for himself abundant leisure for study, and some de- 
 gree of material prosperity. Those five years were the 
 period of his greatest growth, in mind, in faith, in con- 
 sciousness of power. His very presence seemed to radiate 
 light as he passed along the streets of the little village of 
 his adoption. None guessed the secret of his influence, but 
 everybody felt it. The beautiful man who dwelt so si- 
 lently among them was ever in the thoughts of these peo- 
 ple; without knowing why, they found their minds revert- 
 ing to him at all times and seasons. The young women 
 and maidens dreamed about him and grew pensive at the 
 mention of his name; the old women and the mothers 
 of little children whom he loved were open in their en- 
 thusiasm for him; the young men came to him for advice 
 and sometimes for assistance; the old men counselled with 
 him in the management of their affairs. So those five years 
 went by. 
 
 One day in the spring after Jesse was twenty-nine he 
 told his mother that he had decided to go to Capronville, 
 a prosperous village some forty miles to the south-west, on 
 the Nashburgh side of the mountain. Jesse's two brothers 
 were now married and settled comfortably in Myra, and 
 he advised his mother to give up her house and go to live 
 with Henry and his family, who had long wanted her. 
 Timidly she expressed a wish to go with Jesse to Capron- 
 ville, but he told her gently that he must be alone for 
 a while. 
 
 " The time is drawing near," he said, " when I shall 
 begin to preach to others the great truth which has in- 
 formed my secret thoughts for years, and I need to make 
 solitary preparation." 
 
 156
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 157 
 
 It was the first time he had spoken to her of preaching, 
 and she gazed at him in astonishment. 
 
 "Why, Jesse, are you going to be a minister? You 
 surprise me. A minister! " 
 
 "Yes, Mother; but not the minister of any church. My 
 ministry will be the preaching of myself, and I shall found 
 a church." 
 
 " A church ! " she echoed. " But where will you found 
 it, Jesse? " 
 
 " I will found my church in the hearts of men." 
 
 " God be with you ! " exclaimed the mother fervently, 
 her voice choked with emotion. 
 
 " God is always with me and within me, and that is 
 a part of the message that I have for men." 
 
 " I remember, dear," she said, " when you were a little 
 boy, how you wept at the Grove camp-meeting because 
 God would not speak to you. God must have spoken to 
 you, Jesse." 
 
 " Yes. And now I must speak. But first I want to go 
 away for a while and strengthen my spirit for the task." 
 Then he charged her that she should keep silent about the 
 matter until he gave her leave to mention it. 
 
 To one other person only in Myra did Jesse confide the 
 secret of his plans. He told Rose Thomas, the teacher of 
 his childhood, all that he had told his mother. She did 
 not seem to be surprised; had he announced to her a pro- 
 ject for making himself King of England, she would have 
 bidden him Godspeed with perfect faith in the certainty 
 of his achievement. Could not the man who, as she firmly 
 believed, had performed the impossible in giving her a 
 place in the school of Myra, do any other thing he chose 
 to do? Such was the reasoning of Rose Thomas. The 
 doubts and cavillings soon to beset his pathway were never 
 to come from women ; they gave him their sure belief and 
 help from the beginning, their intuitive and volatile minds 
 being quick to recognise and respond to the call of beauty 
 and faith. 
 
 " Sometime I shall want you to help me, Rose," he said. 
 
 " Whenever you send for me, I shall be ready." 
 
 " Would you be willing to leave all and follow me? " 
 
 " Yes."
 
 158 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Would you leave even the school which means so much 
 to you?" 
 
 " Did you not give me the school, by the power of your 
 will and your love for me ? " 
 
 "And would you leave your mother?" 
 
 "Are you not leaving yours?" 
 
 " When I am ready I will call you," he said. " Mean- 
 time tell no one of our talk this evening." And he passed 
 out from her presence. 
 
 The next day Jesse went to Capronville. He did not 
 cross the mountain by the way he had come eleven years 
 before, passing through Nashburgh and thence south by 
 the railroad, as he might have done; for he had no wish 
 at that time to revisit his native town. Instead, he chose 
 the longer route, going by the railroad from Myra south 
 to Bellows Falls, then turning north again on the western 
 side of the mountains. 
 
 Capronville was a town where he had never been, and 
 in which he knew no one; that was a reason why he chose 
 it as the scene of his first efforts to make real the sub- 
 lime dream of his life. It was a village about the size 
 of Myra, on the bank of a stream which furnished water- 
 power for several small mills. Not far from the village 
 was a narrow lake only a few miles long. So much Jesse 
 knew about the place; and for the rest he trusted to that 
 power which guided all his movements, the inner monitor 
 whose voice was heard in the silence. That he should 
 find friends in Capronville and willing listeners to his 
 word, he never doubted. His was the faith that brings 
 all things to pass. 
 
 Leaving his belongings at the station, Jesse walked 
 slowly through the village on the afternoon of his arrival. 
 He seemed to be going nowhere in particular, seemed to 
 have endless time in which to find a lodging for the night. 
 He had a dislike for hotels, and never stayed in one if 
 he could avoid it. Though he was now well provided 
 with money, he was looking for some simple home which 
 should invite him by its atmosphere of peace to dwell 
 therein. 
 
 On the outskirts of the town he saw a large white
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 159 
 
 house which pleased him. It was more spacious than the 
 lodging he had had in mind; but intuition was of more 
 authority with him than preconceived ideas; and he lifted 
 the latch of the gate. 
 
 A middle-aged man with a strong bearded face met 
 him on the verandah. The blue eyes of the stranger were 
 keen but kind, his figure was short and square, his gen- 
 eral bearing upright and self-confident. He gave his hand 
 to Jesse with more of warmth than is usual with New 
 Englanders at a first meeting. 
 
 "Can I find lodging in your house? " Jesse asked, with 
 his irresistible smile. 
 
 "You can find lodging and a hearty welcome," an- 
 swered the man, setting the door of his house wide open. 
 "We are rather a large family, but there is room for 
 you. Probably you dislike hotels, the same as I do. Give 
 me either a home or the open sky, I say; but no man's 
 inn for me." 
 
 He led the way to a large, well-furnished room on the 
 second floor. 
 
 " I may be with you for some time," said Jesse. 
 
 " The longer the better," replied the man. " I knew 
 at the first glance that you and I had business with each 
 other." 
 
 " My business is to preach the truth," said Jesse. 
 
 " And mine is to listen to the truth, though there be 
 few that speak it." 
 
 Again they measured each other with their eyes, and 
 there was sealed between them a wordless compact which 
 should survive all things. 
 
 " My name is Jesse Bethel." 
 
 " And mine is Peter Bond." 
 
 " A strong name for a strong man," was Jesse's com- 
 ment, and the two clasped hands the second time. 
 
 That evening at the supper-table Jesse met the numerous 
 family of Peter Bond: his wife, his mother-in-law, his 
 younger brother Andrew, and a merry group of children 
 who called him father. Never had Jesse been more pleased 
 with any man than with this man. His blunt but kindly 
 speech, the steady look in his eyes under their shaggy brows, 
 the quiet strength in his compact body, all these were the
 
 160 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 basis of a confidence which Jesse had never before given 
 to a stranger. Here was a man on whom he could de- 
 pend in any emergency, one whose stubborn loyalty would 
 not be shaken by any wind that might blow around him. 
 
 Jesse's effect on the family of this new-found friend was 
 something unparalleled in their lives. Peter had simply 
 told them that he had given the spare-room to a stranger; 
 and when Jesse appeared at the supper-table, the full 
 power of his personality burst on them suddenly. The 
 children gazed at him in admiration undisguised, their 
 little eyes wide open, their soft mouths parted. Peter's 
 wife " forgot her manners," as her eldest child reminded 
 her after the meal, for she was too much surprised at the 
 remarkable appearance of her guest to say anything what- 
 ever in response to her husband's introduction. They were 
 simple people, those men of the lumber-mills of Capron- 
 ville and their families. Peter's brother Andrew was 
 silent throughout the supper, but he hardly took his eyes 
 from Jesse's face; and the wife's mother, a large and plac- 
 idly-smiling woman of sixty, sustained with Peter the fam- 
 ily's share of the table-talk on that first night. Jesse said 
 little about himself in the beginning, but asked many ques- 
 tions regarding the village and its people. 
 
 " I own the lumber-mill down yonder," Peter said, 
 pointing with his thumb at a large wooden building on 
 the river bank a few rods away, " and Andrew and I 
 run it, with a man or two to help us in the busy season." 
 
 " We've lived here many years," said the mother-in- 
 law, divining Jesse's unspoken question. 
 
 ' Then you doubtless know everybody in the town." 
 
 " Guess I do," answered Peter, " and many in the neigh- 
 bouring towns. The village wasn't so large when we 
 came, just a small settlement, with a few stores and one 
 meeting-house." 
 
 "Are there many churches here now?" 
 
 " Yes, five, and all of them pretty flourishing." 
 
 " The people are prosperous, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed." There was a touch of civic pride in 
 Peter's voice. ' The Caprons here are one of the richest 
 families in the State. The fine things in their house would
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 161 
 
 furnish a museum. The town is named after them, you 
 know, Capronville." 
 
 "It's not the fine things in a man's house, but the fine 
 things in his heart which exalt him," Jesse replied. " It's 
 not having a town named after you, but being yourself 
 named after a great cause which honours you in the eyes 
 of God. The most beautiful thing in the world is always 
 invisible." 
 
 The eyes of Peter's eldest child, a boy of ten years, grew 
 large with wonder. 
 
 " Do you mean," he asked eagerly, " that there's any- 
 thing we can't see that's more beautiful than you are?" 
 
 " Yes, little one," Jesse answered. "Do you love roses? 
 A rose is fair to look upon, but the perfume of the rose, 
 the sweetest part of it, was never seen by any man; so it 
 is with the perfume of the heart." 
 
 The little boy came over to Jesse's chair and leaned 
 lovingly against him. The father would have chided his 
 familiarity; but Jesse put his arm about the child, and 
 said: 
 
 "As the perfume of a rose to the air of the garden, so 
 is the love of a child to the breath of God." 
 
 Then one by one the four younger children left their 
 places and gathered around Jesse; they sat upon his knee, 
 they hung about his neck. The eyes of the mother filled 
 with tears of happiness, and the strong face of Peter grew 
 soft. The four grown people gazed in silence at the beau- 
 tiful picture made by the children in the arms of the 
 stranger; and from that hour this family gave to Jesse 
 the love that knows no shadow of change for ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ANDREW BOND was a year younger than Jesse; he was 
 about the same height, but bony and muscular, with a 
 thin, clean-shaven face, and shy, soft eyes. He was un- 
 married, and, as Peter jokingly said, " too bashful to pay 
 attention to the girls." But Jesse, who saw to the deeps 
 of the young man's nature, knew that when Andrew found 
 the girl he was dreaming about, his shyness would fall 
 from him like a garment. 
 
 The next afternoon Jesse was standing on the back 
 verandah, soon after the noonday dinner, gazing at the 
 blue, winding river, upon whose glassy surface the virgin 
 green of the May trees threw tender, flickering reflections. 
 Oh, Nature's blue and green divinest of all colours, most 
 soothing to the tired eyes of men! Do they seem so lovely 
 to us, blue and green, because they are the hues of earth 
 and sky, of Nature's robe and veil? Or did our universal 
 mother choose them from a hundred colours unknown to 
 our narrow sight, because they were the loveliest of all? 
 
 Andrew came out on the verandah and stood beside Jesse, 
 and the two looked in silence at the river. After a time 
 Andrew said, in a low voice: 
 
 "Pretty, isn't it?" 
 
 " Then you, too, realise how beautiful it is ? And does 
 your brother Peter ? " 
 
 " He never speaks of it." 
 
 " That proves nothing. Some worship beauty with ec- 
 static words, others with silence; but none can say which 
 feels it most." 
 
 " Where did you learn all the wonderfully true things 
 you say? " asked Andrew. " I never knew a man who 
 speaks as you speak." 
 
 " I listen to my heart in the silence," Jesse replied. 
 
 " If I should listen to mine, would I hear such things? " 
 
 "You might." 
 
 162
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 163 
 
 " I'm surer of hearing them, I guess, if I listen to 
 you," Andrew said. " I'm not working at the mill this 
 afternoon. Shall we take a walk about the village, and 
 maybe into the open fields on the other side? " 
 
 " You have spoken my wish," Jesse answered. " How 
 did you guess it? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Perhaps you heard it by listening in silence." 
 
 " Can such things be? " 
 
 " Such things are." 
 
 The two men strolled down the unpaved road toward 
 the centre of the village. They passed an apple orchard, 
 all pink and white with blossoms, and Andrew, leaning 
 over the fence, broke off two sprays of the fragrant love- 
 liness, one for himself and one for Jesse, and they fas- 
 tened them in the lapel of their coats. 
 
 " Whenever a man has pleasure in a flower," said Jesse, 
 " then God rejoices that he made it." 
 
 Andrew looked at him. " Do you never open your lips 
 without saying something which a man remembers?" 
 
 " Why," Jesse answered, smiling, " even Moses must 
 often have said, ' Please pass the salt,' and made common- 
 place remarks about the weather." 
 
 A little farther on, they passed a sullen-looking man 
 who was mending a fence. He did not look up, and went 
 on hammering; but glancing back, Jesse saw the man look- 
 ing after him with curious interest. 
 
 "Who is that?" he asked. 
 
 " The most disagreeable man in the village," answered 
 Andrew. " I dislike him, and he hates me." 
 
 " Try loving him for a time," Jesse suggested, with a 
 quick glance and a smile at his companion ; " perhaps he 
 will not hate you any more." 
 
 " How could I love a man like that? " Andrew's look 
 was incredulous. " You seem to love everybody ; but is 
 there nobody in the world who dislikes you? " 
 
 Jesse's thoughts went back to Thomas Taylor, his enemy 
 in Nashburgh, and he answered: "Yes, there is one man 
 who has hated me from my childhood; but he has never 
 made me hate him. Beware of hatred, Andrew. Though 
 your enemy should burn your house and malign you in
 
 1 64 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the ears of men, he has not really injured you the im- 
 mortal, indestructible you which dwells in the centre of 
 your being; but if your enemy succeeds in making you 
 hate him, then has he done you the great injury." 
 
 " John never told me that," said Andrew ; " though he 
 has told me many wise things." 
 
 " John ? " Jesse's tone was full of sudden interest. 
 
 " Yes, John the Hermit. We never call him anything 
 else. Do you know him? " 
 
 " I met him once, years ago, on the mountain a few 
 miles from Myra; but I have not seen him since. Where 
 is he nnw? " 
 
 " Somewhere around Burlington. He passes to and fro, 
 wherever the spirit leads him; sometimes he is with his 
 friends, sometimes alone on the mountains. John is a 
 wonderful man." 
 
 " Are you a friend of his, Andrew? " 
 
 "Yes, I spent a month with him last fall." 
 
 " Do you know whether he has found the one he seeks ? " 
 
 " I know that he has not ; but he will search until he 
 finds him." 
 
 " Why do you not remain with John, if you are his 
 pupil?" 
 
 " I stay with him sometimes; but I have my work to 
 do, my work here at the mill." 
 
 " But if you should find the one whom John is seek- 
 ing, would you remain with him ? " 
 
 "You mean, would I remain with John?" 
 
 " I mean, would you remain with the greater teacher ? 
 Would you leave your work, the mill, everything?" 
 
 A strange light came into the face of the quiet fellow, 
 and the eyes he turned to Jesse were deep and dark. 
 
 " If I should find the great one himself," said Andrew, 
 " then I would follow him for ever." 
 
 Jesse made no answer, and they walked on in silence. 
 Not yet could he reveal himself to the pupil of John, not 
 yet could he declare himself the one they sought; for they 
 must recognise him of themselves. But how near now 
 seemed the blossoming of his life's great flower! 
 
 " Andrew," he said suddenly, " is Peter also a disciple 
 of John?"
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 165 
 
 " No, he has never even seen him." 
 
 Jesse knew this, before he asked the question; but he 
 often put his inner certainties to the test of speech. 
 
 " Tell me more about John/' he said. 
 
 "Why, I saw him first last summer, when I went to 
 Burlington on business for the mill. He has only been 
 preaching a short time, though he has been wandering on 
 the mountains for years. At first the people in Burlington 
 took him for a madman; but they soon came to understand 
 that madmen don't talk like John. He has a whole crowd 
 of followers; but he is a hard master, lives on dry bread 
 and fruit, mostly, and thinks other men ought to do the 
 same. He despises pleasure of all sorts, and doesn't care 
 for beautiful things. He would never wear apple-blossoms 
 in his coat, as you do. In fact, he usually doesn't wear a 
 coat, just a blanket around his shoulders when it's cold. 
 Men have told me that he walks around in the snow some- 
 times with naked feet. He seems to enjoy being uncom- 
 fortable; pain is a kind of pleasure to him." 
 
 " The cups of pain and pleasure contain the same fluid," 
 Jesse said. " I suppose John didn't tell you that." 
 
 " No. He doesn't talk like you, but his talk is great, 
 all the same; though it's mostly about repentance, and 
 about getting ready for some dreadful thing that's going 
 to happen. Even the Governor is afraid of him. One day 
 John stood in front of the Governor's house and preached 
 in a loud voice against the sin of riches. I heard him. 
 They say the old man didn't come by his money very hon- 
 estly; but that's as may be, for I don't know anything 
 about it. But I know that John makes people listen to 
 him. When he stands up in the streets of a town and 
 begins to talk, you couldn't count the people in the crowds 
 that come out to hear. He baptises folks, too. He bap- 
 tised me in the lake up there, and I've felt like another 
 man ever since. I don't know what there is about him; 
 but he makes men feel there's something more important 
 in life than just to earn money and spend it on them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Shall you return to him ? " Jesse asked. 
 
 " Bye and bye, when the mood is on me." 
 
 " Has John any followers in Capronville, except you ? "
 
 1 66 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "No; his men are mostly from the North; he never 
 came down here." 
 
 " I have a great interest in this man, Andrew." 
 
 " Maybe you'd like to go with me, when I go back to 
 him?" 
 
 " I will tell you when to go," said Jesse, " and I will 
 certainly go with you; but not yet." 
 
 " Whenever you say," Andrew assented. " I guess 
 you'd have more influence over me than John, anyway. 
 He's too severe for me; he won't even let his pupils 
 marry." 
 
 " And do you want to marry? " 
 
 The young man blushed. " I haven't thought much 
 about it. But do you think it's wrong for a man to 
 marry? " 
 
 " No, not when his time comes. But I think your time 
 has not come. He only is fit to marry who can be happy 
 unmarried. He only is fit to be rich who is willing to be 
 poor." 
 
 They went through the main streets of the village, and 
 Andrew pointed out the more important buildings and the 
 more important people. As always, wherever Jesse went, 
 men and women stood still in the street and gazed after 
 him. The place was not so small that any stranger could 
 attract attention, and Andrew soon perceived the inter- 
 est which centred in his new friend. 
 
 " They stare at you," he said, " the way they stare at 
 John up north, only their eyes are different. They'd never 
 call you a madman, as they call John; more likely they'd 
 all love you, the same as our folks do." 
 
 As they climbed the long hill toward Peter's house, 
 they again passed by the sullen-looking man who was 
 still mending the fence. He was verging on middle-age, 
 and could never have been handsome; but something 
 in the deep-lined face appealed to Jesse's pity; a 
 shadow, as of secret suffering, enveloped the man's whole 
 being. 
 
 " Andrew," said Jesse, " that man is disagreeable be- 
 cause he is not happy. I'd like to see a smile on that heavy 
 face. We will stop and speak with him." 
 
 " But," Andrew hesitated, " he and I haven't exchanged 
 a word for six months,'*
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 167 
 
 " Then let your first word to him be my name ; you will 
 find it a charm against anger." 
 
 They paused before the fence, and Andrew spoke the 
 name of his friend in introduction to Judson Carey. To 
 his astonishment the man came forward, holding out his 
 hand, first to Jesse and then to him. 
 
 " I saw you walking by, an hour or two ago," he said 
 to Jesse, " and I wondered who you were. We don't see 
 many strangers in Capronville, especially " he hesitated 
 for a fitting phrase "especially like you." 
 
 " Are you a native of this place ? " Jesse asked. 
 
 " No, I've been here only a couple of years ; came from 
 up north, on the other side of the lake." 
 
 Jesse noticed that the stranger's eyes were on the apple- 
 blossoms in his coat. He detached the flowers, offering 
 them with a smile to this man who seemed no longer to 
 be sullen. 
 
 "Wouldn't you like to have the apple-blossoms? I will 
 fasten them for you, and they will make your afternoon of 
 work seem pure and lovely as a May dawn." 
 
 Jesse now saw the smile he had hoped for; it began in 
 the eyes, where a smile should begin, and lighted the whole 
 face. 
 
 " I really don't know," said the man, " when anybody 
 has offered me a flower before! I thank you." 
 
 Andrew had been looking on in silence. Suddenly he 
 said: 
 
 " Won't you come up to our house some evening, Jud- 
 son? I'm sure Peter and I would both be glad to see 
 you. We were speaking of you only the other day." An- 
 drew was glad that he was not called upon to give the 
 substance of the conversation referred to between himself 
 and Peter; but any man whom Jesse seemed to like must 
 have some sound even though hitherto undiscovered 
 qualities to recommend him. 
 
 " I'll be glad to come," Judson answered pleasantly. 
 " Now I think of it, I haven't been up to your house since 
 I left off working in the mill." 
 
 When Jesse and Andrew were alone again, climbing 
 the hill toward the house, Jesse said: 
 
 " You didn't tell me that Judson Carey had worked 
 in your mill. How did he come to leave it?"
 
 168 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Why, Peter discharged him. We found he wasn't 
 over-honest." 
 
 Jesse's memory flew back eleven years, to Marty White, 
 of Nashburgh. " I once had a friend who stole a cow," 
 he said, " and it cost me much anxiety and some money 
 to help him out of his trouble; but I haven't heard that 
 he ever repeated the offence." 
 
 " Suppose he had ; would you have helped him again ? " 
 
 " Yes. But tell me more about Judson Carey. Is he 
 married? " 
 
 " No, Judson is a bachelor. He cares too much about 
 money to share it with a woman." 
 
 " By the way," said Jesse, " I wouldn't tell people, if 
 I were you, why this man left the mill. Bad reputations 
 have made as many dishonest men as dishonest men have 
 made bad reputations."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 ONE evening, a few days later, Jesse was walking alone 
 on the green hill beyond the village. It was a little after 
 sunset, that vague mysterious hour which is neither night 
 nor day, when the old and solid earth seems trying to re- 
 member the far-off, nebulous days of her youth. In the 
 pellucid afterglow of the departed sun, the grass is greener 
 than at midday; the world is flooded with a spiritual light, 
 more immaterial than sunshine, more mystical than shadow, 
 a light that seems to be diffused through alabaster. In 
 that strange hour, to those who have the seeing eye the 
 sylphs appear and float with airy forms a little way above 
 the earth, and round the dark roots of old trees the gnomes 
 foregather. If in some lonely place a man should build a 
 fire of brushwood, and keeping very still should fix his eyes 
 upon the leaping flames, he might see the mythical sala- 
 manders dancing in the scarlet halls and alcoves of their 
 elemental mansions. It is the hour when Nature is least 
 reticent of her secrets, the time when she will answer ques- 
 tions which would seem too daring if uttered in the noon- 
 day. To one alone she will tell much; but if two beings, 
 in perfect harmony with her and with each other, shall 
 come together to the door of her unguarded tent, and 
 holding out their palms shall ask of her the boon of hid- 
 den knowledge, of the unseen and of the future, sometimes 
 only sometimes she will respond to their united prayer. 
 It is also the hour of faith, when one believes that won- 
 derful dreams come true, when one believes that the Ideal 
 may leave the skies and dwell with the real on earth. 
 
 In that hour after sunset, on the green hill beyond the 
 town, Jesse met for the first time the one whose faith in 
 him and in his dream was to be deeper than that of any 
 other man, one who was destined to carry the belief in 
 him and the face-to-face remembrance of him to an almost 
 incredible old age. He met John Dana. 
 
 Standing on the crest of the height, Jesse was impelled 
 
 169
 
 170 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 to turn and look down toward the village. There he saw, 
 on the narrow path, the slender and graceful figure of a 
 young man, hardly more than a youth, coming quickly up 
 the hill. The soft locks on his uncovered head seemed to 
 have retained the sunlight that was gone, and the eager, 
 upturned face was fair and sensitive as a woman's. He 
 came straight to Jesse, holding out his hand as to an old 
 friend. 
 
 " Andrew told me to come," he said, simply as a child 
 might explain its presence. " He thought you would like 
 to see me. I am Andrew's friend, and my name is John 
 Dana." 
 
 That was all the introduction which began the friend- 
 ship between these two. He was Andrew's friend that 
 seemed to be enough. 
 
 " Let us sit down," John suggested. " I ran all the 
 way up the hill and am out of breath. How lovely the 
 sky is to-night, and the soft light on the grass! . . . 
 Are you glad I came ? " 
 
 " More glad than I have words to speak. I think I 
 must have been looking for you a long time." 
 
 " How bewilderingly beautiful you are! " were John's 
 next words. " I never knew that a human being could 
 look like both an angel and a man. I wonder . . . 
 You are a dreamer, too?" 
 
 " A dreamer of strange dreams, yes," Jesse answered, 
 gazing off at the distant mountains. 
 
 " Will you tell me your dreams ? " 
 
 Jesse turned and looked at him. There was no barrier 
 to confidence in that fresh and wistful face, rather an in- 
 vitation to the fullest self-revealing. 
 
 " My dream," he said, " is to transform the world." 
 
 " And may I help you ? I long intensely to do some- 
 thing beautiful! Ever since I can remember I have had 
 a feeling which I could not tell to anyone, that I should 
 sometime find a great work to do a wonderful work. 
 May I help you to transform the world?" 
 
 " I think," said Jesse, very slowly, as if weighing ev- 
 ery word, " I think that you will help me more than any 
 other man, more even than Peter." 
 
 "Peter?" John's voice was full of questions. "But
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 171 
 
 Peter is so matter-of-fact, so unimaginative! Will he help, 
 too?" 
 
 " Yes, though he doesn't know it now ; the time to tell 
 him is not yet." 
 
 "But what shall we do first? and when shall we be- 
 gin ? " The boy's manner was all nervous eagerness. He 
 sat looking up at Jesse, hanging on his answer. 
 
 " First I shall go to Burlington, where John the Her- 
 mit is preaching. You will go with me, and Peter, and 
 Andrew, and Judson Carey? " 
 
 "Will Peter really go?" 
 
 " He will do whatever I tell him. You will all do 
 whatever I tell you, from now on through my life." 
 
 John held out his small brown hand. " I will follow 
 you to the end of the world." 
 
 " You have 'the perfect faith," said Jesse, " the absolute 
 faith which carries everything before it, including the love 
 of its teacher. Why, little one, though I have a great 
 truth for the world, so far I have taught you nothing. I 
 have not spoken a thousand words to you, and yet you are 
 ready to follow me! " 
 
 " Yes. I feel your greatness. I couldn't express to any- 
 one else just what I mean, though I have read many books, 
 and those who have read fewer, fancy that I have some 
 learning. Andrew has repeated to me some of your beau- 
 tiful sayings; but it wasn't those words which made me 
 climb the hill this evening. I think it was your spirit 
 that drew mine. But, tell me, if I may ask 'you such a 
 question, why do you want to go to John the Hermit? 
 Do you think that he will teach you anything?" 
 
 !! N -" 
 
 " Then why do you want to go, and to take me and 
 the others?" 
 
 " We go," Jesse answered, " that John may teach those 
 others something which they have need to know." 
 
 "And will he teach me that something, also?" 
 
 " You know it already, little one." 1 
 
 " I know " John hesitated, his eyes wide and burn- 
 ing with excitement. 
 
 " You know that I am the one whom John the Hermit 
 seeks."
 
 172 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 With sweet humility the boy touched with his bright head 
 the feet of his companion. He spoke no word, but raising 
 himself, gazed and gazed into the exalted face of Jesse. 
 
 " For a time, John, let this be a secret between us two. 
 We will go to the Hermit three days from now." 
 
 " And what shall I call you ? " John asked, in a voice 
 that trembled. 
 
 " In the presence of the others you will call me Jesse. 
 When we are alone together you may call me whatever 
 your heart prompts." 
 
 " Master!" whispered the boy, and burst into tears.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ON a sunny morning in early June they started for 
 Burlington, where John the Hermit was preaching: Jesse, 
 Peter and Andrew, John and Judson Carey. At that 
 time none of them, save John in his secret thoughts, was 
 indissolubly linked with the new teacher. Jesse had asked 
 each of them to go with him as one friend would ask an- 
 other. Peter was surprised when Jesse first spoke of visit- 
 ing the Hermit. He had heard of Andrew's sojourn with 
 him in the autumn of the year before; but Andrew was 
 one who seldom spoke his thoughts, and Peter did not 
 know how deep an impression the words and person of 
 the stern wanderer had made upon his brother. 
 
 " Of course I'll go," Peter said to Jesse, " though I've 
 never left the mill alone before. But I'm really going 
 more to be in your company than to hear the preaching 
 of the Hermit." 
 
 " Nevertheless, he has a special message for you," was 
 Jesse's puzzling answer. 
 
 The words remained with Peter; they echoed in his 
 ears when he awoke at dawn; he thought of them at in- 
 tervals all day, and after he went to bed at night. What 
 message could the Hermit have for him? and how could 
 Jesse know of it? Already he was aware that his strange 
 guest was intimate with the thoughts and feelings of other 
 men; but how could he know the future? By the time the 
 day came for the journey, there was no one among the 
 little band of pilgrims who looked forward with more in- 
 terest than Peter to the outcome of their undertaking. A 
 special message for him! What could it mean! 
 
 The dreamy John was all a-tremble with eagerness. He 
 walked restlessly about the station platform while they 
 were waiting for the train, returning now and then to 
 Jesse's side to smile at him with an understanding faith 
 that was beautiful to see. 
 
 Andrew stood quietly, but mixed emotions struggled in 
 
 i73
 
 174 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 his heart. He was going back to one whom he reverenced 
 and half-feared, going with a greater teacher whom he 
 feared not and reverenced even more. He knew that 
 should the time ever come when he had to choose between 
 them, he would follow this new friend, because he loved 
 him more than he loved the austere dweller in the forests. 
 How great a teacher Jesse really was he had no means 
 of knowing at this time; but he felt in him a spiritual 
 power which made even the power of the Hermit seem 
 almost weakness by comparison. Jesse could read in An- 
 drew's eyes a story that was hidden from the others, and 
 he glanced at him from time to time with a sympathy 
 which any spoken words, however sweet, would have made 
 almost unendurably intense. 
 
 Judson busied himself in buying their tickets, Peter and 
 the others having given him the necessary money. The 
 quick, observing eyes of the young John had noticed with 
 what exquisite tact Jesse arranged this thing, making it 
 seem a matter of course that the formerly discredited man 
 should be entrusted with their purses. Judson saw it, also, 
 and in his soul resented it; though he was quick to avail 
 himself of the offered dignity. 
 
 As Jesse gazed upon his little band of followers, his dis- 
 ciples (though they knew it not), his mind went back to 
 that far time when the boy with the fiery heart, the boy 
 that was himself, had stood alone between the oak and 
 maple-tree beside the road in Nashburgh, and gazing on 
 the glory of the western sun, father and sustainer of the 
 universe, had flung his arms into the air and cried in the 
 wild joy of sudden revelation, " I myself am God ! " 
 Could he ever make these other gods beside him realise 
 the glory of their inheritance, their unity with him and 
 with the Father? So full of passion was his hope, so 
 great his dream, that his very body seemed illuminated, 
 his eyes were like blue flames, and the four men beside 
 him gazed in amazement at his face. 
 
 Who was this beautiful being? they suddenly wondered. 
 How came he to be their friend? Why was he taking 
 them on this journey? and what would the end be? There 
 came to them, as in a flash of light, the revelation of some 
 mysterious destiny connected with this man before them,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 175 
 
 a destiny in which their lives would be involved. They 
 were almost afraid, and their hearts beat fast; but deeper 
 than the vague, instinctive dread of the unknown which 
 made them tremble, was a high joy which filled their 
 hearts with strength and certainty of faith. No ordinary 
 journey was before them; this pure June day was preg- 
 nant with great meanings. They could not have put these 
 feelings into words, for their minds were too untrained 
 in subtle thought to formulate such vast impressions; but 
 in the region of soul-consciousness that lies beyond the in- 
 tellect, they felt these things. 
 
 All the way north on the train the atmosphere of power 
 and mystery surrounded them. It may have been the 
 potency of Jesse's thoughts that quickened theirs; for all 
 the aspiration of his former years seemed to be culminating 
 in the exaltation that now possessed and moved him. The 
 very landscape outside the open windows of the car he 
 saw as through a clarifying lens. Few words were spoken 
 on that morning journey, for the awe that held their spirits 
 also held their lips. To speak of ordinary things would 
 have seemed a profanation of the hour, and none could 
 speak the feelings that enthralled him; none would have 
 dared, even had he the words. 
 
 When the train came to Nashburgh, Jesse told his four 
 companions that they, were approaching the region of his 
 early life. Eleven years had passed since he beheld these 
 scenes, eleven years since he went through the old 
 wooden bridge beyond the railway-track and turned down 
 the Creek road which led to his old home. Scarcely a 
 thing was changed. The meadows by the river lay green 
 and yellow in the sunlight, as of old; the winding thread 
 of water was familiar as the sight of his own face in the 
 mirror. 
 
 When the train stopped at the station Jesse leaned out 
 of the window and looked along the platform. The same 
 station-master whom he remembered was rushing here and 
 there with papers in his hand, a little older, a little bent 
 with eleven added years of work and waiting, but other- 
 wise the same. On the end of the platform, by the open 
 door of the freight-room, he saw the figure of his old 
 enemy, Thomas Taylor. The years had hardly touched
 
 176 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 him. He was the only one of the little group who saw 
 and recognised Jesse. A quick look at each other, an in- 
 clination of the head in token of remembrance that was 
 all, and the train moved on. Among the persons who 
 came into the car at Nashburgh there was no one whom 
 Jesse had ever seen before. Why should Thomas Taylor 
 have been the only one of all those old-time neighbours to 
 recognise him on this day of destiny? He would have 
 chosen otherwise. The incident was like a warning that 
 here in the region of his birth he would not find the sym- 
 pathy he craved. But in another moment the sight of 
 Marty White's old house by the river drove all thought 
 of Thomas Taylor from his mind. 
 
 Another flying mile, and over the tops of the trees he 
 saw, on its hill, the white schoolhouse which he had helped 
 his father to build, in the summer of his fifteenth year. 
 Coming nearer, he saw a group of little children playing 
 round the steps. Why, not one of these small learners in 
 the house of his building was born when last he looked 
 upon his handiwork! North of the schoolhouse was the 
 pasture where he had played as a little boy; in the shadow 
 of that elm-tree on the rocks he had sucked the snake-bite 
 of his terrified schoolfellow, at the time when Mary Mag- 
 nus was visiting the school. 
 
 But all these objects of dear memory receded in the 
 distance, and he beheld, on a ridge of rising ground, the 
 old grey-blue house of his birth. O wonderful, O mystical 
 house of birth! No other pile, of wood or stone, how- 
 ever grand, however beautiful, can touch the soul like this. 
 Here memory itself walks softly, with bated breath; here 
 do the wistful first impressions of the soul return to it 
 again in later days. The heart of Jesse grew larger, his 
 mind clearer, the tendencies of his life more unified, for 
 this brief glimpse of his earliest earthly home. From this 
 bath in the pure waters of his childhood he seemed to rise 
 refreshed for the labours of his manhood, the supermortal 
 labours that now called him. A moment more, and the old 
 blue-grey house, the apple-trees and the green meadow had 
 disappeared as pictures in a dream.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 ARRIVED at Burlington, Jesse sent Peter to inquire 
 where John the Hermit was preaching. They were di- 
 rected to a large open space outside the town, on the bor- 
 der of the river; and when still far off they knew the 
 place, because of the crowd of people that made dark the 
 landscape. 
 
 On a natural elevation, a little hillock, the prophet stood 
 and talked in a loud, harsh voice, and the people listened 
 as to the word of one inspired. Truly a strange man was 
 this who made himself the mouthpiece of the great Law, 
 an almost incredibly strange man. He looked like some 
 antique prophet from the borders of Asia, not like a being 
 of our day and generation. He was of a stature beyond 
 the usual height of man ; his scanty garment of grey wool 
 was girt about the w T aist with a leather strap, and his long 
 black hair and beard, already prematurely touched with 
 grey, fell in masses about his breast and shoulders. His 
 great dark eyes burned with the fire of an irresistible idea, 
 and every man or woman touched by his fiery glance felt 
 a profound disquiet, as of a buried conscience clamouring 
 to be heard. This w T as no gentle teacher of altruistic sen- 
 timents, bearing the message of love; but rather the voice 
 of one crying in the wilderness of eternity against the 
 vice and luxury of self-indulgent time. 
 
 Jesse and his four companions joined the crowd about 
 the austere preacher. Instinctively the people made way 
 for them until they stood almost in the shadow of the 
 gaunt figure they had come to see. The long sermon was 
 now near its end ; and gathering up the forces of his spirit, 
 the mighty speaker hurled these words at the listening 
 multitude: 
 
 " I say to you, repent, and again, repent. And if you 
 ask me of what sin, I say, repent the very breath of your 
 self-seeking lives. Think you the world was made that 
 you might hoard the fat of it, serving your body as a slave 
 
 177
 
 178 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 its master? I tell you no. The hour is coming when 
 all things shall be changed; the reign of the Spirit is even 
 now at hand. I am the messenger of the new time. I 
 beat upon the doors which you have locked against the 
 coming of the morning; I beat your doors and cry, The 
 sun is risen, come you forth and see. One will appear who 
 shall bring all your labours for yourselves to nothing. I 
 but prepare the road which he will travel, and woe to him 
 that shall seek to obstruct the way. 
 
 "Yes, the sun is risen; its light shall dispel the dark- 
 ness. In the new day that is coming all things will be 
 changed. They who now sit in high places shall take 
 lower seats; they who have no place whereon to sit shall 
 rest on cushions taken from the others. They who now 
 walk in crooked ways will find in the new day that those 
 ways lead no-whither, and the rough path which now tears 
 the feet of millions will be made smooth as the walks of a 
 public garden. All men will share in the salvation of the 
 world. 
 
 " Now in the morning of that time I say, Let him who 
 has share with him who has not, and let no man eat the 
 meat of two while one goes hungry. For there comes an 
 hour of wrath, before the day is established, and he is wise 
 who flees before it. 
 
 " I am the messenger that goes before the sun, but I 
 am not the light-bearer. There comes one after me who 
 is before me in all things, whose feet I am not worthy to 
 touch. I baptise you in the river of repentance; he will 
 baptise you in the ocean of the Spirit and in the fire of 
 faith. 
 
 " Make ready for him, purging yourselves of iniquity 
 and selfishness, that his words may find your hearts a clean 
 and open dwelling. Long have I waited for the sun to 
 rise; long have I walked in solitude and darkness, watch- 
 ing for the light that did not come. 
 
 "The sun is risen. Turn now your faces toward the 
 East." 
 
 When the prophet ceased speaking, many crowded 
 round him asking to be baptised. It was his custom, after 
 the midday sermon, to lead his flock to the adjacent river 
 and there immerse all those who professed repentance of
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 179 
 
 their sins. If any lacked the necessary courage to descend 
 with him into the water, fully clothed, trusting their health 
 and safety to the spiritual flame within them, they were 
 told to go away and return when they should have over- 
 come their hesitation. But among those who sought him 
 in sincerity, few were without the necessary fortitude to 
 follow him into the water; and the sight of men and 
 women in dripping garments, walking homeward in the 
 early afternoon through the streets of the little northern 
 city, had become so familiar as to attract no more than a 
 passing notice. 
 
 Since early spring the Hermit had been preaching and 
 baptising in that region. In the summer of the year be- 
 fore he had begun the sounding of his call to repentance, 
 preaching usually in the open country near one or another 
 of the villages on the border of the river, and a few cour- 
 ageous ones had followed him from the first; but during 
 the last month he had not left the neighbourhood of Bur- 
 lington, and his exhortation had assumed an ardour that 
 attracted crowds from all the towns and villages round- 
 about. His fame spread even to New York and Boston, 
 and curious strangers from those distant places came to the 
 little city on the shore of Lake Champlain to see and 
 hear the extraordinary man who claimed to be the fore- 
 runner of some great being who should revolutionise the 
 world. 
 
 The more conservative and wealthy classes declared him 
 a madman; bespectacled physicians came out to hear him 
 preach, that they might find a learned name for the malady 
 of enthusiasm which possessed him; but to the unlearned 
 and the simple-hearted he seemed a veritable prophet, and 
 the common people listened to his fierce arraignments of 
 all existing things with mingled feelings of terror, hope, 
 self-accusation and amazement. 
 
 By his strange words and his stranger self, by the con- 
 tagion of his exaltation, he had created an atmosphere of 
 expectancy, a spiritual breathlessness, that justified his 
 ever-repeated assertion that he was the forerunner and mes- 
 senger of some great thing to come. The mental and 
 spiritual threshings of this dweller in the wilderness had 
 revealed grains of faith in the unseen power which he
 
 i8o THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 proclaimed. Scattered all over the small State and even 
 beyond its borders were men and women who had been 
 baptised by the Hermit or had listened to his fiery words. 
 The tireless messenger had done his work, had earned the 
 rest which soon was to be his. 
 
 Jesse and his four companions joined the people who fol- 
 lowed John the Hermit to the river where he daily bap- 
 tised. They stood quietly on the outskirts of the crowd, 
 all save Andrew, who had gone forward to greet his for- 
 mer teacher. They saw one person after another go down 
 with John into the water; they saw one after another come 
 up out of the water with a strange new light in their 
 faces. When there were no more left who sought to be 
 baptised, then Jesse said: 
 
 " It is our turn now ; but I wish to be the last of those 
 who receive baptism on this day. Go down, before me." 
 
 The first to descend was Peter, obedient to a look from 
 Jesse. Without a backward glance or a word, he went 
 down into the water; when he came up, his rugged face 
 seemed to be lighted from within, and his eyes sought 
 Jesse's with a look of startled, half-bewildered reverence. 
 
 Then Judson went down to the prophet in the river, 
 and they who watched saw that his face was distorted as 
 with pain. Some words passed between him and the 
 strange being who baptised, words that were not audible 
 to the little group above; then he, too, disappeared beneath 
 the surface of the water, to rise a moment later and join 
 his waiting friends. He did not look at them, but kept 
 his eyes upon the ground. 
 
 Then the boy whom Jesse loved, the irresistible, devoted 
 John, after a look of deep affection at his teacher and a 
 touch of his small hand upon his arm, went also down; 
 when he came up, the drops of river-water on his face 
 were mingled with the tears of emotion which welled from 
 his sincere heart. His eyes were eloquent of the desire to 
 lay the burden of his feeling on the great sympathetic heart 
 which called it forth; but he stood shyly a little aside, his 
 delicate reverence fearing to intrude upon the moment of 
 preparation, the spiritual lonely place, in which his teacher 
 was awaiting his own descent to the baptism. But would he 
 go? Would he, whom the Hermit himself was waiting
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 181 
 
 for, accept baptism from the Hermit? Would it not be 
 the other way, and Jesse baptise John ? The hurried mental 
 questions of the boy were answered the moment they arose. 
 
 Jesse was descending to the baptism, when the Hermit 
 came up out of the water and stood beside him on the edge 
 of the river. 
 
 " It is given me to know that I am not fit to baptise 
 you," he said, in a gentler voice than anyone had ever 
 heard from his stern lips. Then, to the others: 
 
 " This is he of whom I have long spoken, he who should 
 come after me, the one greater than I. When he would 
 come I have not known; but I have known that he 
 would manifest himself to me when I had blazed a path 
 for him. To that end I have walked alone in the forest; 
 to that end I have preached repentance to all men, and have 
 baptised as many as were ready. It is not fitting that I 
 should baptise him." 
 
 But Jesse said, " It is my wish." 
 
 So John permitted him to take the baptism. The four 
 men on the river bank, bewildered by the forces moving 
 round them, beheld the two below in the water as through 
 a mist. It seemed to them that Jesse stood in the attitude 
 of prayer; then he passed from sight, to reappear a moment 
 later upon the bank with John. They were startled from 
 their abstraction by the voice of the Hermit, speaking to 
 them: 
 
 "As he came up out of the water, I saw the Spirit 
 upon him, and I heard a voice which verified my word that 
 this is he." 
 
 They gazed at Jesse, seeing him in a new and clearer 
 light. For many days now, as they told themselves, they 
 had been privileged to walk with this wonderful man, and 
 had not realised until this hour how great he was. They 
 were overcome with humility. The love which they had 
 given him before seemed so pale beside the love which they 
 would give him henceforth, if only he would continue to 
 be with them, to let them follow him. His new status 
 seemed to put him far away from them at the same moment 
 when it drew them nearer to him. 
 
 Jesse, as if divining their thought, came and laid his 
 hand lovingly on the shoulder of each, first Peter and last
 
 i2 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the soft-eyed John. His voice was thrilling with tender- 
 ness. 
 
 " You are my friends," he said, " my companions, and 
 you will be with me to the end. But now I must leave 
 you for a time, how long, I cannot say; when I return, 
 be ready to receive me. You would better go back to 
 Capronville, and there await my call. I am going to the 
 mountains." 
 
 " We will be ready when you call us," Peter said. 
 
 " We will be ready," echoed the others, including An- 
 drew. 
 
 Then, with a parting smile for all of them, Jesse turned 
 to the Hermit and asked for direction to the mountains. 
 The tall, gaunt man went with him a short distance down 
 the road. At the parting of the ways the two touched 
 hands and separated, Jesse going to the east, the Hermit 
 going back to his own disciples.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 JESSE found his way into the wilderness the mountains 
 lying east of Burlington. In 'his desire for solitude he 
 avoided the noisy railway-train that would have taken 
 him some distance on the journey, preferring to walk alone 
 along the green country roads. He carried nothing save 
 a change of linen and a woollen coat to protect him from 
 the dampness of the night. The way was not long; 
 twenty miles or so would bring him to the very heart 
 of the wilderness. He went slowly, for he did not seek 
 weariness, only solitude; and he paused to rest or medi- 
 tate whenever the Spirit prompted him. That night he 
 slept under the open sky, and the great mountain only a 
 few miles away seemed to send down to him refreshing 
 draughts of its own purity and peace. 
 
 Oh, that first night under the stars, with the little sickle 
 moon for a signal of change in the west, and in the 
 east, felt but unseen in the darkness, the calm, immovable 
 mountain! That night was for Jesse a pause between two 
 eternities. Strange memories came to him of things he had 
 never known in this brief life, vague memories that whis- 
 pered at the door of his consciousness and stole away again 
 without fully revealing what they had come to say. Where 
 in the long past, the unimaginable past, had he lain under 
 the stars on such a night as this, with the labours of a 
 superhuman mission just ahead of him? Where had he 
 heard before the voice of the Spirit that called him into 
 the wilderness? It seemed that he had known it all, had 
 lived it all. 
 
 He gazed at the moon in the west. It must have been 
 walking an incalculable time in the path around the earth, 
 watching and listening; the book of its memory must be 
 written full of secrets beyond telling. The Spirit that 
 was himself had also an immortal past as well as an im- 
 mortal future; there could never have been a time when 
 he, as It, was not; there could never be a time when he, as 
 
 183
 
 1 84 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 It, should cease to be. And Oh, those multitudes of other 
 men who were one with him in the Spirit! 
 
 In a pool beside him he saw the moon reflected. In 
 how many pools, on the curve of the world, did that one 
 moon this night reflect itself? And the light that swam 
 in beauty on the surface of this little sheet of water was 
 present also with the others with all the myriad others. 
 So the one Spirit shone in the pools that were human 
 hearts, innumerable, near and far away, on the great curve 
 of time. The secret of his mission stood revealed, in the 
 symbol before his eyes. 
 
 At dawn he arose from a brief sleep and continued his 
 journey up the mountain, and long before midday he was 
 high in the cool green solitude. The peace of the night 
 before was with him still; he was enjoying temporarily 
 the pause of equilibrium before his battle with the forces 
 that now stood balanced on opposite sides of the great 
 wheel of life. He found a place, in the curve between two 
 hills, which seemed to be nature's parallel of his own in- 
 terior state; and there he sat motionless for hours, going 
 in memory over the stages of his progress since the will 
 toward life, of the Spirit that was himself, had encased 
 him in this form of matter which he was to study and 
 subdue, ever reaching toward the mystery above, ever ques- 
 tioning the mystery below. 
 
 He thought of his intellectual growth, from the first 
 formulation of speech to express the feeling of the groping 
 inner self, to the words of wisdom which that enlightened 
 inner self now used for the instruction of others. He 
 thought of the plan of his mission and his steady move- 
 ment in that one direction; of the gradual development of 
 his powers, from the first startling realisation in early 
 youth that he could cure pain and bring strange things to 
 pass by the exercise of his will. He meditated on the lov- 
 ing-kindness that had grown with the years until it made 
 his heart almost too full for endurance his aspiration to 
 be a bond or mediator between the unknown Spirit above 
 and the groping human hearts below; meditated on the dif- 
 ference between the unselfish and immortal love and the 
 selfish and transitory love which is a mere broken reflection 
 of its pure prototype. He considered the engine of spiritual
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 185 
 
 power that had made him the conqueror of his environ- 
 ment, overcoming all obstacles in the way of his progress 
 to the present hour; considered the ceaseless labour neces- 
 sary to preserve great works from destruction the con- 
 tinued effort that should hold his message balanced, as in a 
 pair of scales, between the ideal and the real, making prac- 
 tical for human uses the divine wisdom of love and jus- 
 tice. He thought of the prudence that he, the pilgrim of 
 eternity, must exercise upon the perilous path which he 
 had chosen: prudence of action, prudence of speech, pru- 
 dence of silence. His lamp must be kept ever-burning, his 
 staff must be ever in his hand. 
 
 In this period of balance he saw life as a stupendous 
 paradox, wherein the two extremes, ever opposite and ever 
 struggling, constantly change places with each other, for 
 the reason that they are essentially one. The paradox had 
 always appealed to him, but now he saw it in all its naked 
 beauty. He felt the rush of extremes toward one another, 
 the affinity of antipodes, the struggle and the union. The 
 very evils that he fought against seemed here to take their 
 rightful place on the revolving wheel of necessity; for 
 without evil, how should we measure good? Without the 
 knowledge of darkness, who would desire the light? With- 
 out the universe of matter, how would the Spirit realise 
 itself? But he saw that this was only true from the 
 standpoint of the universal; from the standpoint of the 
 human, evil must be fought, darkness must be overcome 
 and matter sublimated, for that is the work of the Spirit 
 which man is. He told himself that only he who acknowl- 
 edges evil can transcend it; that until man has begun to 
 conquer the tendencies that draw the soul down, he has 
 not acquired the impetus of positive virtue for the upward 
 climb. The supremacy of will is ours when we can com- 
 mand the nature-powers below us, for the one that com- 
 mands is above, and we are It. When we reach up to 
 our greater Self, we must bring something else at least 
 a part of the way with us. But the things which we com- 
 mand and lift are also ourselves; for are not all things 
 one, even good and evil? So the strongest and most in- 
 dependent ego is capable of the tenderest fraternity. 
 
 He saw, as through a telescope, 'the far-reaching effect
 
 1 86 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 of every thought and action ; saw, as through a microscope, 
 the infinitesimal cause of great events. He realised dura- 
 tion, the eternal action in time, as a revolving wheel, 
 without beginning or end; and days, years, centuries, ages, 
 men and women, love and hate, pleasure and pain, life and 
 death, were as particles of dust upon the whirling spokes of 
 it. Its motion was according to the Great Law that es- 
 tablishes and is itself the necessary course of things. 
 
 He came to see this Law as inherent in nature and in 
 the Spirit a certainty which may be used at will by him 
 who aspires; came to see the knowledge of this Law as 
 the forefinger of God, pointing the way to power un- 
 dreamed of by the groping souls of men. 
 
 All day Jesse sat in the curve between the two hills, all 
 day he meditated; and when the night came down he fell 
 asleep like a tired child in the lap of Nature, his mother. 
 So passed the first day of his solitary initiation in the wil- 
 derness. He had many stages to go through, some brief 
 like this first one of balance and assent to all existing 
 things, some longer and more difficult, some full of bitter 
 travail. He fell asleep, knowing that the morrow would 
 bring sterner labours to the spirit. 
 
 He awoke the next morning with a fuller consciousness 
 of freedom than he had ever before known of freedom 
 and strength; nevertheless, he knew them to be still un- 
 tested, for the acid of experience had not touched them. In 
 that hour of dawn freshness, he felt that he could grasp the 
 upper and lower jaws of the mighty lion of life, forcing them 
 apart or pressing them together according to his will. In 
 his hand lay the destiny not only of himself but of others, 
 and the vitality of innumerable lives seemed to be concen- 
 trated in him. He realised himself as a repository of the 
 powers of Divinity, his personality as a transitory receptacle 
 of the eternal seed a mould wherein the fluid of the Spirit 
 had been poured, to be held by him as a sacred trust, and 
 finally to be restored to the original Source, richer for all 
 the varied experiences of the form which had held it. 
 
 Every breath he drew seemed charged with all the pow- 
 ers of the universal life. It came to him suddenly that 
 this breath of his, this breath of every being, was corre-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 187 
 
 spondent to the forces of attraction and repulsion inherent 
 in all things. Why could not one who understood the law 
 of its control draw to himself any object of desire, drive 
 from himself all things he did not want, as man draws 
 into himself the oxygen necessary to sustain life, and drives 
 from himself the devitalised residue of air for which he 
 has no use? 
 
 At that moment, as if in answer to his question, one of 
 the timid wild deer that walk those mountains came to 
 the edge of the open space wherein he sat; and though its 
 furtive eyes perceived him, he held those eyes with his 
 own. Then gradually he drew the shy creature toward 
 him by the power of attraction which he had just dis- 
 covered. Holding it still with his eyes, he put out his 
 hand and pulled the leaves from a shrub, offering the 
 tempting greenness to the deer, which came softly, unre- 
 sistingly forward and nibbled the leaves from his hand. 
 Then, turning, it bounded back to its mate, which had ap- 
 peared at the edge of the clearing as if calling to it to 
 return to the safety of the deeper forest. 
 
 On the opposite side of the clearing appeared a great 
 bear, one of the species common in that section, the terror 
 of the people from the plains below who occasionally go 
 up the mountain to gather the wild berries that grow there 
 in profusion. The dangerous animal looked at the man 
 before him with a growing interest; but Jesse, in the fear- 
 lessness of that hour of strength, would not have trembled 
 before a lion from the jungles of lower Asia. He calmly 
 regarded the bear, and reversing the power which he had 
 used to attract the deer, he drove the monster from his 
 presence, never to return. 
 
 A few moments later he saw a rattlesnake come 'glid- 
 ing into the circle wherein he sat ; it raised its flat head and 
 looked at him with cold, unpleasant eyes. Conquering an 
 instinctive repugnance and remembering the essential fra- 
 ternity of all living things, he endeavoured to draw the 
 serpent toward him as he had drawn the harmless deer, 
 making it also harmless by his sympathy. But quickly the 
 rattler turned and darted away through the grass. 
 
 Jesse sat quietly and considered the matter. Why, when 
 he could attract the timid deer, could he not attract the
 
 1 88 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 far less timid serpent? And the answer came: The ten- 
 dency of his inherited human repulsion to the reptilian 
 form of life, meeting the action of his will, had added to 
 the inevitable reaction its own inertia. He solved many 
 problems based on this principle in its relation to human 
 life, finding the answer to questions which had puzzled him 
 for years. 
 
 Then, having studied the will to attraction and repul- 
 sion, and having seen how it affected both animal and hu- 
 man social life, he pondered its application to inorganic 
 matter. These thoughts were in his mind as he com- 
 posed himself to sleep that night. 
 
 Rising at dawn, he bathed in the mountain river, then 
 looked about him for the means of testing an idea which 
 had flashed through his mind on waking. High on the 
 bank of the stream he saw a large boulder. How many 
 centuries had it stood there, waiting in silence the word 
 of permission to lave its hot face in the waters below? 
 Jesse climbed the bank and stood behind the rock. Be- 
 lieving firmly that he who could change the inclination 
 of the animal, of conscious matter, could change the 
 position of this unconscious matter, he threw the full force 
 of his body, his will, his breath and his word, against the 
 boulder. With a grating sound which seemed the hoarse 
 laughter of the elemental powers of Nature, it plunged for- 
 ward and down into the river, throwing back to him as if 
 in gratitude a shower of refreshing spray.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 AFTER the moving of the rock there came to Jesse an 
 accession of the consciousness of power; he felt able to do 
 anything, even the seemingly impossible. 
 
 During the afternoon of that day he picked up a small 
 white stone and sat holding it in his hand for a long time. 
 An idea a possibility had taken possession of his imagi- 
 nation. Could he do the thing which he had in mind ? He 
 gazed at the stone, concentrating his thought upon the 
 task he purposed to accomplish. Then he raised it to his 
 lips, and sounded over it a long musical syllable that rang 
 and reverberated among the trees of the silent mountain. 
 He looked again at the stone: it had turned a rich violet 
 colour. So it was true! Superhuman powers were given 
 to man, to be commanded under certain supernormal con- 
 ditions. 
 
 Knowing well that every attainment has its peculiar 
 price, he asked himself what he would have to pay for this 
 power over Nature. Even with the question came the 
 answer: only by the complete consecration of his personality, 
 and his rights as an individual, could a man safely claim 
 and exercise such powers. When he stretched out his hand 
 to enfold that stone and raise its nature, he had to transcend 
 his own mere human nature. On the cross of Nature de- 
 sire must be transformed, that the spirit may be lifted up, 
 and draw all men unto it. He who exposes himself to the 
 subtler forces of Nature is safe only if his heart be pure of 
 any taint of selfishness; for here the worldly fruit of the 
 individual's past and present must be consecrated to the 
 spiritual future of mankind. Only the preserving power 
 of universal love is strong enough to sustain the heart of 
 man on this perilous elevation. 
 
 While meditating alone upon the top of the mountain, 
 he was really nearer to the beings in the valley than were 
 those other beings who spoke to them face to face and lay 
 
 189
 
 igo THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 upon their hearts; for the Self he felt himself to be was 
 the source of all other men and women. Their joys and 
 sorrows were his joys and sorrows. He had outgrown 
 the feeling of separateness from any living thing. Even 
 those who hated him were included in the understanding 
 love with which he embraced the world; for he had solved 
 the mystery of enmity and the greater mystery of friend- 
 ship. Because he could regard his own heart coldly as 
 a thing apart, he was able to regard the hearts of others 
 ardently as being one with himself. The fire which had 
 purified his nature from the dross of selfish desire had ren- 
 dered it so volatile that it could blend with the nature of 
 : any other being, independently of the limitations of time 
 and space. 
 
 Four days he spent in ceaseless communion with the 
 lives of men and women whom he knew: his mother, his 
 stolid brethren, Rose Thomas, his New York friends, his 
 new followers in Capronville, his boyhood's comrade, 
 Marty White, the enigmatical Mary Magnus, and all those 
 other persons, slightly known before but now known in- 
 timately, whom he had met in his brief life on earth. He 
 found the secret cause of all their strangest actions; he 
 found the hidden meanings in their seemingly careless 
 words. 
 
 From an impartial distance, he studied his own heart; 
 and the events of his life from the beginning were brought 
 into the vivid light of his analysis. The reasons which 
 he saw for many of his own words and deeds gave him a 
 clue to the motives behind the words and deeds of others. 
 
 Much has been written of the mystic death, but few 
 know what it means; few know that shadow-country 
 where the soul walks with spectres of the dead and the 
 unborn dead dreams, dead men, dead selves, unborn be- 
 ings, unborn destinies, unborn desires. It has been said 
 that certain men have talked with the dead; but what is it 
 to talk with the dead? He who has the courage to com- 
 mune with his own dead self need fear no spectre of the 
 graveyard. Most men will say that they commune with 
 their dead selves when they think about the past; it is not 
 so, for the selves they think of are not dead, but throb-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 191 
 
 bingly, insistently alive. Not until personal desire is mas- 
 tered can a man safely walk in the tombs with the ghosts of 
 other men. 
 
 It was night on the mountain, a dark night; neither 
 star nor moon was visible. Black darkness and utter si- 
 lence, the two most formidable terrors to the mind of 
 man, held dual sway over the solitary waste. Not a leaf 
 stirred on the trees. Jesse sat with his chin in his palms, 
 peering into the void. His days of uninterrupted medita- 
 tion and fasting had sharpened his perceptions; he beheld 
 the unseen and listened to the unspoken. 
 
 Was that wavering outline in the darkness the form of 
 his father? Were those other grey shapes against the 
 night his unknown companions in the mazes of the dead? 
 The stillness was appalling. Then a something a sound 
 that was to the sense of hearing as the brushing of an in- 
 sect's wing might be to the sense of touch, something al- 
 most too slight to be called a sound came to his ears 
 with meanings as of words. Strange things they seemed 
 to utter, terrible things that made his heart grow cold with 
 horror and with pity. Were the dead indeed so sad? It 
 could not be. Then how explain these wailing etheric 
 wanderers? But wait! Might these not be only the evil 
 passions of the beings gone before, the worldly lusts, the 
 nameless abominations, which the free spirits had left be- 
 hind in the lumber-room of the earth's atmosphere? Surely 
 that melancholy something in his father's shape was not his 
 father's soul; surely the secrets he had heard were not the 
 litanies of those who have left the earth behind. It seemed 
 to him that hours went by while those unrealising, chang- 
 ing shadows passed and repassed before him in the spaces 
 between the visible and the invisible those spectres of 
 passive disintegration, victims of the inevitable reflex of 
 active creation. It seemed to him that he was exhausting 
 the knowledge of all misery bereft of the boon of tears. 
 
 Then other visions passed before him awful, unhuman 
 presences, the shadows of semi-conscious beings who never 
 have been human, spirits of the woods and the waters, 
 spirits of the air, alien and some of them unfriendly to hu- 
 manity. But having transcended his mere humanity, he 
 was their master; their most malignant impulse could not
 
 192 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 reach him, could not penetrate the atmosphere of purity 
 that guarded this instrument of the world's uplifting. They 
 came and went at his bidding, helpless puppets of his will, 
 the passive leaves of the great book of Nature which he 
 studied, types of formation and fertility, that brought him 
 knowledge of how beings are evolved in unlimited space. 
 These later shadows were, compared with the spectres of 
 the earlier night, as integration is to disintegration, as 
 gestation to decomposition. Where before he had faced 
 illusions he now faced realities, only partially evolved, 
 but none the less realities. 
 
 All the night long, the longest night he ever knew, 
 Jesse's mind was tried and tested by his spirit, with tests 
 and trials that endow the victor with the strength for fur- 
 ther progress. Had he failed? . . . But how could 
 he fail? At dawn sleep came with its rewarding balm, 
 and held him for as many hours as he had wandered with 
 the shadows. 
 
 He was awakened by drops of rain falling on his face, 
 and sought shelter in a small open cave he had discovered 
 in the mountainside. For three days the rain fell steadily, 
 and for three days he remained in the cave, braving the 
 storm occasionally for refreshment of wild berries and 
 spring-water. He became again aware of his corporeal ex- 
 istence, which he had forgotten. The human self he had 
 left behind had now risen from the dead, transformed into 
 a powerful individuality. As he gazed out of his cave at 
 the falling rain, the realisation came to him that he had 
 exchanged the smaller self for the larger one, had given 
 up desires in exchange for power; that for every personal 
 right which he had consecrated he now possessed a god- 
 like privilege. 
 
 Then came a thought which made him leap to his feet 
 and rush out into the storm: With the power he already 
 controlled, he could now go down this mountain and de- 
 mand from the world any gift which the world could un- 
 derstand, and the world would be obliged to yield it to 
 him. But stay. . . . The boons he hoped for were 
 those which the world could neither understand nor give. 
 He walked slowly back to his cave and to his meditations.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 193 
 
 That idea was not to return to him until it should come 
 in a more insidious and more dangerous guise. 
 
 Feelings which had slumbered, which he had supposed 
 to be left behind for ever, also returned to him now in 
 higher forms: the love of family and friends, hope of suc- 
 cess for his great mission because it was his own as well as 
 because of its greatness. Here the child and the master, 
 the human and the divine, were mixed together as wine 
 and water, and no drop was wasted. After his recent so- 
 journ in the etheric realms, he was forced by reaction to 
 return to the material world; only his present conscious- 
 ness of individual and corporeal life could have restored 
 the balance and enabled him to continue in the body. But 
 he had brought back with him from that aerial journey 
 the faculty for living in either world at will. 
 
 Who that has dwelt long with any person of highly de- 
 veloped soul but has marked the seeming incongruities and 
 contradictions, growing out of this familiarity with the 
 two extremes of consciousness? In the average human 
 being some one quality predominates; the perfect equilib- 
 rium of those natures which have passed a certain stage 
 of mystic evolution makes them often appear unbalanced, 
 by reason of the very perfection of their mental and spirit- 
 ual balance. They illustrate in their own beings the very 
 acme of antithesis, the parallelism of opposites. 
 
 While Jesse was aware of the powerful instrument for 
 his high purposes which he had in the beautiful human 
 self he had mastered, yet he had no personal pride in its 
 beauty, nor any spiritual pride in the achievement of its 
 mastery. He would have relinquished both without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, could he have thereby furthered in the 
 least degree the development of the souls of men. His body 
 was merely a part of that nature which he could com- 
 mand to serve the Spirit. 
 
 He sat inside the cave, watching and listening to the 
 rain. Water . . . what was its meaning? Was there 
 water in the unimaginable spaces between the stars? and 
 were " the waters above the heavens " like this terrestrial 
 water? Or was there not another and more tenuous 
 moisture, bearing the same relation to the interplanetary 
 ether as water bears to air? And had not the other ele-
 
 194 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ments also their finer prototypes? Watching the currents 
 of the wind-blown rain, he learned the secret of the flow 
 of other currents mysterious and almost incomprehensible 
 of that fluid which is the vehicle of souls. 
 
 After three days and nights of rain the sun rose in a 
 cloudless sky; the green world seemed to dimple and smile, 
 all fresh from its cool bath, and every bird was exultingly 
 telling the joy of its heart. Nature herself was laugh- 
 ing with the consciousness of her own power. Who 
 should prevail against her, with the smile on her morning 
 face? "Am I not fair?" she seemed to say. "What 
 need has man of anything beyond me ? " 
 
 Jesse drew in his breath with keen delight. Surely 
 Nature was beautiful, a pleasing bride for the Spirit. But 
 alas for those who exalted the bride above the bridegroom! 
 Earth smiled in his face, rustling her soft green garments. 
 " Now put away your solemn meditations for a day," she 
 seemed to whisper, " and enjoy with me the fragrance of 
 my garden. Am I not lovelier than cold-eyed philosophy?" 
 
 He gathered a handful of wild flowers, breathing their 
 perfume with eyes half-closed. The whole bright day he 
 spent in contemplating the beauty of the earth as the mir- 
 ror upon whose gleaming surface the face of God was re- 
 flected. He watched the lights and shadows flickering 
 over the trees and the grass; he gazed through the illimit- 
 able blue of the summer sky; he breathed the fragrance of 
 the flowers; he listened to the song of the birds and the 
 whispering of the river. 
 
 But the next day the world seemed not so fresh, seemed 
 not so beautiful; though the sun still shone, the birds still 
 sang. He had learned long before that no experience is 
 ever exactly repeated: this day would bring him something 
 different, perhaps another aspect of the many-sided mother 
 of mankind, perhaps the limitations of her sphere the 
 narrow circumference surrounding all the human children 
 she nourishes at her breast. 
 
 Surely there must be a circle which no man could pass, 
 till he should become more than man the circle of earthly 
 destiny. Could he transcend the limits in which the in-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 195 
 
 carnate soul is doomed to act? His very human nature, 
 the link which bound him to his kind and made it possible 
 for him to touch them, seemed now to mock at him. Was 
 he too bold? Could man perform the labours he had set 
 himself? Somewhere in his wide reading he had found the 
 phrase, " the circle of necessity." Was this not what it 
 meant, this serpent-circle of fatality, the settled bound of 
 the soul's daring course. Might there not also be a guard- 
 ian Power which watched upon the border of man's legiti- 
 mate domain, hurling him back with fear and pain should 
 he presume to arrogate to himself the powers and privileges 
 of superior beings, a mysterious guardian of limitation? 
 Chained to the planetary footstool, how should man's will 
 escape the iron fetters? Surely the spirit, having accepted 
 the limitations of matter, must abide by the decision; when- 
 ever it seeks to rise above the earth, must remain suspended, 
 like a fluttering bird, between the co-ordinating pinions of 
 good and evil. 
 
 In gloomy meditation on these problems he passed an- 
 other day. He who ventures to lift the veil of Life must 
 dare the shadows cast by the veil's awful folds upon, the 
 unknown face. 
 
 The night that followed was dark with more than lunar 
 darkness. All sources of light seemed hidden by the earth; 
 the underworld that had devoured the sun and moon 
 seemed also to have made a giant's feast of all the spiritual 
 lights that had shone in the soul's heaven. The faith 
 which had wrought miracles was now sore beset by the 
 doubt which ever seeks to work destruction; and as he 
 lay sleepless under the heavy sky, the dark horns of the 
 universal monster seemed to be arched over him, their 
 menacing points buried in the earth on either side of his 
 hard natural bed. 
 
 At sunrise he awoke from a brief sleep troubled by vague, 
 evil dreams; through them a malign face leered at him, a 
 never-to-be-forgotten face with slanting eyes and false, 
 uncertain glance. So vivid was the vision of this entity 
 through the formless shadows of his dream, that it seemed 
 to stand before him even in the broad sunlight for a mo- 
 ment after he opened his eyes. In its hand it held a
 
 196 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 lighted torch; dark batlike wings extended from its shoul- 
 ders, and its vesture was wrought with serpents and strange 
 symbols. 
 
 Jesse leaped to his feet and shook himself, he ran down 
 the hill and bathed in the cold mountain river; but still 
 the leer on that false, satanic face remained with him, still 
 at the back of his consciousness remained the restless doubts 
 suggested by its glance. What dark force of Nature had 
 his brain visualised? Or was it, really, an independent 
 entity, having its home in the secret realm beyond the in- 
 trusion of man's normal senses? Could it be the fearful 
 guardian of the spiritual place of beauty and high power? 
 Whatever it might be, the Presence remained with him 
 to warn, to mock, to torture with cold doubts. 
 
 What was the will of man that it should set itself to 
 superhuman labours? the Presence seemed to whisper. To 
 what result were tending all his fiery hopes of world re- 
 generation? Ingratitude, derision, martrydom, these 
 were the doubtful prizes of the struggle. What if his 
 conquest should take another form? With his indisputable 
 powers he might accomplish anything he chose, should he 
 confine himself to ways the world could understand. He 
 at whose word the very stones changed colour, at whose 
 will the wild deer came and the menacing bear departed, 
 could command the obedience of fortune, command bread 
 for the mouth and beauty for the eye. 
 
 He realised that he was hungry. Wild berries and 
 spring-water might sustain life for a long time, but the 
 material appetites demand a more substantial fare. 
 
 " You who could change the colour of the stone," the 
 haunting Presence whispered, " command these other 
 stones at your feet to be made bread, that you may not 
 suffer from hunger." 
 
 Surely a not illogical suggestion; and whatever Jesse's 
 powers might be, his hunger at least was real. 
 
 " You have declared that you are God," the Presence 
 again whispered, " have declared that God is the Power 
 and that you are the expression of the Power. The time 
 is come to prove your daring faith. Of what use or 
 dignity are superhuman powers if they may not be put to 
 human uses? Now command the stones to be made bread.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 197 
 
 What, is your faith so weak? You fear they will not 
 obey you?" And a mocking laugh sounded against his 
 inner ear. 
 
 " My failure to make bread of stones," he said aloud, 
 as if one listened to him, " would affect only myself ; but 
 my failure to depend upon the Spirit would affect the 
 work of the Spirit that dwells in me." 
 
 Again he made his meal of wild berries and quenched 
 his thirst at the cool spring. 
 
 To escape the malign Presence he climbed to the top of 
 the mountain, and stood on the edge of a cliff which fell 
 sheer to a rocky bed below. But the morning visitor was 
 before him, still whispering temptations as from the depths 
 of his own brain. On the rocks below were the whiten- 
 ing bones of some animal. A fall from this height would 
 mean certain death; but if he were really chosen by the 
 Spirit for the performance of great works, would not 
 the Spirit bear him up? Why should his body not pass 
 unharmed through the air, even as his more subtle form 
 of thought? Were they not both equally the vehicles of 
 consciousness? 
 
 " The Spirit cannot be destroyed," the Presence again 
 whispered. " If you are indeed the Spirit, cast yourself 
 down and prove your unity with God. To him who 
 shall prevail against the force of gravitation and the sharp- 
 ness of those rocks, all things will be possible even the 
 regeneration of mankind." 
 
 " The laws of Nature are the commands of God," Jesse 
 said, again aloud as if one listened. " He who destroys 
 the body is a traitor to the Spirit." 
 
 He sat down upon the cliff and gazed out across the 
 rolling hills and valleys, to the far blue line of another 
 chain of mountains in the west. O wide and myriad- 
 peopled world! O world of beauty and of strange, far 
 cities, among whose rulers he might take his place by 
 virtue of inherent strength if he but chose! And might 
 not such choice be wise and righteous? Among the cold, 
 self-seeking sovereigns of the earth, what influence for 
 good might he not wield who should make himself a ruler 
 for love's sake! The Presence again whispered in his 
 inner ear:
 
 ig8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Is it then for nothing that you worship God? Can 
 the Spirit act without a medium, the soul without a 
 body? The ruler of a nation has power undreamed of by 
 the plodding herd. Then make the State the body, the 
 medium of the Spirit; and though to such an end one 
 walks inevitably by devious ways, remember that in the 
 physical mechanism that serves the soul are many gross 
 and evil-smelling substances. Seize worldly power, then 
 use it for whatever end seems best. What knows the sol- 
 dier who fights for the king of the king's secret design? 
 Seize worldly power! It may be given you to serve the 
 Spirit by material means. Seize worldly power command 
 all men to be the servants of your will." 
 
 Then Jesse faced the evil Presence. He gazed into its 
 eyes with stern, unshaken heart. 
 
 " Demon of Doubt," he cried, " you, too, have served 
 the Spirit that I serve served it by tempting and testing 
 the steel of my soul's loyalty. Now get you back to your 
 own realm, and nevermore come near me. I will fight 
 the battle of the Spirit with spiritual weapons." 
 
 There came to him, even with the words, such peace 
 and consciousness of strength as he had never known. 
 Now might the powers of darkness storm and rage about 
 the citadel of his soul; they could not reach the quiet place 
 wherein he dwelt secure.
 
 BLACK storm-clouds were gathering over the moun- 
 tain; from horizon to horizon they threatened one an- 
 other, and the low voice of thunder reverberated among 
 the hills. The air was tense with expectation of coming 
 danger; the wind whispered shrilly through the tree-tops 
 that shuddered at its message; the river seemed to rush 
 faster, as if hurrying toward lower and safer levels. Now 
 and then a bird cried out, in warning to its mate. 
 
 Jesse stood beneath a giant pine-tree, already scarred 
 from head to foot in some past encounter with celestial 
 wrath. He was far below the cave where he had housed 
 himself in the long rain many days before. 
 
 The voice of the thunder grew louder, nearer. From 
 a low grumbling it broke into angry roars, that were 
 answered by other and angrier roars, and the wild bom- 
 bardment was begun. A patter of rain, like drops from 
 the wounded warriors of the sky, fell on the leaves and the 
 grass; then, with a shrill whistle of wind, the drops be- 
 came a deluge, and the trees arched their backs to meet 
 the weight of it. 
 
 The broad pagoda of the pine was like a roof and 
 sheltered Jesse from the rush of waters; but a wilder 
 danger menaced him a swift, incalculable danger. There 
 came a deafening roar, a flash of flame, and only a few 
 yards to the right of him a tree fell crashing to the 
 ground the very one he had considered for a shelter 
 before he chose the pine. 
 
 " O Spirit that is myself," he prayed, " bring Thou 
 this body, our servant, safely through the baptism of 
 fire!" 
 
 Suddenly a roar as of a thousand cannon . . , . 
 blinding light ... a vivid sight within the blind- 
 ness . . . and he knew no more. . . . 
 
 When Jesse opened his eyes and struggled back to con- 
 sciousness, he found himself face downward on the soak- 
 
 199
 
 200 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ing grass; over him a cool wind blew with refreshing 
 breath. The rain was over, the voice of the storm was 
 still, and only the excited whisper of the swelling river 
 rushed across the silence. 
 
 His body felt sore and shattered, but he staggered to 
 his feet. How pure and fresh was the world after its 
 baptism of fire and water! He turned to look at the 
 pine-tree which had afforded him such dangerous hospi- 
 tality: one of the boughs was torn from the trunk and 
 was hanging by a long strip of bark, while a few feet 
 distant a great hole in the ground showed where the bolt 
 had spent its fury. The sun now came out from behind 
 a bank of clouds, and Jesse climbed upon a large flat 
 rock to dry himself and to consider his escape. 
 
 He told himself that had he listened yesterday to the 
 voice of temptation, had he failed in the trial, had he 
 compromised with his own faith and thought to build 
 his spiritual temple with the stones of worldly ambition 
 and expediency, the power which had stunned him would 
 have killed outright, and his forfeited body would now be 
 lying at the base of the broken tree. But he had found 
 an answer to the question which had puzzled him in the 
 cave: of what nature was the fire of celestial space. 
 
 He remembered reading somewhere: " Electricity flashes 
 only when its current is interrupted." He saw the dual 
 application of the principle in space and in himself; for 
 without the interruption of the spiritual current by this 
 material body which often weighed upon him, he could 
 not light the visible world with his invisible message. 
 Here was another dangerous paradox an opening wedge 
 for the Spirit of Evil, that had appeared, with specious 
 reasoning, to his subjective eye and ear. While the Holy 
 Spirit must manifest as the God of matter, it must never 
 abdicate its sovereignty. The ramifications of this mys- 
 tery he explored in meditation for several days. 
 
 One night he lay gazing at a flaming star in the west 
 and considering the infinite duration of its existence. How 
 could the soul of man be less eternal? Was it not related 
 to the Spirit of yonder planet? and would they not 
 both survive their material body? In thought he fol-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 201 
 
 lowed the stupendous steps of the star from its nebular 
 infancy in the dim past; in thought he followed the steps 
 of his own soul from its original unity with God. The 
 two ways seemed equally long. Not until the spirit of 
 man has delivered itself from the temptations of the Spirit 
 of Evil are the higher stellar mysteries unveiled to it; 
 much may be learned before, but the final arcana are for 
 the pure in heart only. 
 
 Jesse never spoke to anyone but John of what he 
 learned during these later days on the mountain and 
 even to him he could not tell it all. He caught echoes 
 of the speech that celestial beings use with one another; 
 he learned the uses of the mystical Word that was "with 
 God in the beginning," and was the unknown cause of all 
 the known developments of Nature the Word that never 
 can be formed in mortal speech; learned the secret affini- 
 ties that unite substances, and why the seed of every animal 
 and plant reproduces the image of its parent; learned how 
 each particle of the universe contains within itself the im- 
 pulse for reunion with its Source. After three days spent 
 in superhuman contemplation of superhuman truths, Jesse 
 turned with his new knowledge to study in its light the 
 corresponding mysteries of the human. 
 
 He watched a butterfly with iridescent wings which 
 fluttered round a flower symbol of the ethereal soul, which 
 comes and goes, and touches lightly the ephemeral flowers 
 that are human bodies, blooming a little while in the 
 sunshine before they return to the dust. 
 
 "O bright pilgrim of air!" he whispered. "The star 
 of immortality shines over you, though unseen in the 
 noonday of earthly trial. The winds of pleasure and pain 
 that blow you here and there will pass and leave but 
 vaguest memories; the griefs of to-day will be one with the 
 joys of a thousand years ago." 
 
 As he mused on the mystery of immortal life, it came to 
 him again, like a fresh revelation, that there could never 
 have been a time when he was not, and there could never 
 be a time when he should cease to be. 
 
 " I am immortal and indestructible," he cried aloud, 
 even as he had cried that day, so long ago, " I myself am 
 God."
 
 202 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Of the millions of men who have taken that declaration 
 of individual immortality upon their lips, perhaps one in 
 every million has grasped the living consciousness of it 
 the glory. To be immortal is to be superior to change 
 and above disaster; it is to work for the joy of the work- 
 ing and not merely for the prizes of life, as the one su- 
 preme and incomparable boon is already in one's hand. 
 Immortal! To watch the ages pass like the marching sol- 
 diers of an army, to sit in the council-hall of destiny, to 
 stand in a secure place when the nations go forth to war 
 and death and terror stalk up and down the world, to study 
 life as one studies a book of geometry, to guard unseen 
 the cradle of the new-born child of earth, to be the poetry 
 which shakes the heart of virgin love, to thrill at the 
 metaphors of planetary correspondences. Immortal! 
 
 Again the crescent moon appeared to companion his 
 meditations, again he watched its silvery reflection in the 
 water. Much had he learned and lived since the spectral 
 wanderer last walked with the Lion in the plains of the 
 Zodiac. 
 
 Jesse had come to realise by this time that his contem- 
 plation had progressed by definite stages, each tending to a 
 distinct end. He thought of the initiations of the an- 
 cients, and wondered if he were not finding for himself 
 a similar path of illumination. Was not the soul's way 
 one, in every age and clime? But he had found that way 
 unaided. 
 
 The physical discomfort of his mountain sojourn could 
 not tempt him to seek the lower levels of civilisation, un- 
 til he should have found something which he believed to 
 lie beyond even his present attainment. Step by step he 
 followed the guidance of the Spirit through the labyrinths 
 of thought and feeling, as all his life he had followed step 
 by step the inner monitor which had led him toward the 
 goal of his future ministry. No study had been too long 
 for him, no task too humble or too difficult. But his pres- 
 ent path seemed to lie outside the limits of terrestrial life. 
 
 He had made his own the knowledge of all human mis- 
 ery and human joy, had tasted the essence of fraternity; 
 but now for a season he must leave behind the very thought
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 203 
 
 of all whom he had loved and who had loved him, and 
 plunge alone into the wilderness of space. Beyond the 
 blood-stained path of earth-existence, beset by servile and 
 evil creatures that ever seek to drag downward the soul 
 of man, in the region beyond the moon and the planets his 
 spiritual form wandered in the twilight in the vast womb 
 of the universal Mother, where forms are generated by 
 the Formless. 
 
 Out . . . out ... he went in consciousness, 
 past planet after planet. . . . Saturn behind him was 
 a speck in the grey distance . . . on to the pale path 
 of Uranus . . . out beyond the opalescent track of 
 the ether-wallowing Neptune . . . still on and on 
 into the unknown void. The solitude was appalling. The 
 stillness of an earthly desert would have seemed deafening 
 noise had a rumour of it been blown across this awful 
 stillness of infinity. 
 
 He felt a pain like that of the uprooted plant, torn 
 from the mother earth; he was lost in the loneliness out- 
 side of time; cold shivers shook his naked spirit, and the 
 terror of the unknown challenged him. If he should 
 never find his way back! Invisible, infinitesimal was the 
 earth-home he had left behind. Should he ever see it again? 
 After the first shock of the question, the answer seemed of 
 small importance. What was the speck of dust called 
 earth, that he should exalt it above all the other wonders 
 of God's workshop? And why was he so lonely and 
 afraid? However far he wandered in the trackless void, 
 could he find a place where God was not? 
 
 Slowly, reluctantly, at last his consciousness came back 
 to the earth. He realised himself again as a corporeal 
 being with hands and feet, with human needs and human 
 limitations. His very body now seemed strange and alien 
 to his soul.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 ONE fiery noon, a few days later, Jesse lay down in 
 the shade of a tree and passed into a deep sleep. 
 
 How long he had been lying there he never knew, 
 whether an hour or a day and an hour; but, in the strange 
 consciousness between sleeping and waking, he found him- 
 self lying in the full blaze of the sun. And he became 
 aware that the flaming eye of day was something more 
 than the familiar source of the world's light and heat, 
 more than the centre of the solar system; that it was even 
 the Spiritual Sun which is God, the centre of the system 
 of souls, in whose rays man awakes to the divine world. 
 
 He gazed with unflinching eyes at that supreme efful- 
 gence. And the golden sun was like a window through 
 which he looked into another dimension of space, a uni- 
 verse within and yet unmixed with our visible universe, 
 permeating it as feeling permeates the body. Even the 
 positive and negative forces of his own being that he had 
 learned to master were in the light of this new revelation 
 athrill with other and stranger potencies. With the open- 
 ing of yonder window, every power of his being was made 
 free. 
 
 But he realised the price of the attainment: For every 
 superhuman faculty acquired by the dauntless soul, some 
 lower privilege must be relinquished. He who has gazed 
 into the open eye of Infinity can nevermore defend him- 
 self as against any other being, never choose a given way 
 merely because it is pleasant to walk therein, never again 
 claim as his own even the privilege to weep. The Divine 
 Idea once grasped by the mind of man as a self-defensive 
 being that man exists no longer. 
 
 The next great lesson that he learned was why things 
 are life and death, pleasure and pain, good and evil, re- 
 ward and punishment; the primal law of cause and effect, 
 
 P04
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 205 
 
 which has been called by many names in many philosophies 
 and as often misunderstood. He saw the reason why one 
 man is clothed with power, another with weakness; why 
 two beings may love and trust each other, two beings hate 
 and fear; why attraction and repulsion, the inseparable 
 twins, delude and bewilder the mind until light seems 
 shadow and shadow seems light; why the soul oftentimes 
 chooses for itself a destiny of trouble, and learns the lesson 
 therein hidden or does not learn it. He saw how the 
 soul passes judgment upon itself; how the judgment of 
 the Spirit is our judgment, because we are the Spirit. The 
 suffering of the world became to him a mirror wherein he 
 saw reflected the cause of that suffering. He solved the 
 mystery behind eternal motion the inherent urge of life, 
 the impetus within the soul itself. 
 
 The awakening of the dead assumed a new and deeper 
 meaning. He saw how the Spirit renews its vehicle, the 
 shadow cast by the wings of Time becoming the garments 
 of the Timeless; learned how the trumpet that summons 
 to judgment is blown continually throughout the ages. 
 And he fell on his face, in adoration of the Intelligence 
 which weighs the effect and the cause in the delicate scales 
 of cosmic justice. 
 
 Jesse now passed a day or two in rest and in the quiet 
 enjoyment of the cool, green world. He knew that his 
 period of solitude was drawing near its end; that after 
 one more vision of the sovereign Eternity, he must return 
 to deliver his message to the slaves of Time. He was in 
 no hurry for the final initiation, and no longer either 
 dreaded or rejoiced in the thought of his mission. It was 
 to be that was all. The joys of labour well performed 
 might come in the future; but sufficient unto the present 
 hour was the wonder of the vision. 
 
 At last, one perfect evening when the moon was full, he 
 chose a spot near the top of the mountain and sat down 
 to await the revelation. Whether it would come as a 
 series of illuminating pictures visible to his inner eye, or as 
 the formless Idea, he had no knowledge and no clue. He 
 only waited. 
 
 Slowly his consciousness expanded. Though his body
 
 206 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 was fixed on a remote spot on one of the smaller planets of 
 one of the innumerable solar systems of the universe, his 
 perception, liberated from the trammels of the body, swifter 
 than light, more volatile than ether, radiated in all di- 
 rections until he occupied, as a self-conscious and limitless 
 entity, every atom of that universe. 
 
 Long ago he had cried, in the joy of a lesser revelation, 
 " I myself am God ; " but he now realised the infiniteness 
 of that identity. He remembered, as an event in his own 
 past, the condensation of the suns from cosmic fire-dust. 
 He beheld, as a pageant without beginning or end, the 
 dateless, rhythmic march of creation and destruction; felt 
 the vast beating of the heart of God, the atoms of whose 
 blood are whirling suns. He perceived the phenomena of 
 time, of sequence, without relation to terrestrial dates; per- 
 ceived the past and the future as coexistent in the thought 
 of God, and the events of a million years to come were as 
 clear as the happenings of his own earthly yesterday. His 
 own ! Were the two not 'equally his own ? 
 
 In the hours that came his spirit walked in ways we 
 may not follow, achieved experiences we may not record; 
 for human language is evolved by race development, and 
 the human race has never walked those ways not compassed 
 that experience. Adrift on the sea of infinity, his spirit 
 clung to his mind as to the frail bark which should bear 
 him back to the shores of earthly life. Had the ecstatic 
 spirit lost its hold upon that mind, the world had never 
 known him more, and the guerdon-treasure of the perilous 
 quest had never 'enriched mankind. 
 
 Reluctantly, after a long time, he left those larger cir- 
 cles of existence and shrank to the earth which bore him, 
 not yet to his own body, but to the earth, the great body 
 which now seemed to be his; and to him who had walked 
 the periphery of the universe, even the earth's wide orbit 
 seemed a narrow way. He felt as firmly held by the ron- 
 dure of the planet as he had ever been held by his form of 
 flesh. The destiny of the earth seemed to be his destiny, 
 its pain his pain; and the entire past of humanity was as 
 well known to him as the events of his own life from child- 
 hood to the present hour. He felt the sheer physical bulk
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 207 
 
 of the earth as being his own body; the great shoulders of 
 the northern continents were his, his feet were in the 
 Antarctic. But his consciousness was the consciousness of 
 collective Man the race ego was himself, its slow develop- 
 ment was the evolution of himself. With inexpressible 
 ecstasy he felt the groping aspirations of that great earth- 
 being toward the Spirit that evolved it; with inexpressible 
 pain he felt the suffering of that being when destitute of 
 hope, chained to the matter that ever deceived it, ever 
 failed to satisfy the yearning flame within. He was Adam- 
 Eve, the dual pilgrim of Time; he was every soul that 
 ever was or ever will be on this whirling sphere. He 
 contemplated the ellipse of the earth's orbit as an ordinary 
 man regards the circle of his daily walk. 
 
 Then, as slowly and reluctantly as he had left the larger 
 circles of space for the lesser one of the earth's way, he 
 contracted in consciousness to the limits of his individual 
 horizon. He was once more the man Jesse, who was born 
 in Vermont of humble parentage, and who aspired to 
 found the republic of the spiritual life. Bewildered by the 
 change, he opened his eyes and looked about him. 
 
 The sun was rising, as if to welcome the intrepid travel- 
 ler of space on his return to the green earth. When he 
 had closed his eyes, long hours before, the full moon in 
 the eastern sky had bidden him Godspeed on his incalcula- 
 ble journey. The familiar mountains now appeared strange 
 as do the scenes of his childhood to a man who has wan- 
 dered a lifetime in foreign lands; the hills seemed not so 
 high, the river not so wide, and the lives of the restless 
 dwellers in the wilderness briefer and less important. 
 
 His period of solitude was over. Now to the world 
 again! As he had before laid aside his personal rights and 
 privileges, he now laid aside his meditations. Henceforth 
 ceaseless, unresting activity would be the order of his life. 
 
 If he could only give all that he had learned to others! 
 But he realised that at best he could only point the way 
 which they must walk for themselves. The misery of 
 humanity was an oppressive weight upon his heart. Oh, 
 to give himself as a sacrifice for all these men and women! 
 What was the lust of fame, the lust of power, when
 
 208 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 weighed in the balance with this passion for self-giving? 
 Greater, he thought, to serve the world unthanked, than 
 to command the service of the world. 
 
 With head erect and steady eyes that pierced the future, 
 Jesse walked rapidly down the mountain toward the levels 
 of common humanity, carrying with him the pure atmos- 
 phere of the everlasting heights.
 
 BOOK III 
 THE FULFILMENT
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 * 
 
 IN a little house at the foot of the mountain lived a 
 lumberman named Williams and his young wife. Stand- 
 ing together in their doorway one Sunday morning in 
 July, they saw a majestic stranger coming toward them 
 down the steep road. With rustic curiosity they stared 
 at him, and when he paused and lifted the latch of their 
 gate, the woman's heart beat fast. 
 
 " May I rest with you for a day and a night? " he asked. 
 " I am hungry and in need of sleep." 
 
 " Rest, eat and be welcome," answered the man; and 
 his wife disappeared for a moment into the house, return- 
 ing with a bowl of cool, delicious milk. 
 
 " Dinner will be ready in a little while," she said. 
 
 He thanked her for the milk, and added : " For forty 
 days I have subsisted in the wilderness up there, on wild 
 berries and spiritual bread; so an hour of fasting, more or 
 less, is of no consequence to me." 
 
 They gazed at him in wonderment. Was this another 
 wandering Hermit, like him who had passed their house 
 one day with a group of wild-eyed followers, crying 
 harshly of repentance and the day of wrath? But the 
 Hermit was mad, they believed, and there was no madness 
 in the calm eyes which now looked so lovingly at them. 
 
 "Are you also seeking for one who shall transform the 
 world ? " the lumberman ventured, incredulously. 
 
 " Even the Hermit is not seeking any longer; his quest 
 is ended." 
 
 They dared not voice the thought which flashed through 
 their minds. Was it possible that the prophecy of John 
 had been verified? The man before them was certainly 
 unlike anybody they had ever seen before. The long fast 
 and exaltation on the mountain, the ecstasy of the previous 
 night, had given him a look of unearthliness, of supermor-
 
 212 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 tal purity, that was reflected even in the dull eyes of these 
 mountaineers. 
 
 Jesse smiled softly at their bewilderment, and said: 
 
 " Many that cursed the messenger who went before the 
 dawn will rise joyfully to greet the sunrise." 
 
 The religious heart of the young wife was stirred by 
 the words and presence of her guest; and the duty of pre- 
 paring the midday dinner was welcome to her, as an op- 
 portunity for controlling her emotion. 
 
 He ate at their table, he rested and slept beneath their 
 humble roof, he told them of his mission in simple words 
 which they could understand; and when on the morrow 
 he asked them if they would leave their home and follow 
 him, the man cried, " Yes, to the end of the world ! " and 
 the woman wept for joy. That afternoon they started for 
 Burlington, and the obliging old neighbour who drove 
 them to the nearest railway-station talked of his beautiful 
 passenger and repeated his strange sayings to the day of 
 his death. 
 
 Arrived in Burlington, Jesse and his two companions 
 went to the house of one of the disciples of John the 
 Hermit, who was also a friend of Andrew Bond of Ca- 
 pronville. Hardly had Jesse crossed the threshold when he 
 heard a cry of joy, and the hands of the friend who came 
 nearest to understanding him the young John were warm 
 within his own. 
 
 "I have been waiting for you here three days," the 
 boy said. "I felt that you would come soon. I needed 
 you so ! " 
 
 Jesse's eyes were tender as he answered: 
 
 " The greater you are, the seldomer will you find the 
 understanding friend whom you need; but the oftener will 
 you find the misunderstanding friend who has need of 
 you." 
 
 At the supper-table he began to teach them. There 
 were ten persons present at the meal, several of them being 
 men who had followed the Hermit. Instinctively they 
 gave to Jesse the respectful attention they were wont to 
 give to their own stern teacher, and something else a 
 wistful, surprised enrapturement which John had never 
 inspired. Jesse's teachings startled and charmed them,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 213 
 
 they were so different from anything they had ever heard. 
 He spoke with the sureness of authority, and his words 
 gave a new meaning to their ideas of God and man. 
 
 " He who is fully negative to God," he said, " may be- 
 come positive to the whole universe." 
 
 He did not speak as the preachers do, ringing all the 
 changes on a given theme, pursuing it up and down until 
 the attention of the listener is weary; but he taught them 
 in brief, pregnant sentences, with pauses and conversation 
 between, that his words might fix themselves in their 
 memory. 
 
 " My will is the will of God when I am strong 
 enough to put my will into effect." 
 
 They looked at him in astonishment. 
 
 " Can the will of man prevail against God's will ? " he 
 asked. " Can you countermand the order of the Supreme? 
 You see that the Law must be as I have said, though the 
 way of its working is a mystery." 
 
 After a little while, he continued: 
 
 " You can never know God until you know yourself, 
 and to know yourself you must first forget the existence 
 of self." 
 
 Their minds, unaccustomed to subtleties of thought, 
 could hardly grasp his meaning, and someone asked him 
 to repeat what he had said about knowing God and one- 
 self. He smilingly complied, and seeing still the look of 
 wonder on their faces, he said: 
 
 " If you have the courage to examine the recesses of 
 you own nature without fear and without shame, you 
 have found the key which shall unlock for you the doors 
 of eternal safety and honour. Fear and shame are two 
 dragons barring the path of knowledge to all save those 
 indomitable spirits which hunger for the everlasting truth. 
 
 " Before a man can have confidence in the soul, he must 
 first become acquainted with the soul. Should you meet 
 your own soul face to face, would you know it for the 
 God it is?'; 
 
 They smiled at him and at each other, shyly, half- 
 ashamed of the new-born confidence warming their hearts 
 and shining in their neighbours' eyes. Perhaps they were 
 not vile, after all, as the Hermit had so often told them.
 
 214 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Search their own hearts without fear and without shame, 
 the new teacher commanded them, for so they would find 
 God. Should they also search the hearts of one another? 
 He answered their unspoken thought: 
 
 " When you discover and become the God within your- 
 self, all other men shall be as your children, to be loved 
 with a love that passes their weak knowledge." 
 
 " Is it not wrong," asked the man in whose house they 
 were, " is there not danger in thinking too highly of sin- 
 ful humanity ? " 
 
 " No. Even the average man who would measure the 
 greatness of his own soul, or the soul of his brother, needs 
 a tape long enough to reach the stars." 
 
 So he began to teach them, stirring their faith in them- 
 selves and in each other, arousing their enthusiasm for him. 
 And after they separated for the night, Jesse was the only 
 one who slept; the others lay for hours meditating upon 
 his strange words and entrancing presence, which seemed 
 to stand at the foot of their beds with uplifted finger, 
 pointing the way to a shining road whose end was lost in 
 the mystery of God. 
 
 The next day came Peter and Andrew and Judson 
 Carey, who had been summoned from Capronville to join 
 their teacher on his return from the mountain. They 
 cried out at first beholding the new beauty shining in the 
 countenance of him who had always been beautiful beyond 
 all other men. 
 
 " We have left our mill in the care of the womenfolks," 
 said the matter-of-fact Peter to Jesse, with a mellow smile 
 which won the hearts of the new members of the little 
 band, " we have left our home in the care of God, and 
 are come to follow you wherever you may lead us." 
 
 " Even to the dwelling-place of the Spirit? " Jesse asked. 
 
 " Even to the dwelling-place of the Spirit if our feet 
 are not too heavy to pass that ethereal threshold." 
 
 "Oh! Our Peter has become a poet," cried the schol- 
 arly John, his boyish face aflame with pleasure." 
 
 " He can make poets of plough-boys," said Andrew, 
 with a deep look at his beloved friend, who answered him: 
 
 " When the praise men give you shall seem not praise 
 of yourself, but of the pervading Spirit, when it seems im-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 215 
 
 personal as their admiration of the dawn or the starry 
 heavens, then know that you are on the path of personal 
 immortality." 
 
 Jesse wished to see the Hermit again, but learned that 
 he was preaching on the other side of Lake Champlain. 
 The prophet whose habit was self-mortification, would not 
 indulge himself even in the pleasure of close association 
 with the one for whom he had prepared the way. It was 
 no part of Jesse's plan to begin his ministry in Burlington, 
 to supplant on his own ground the one who had pro- 
 claimed him; and his eyes, which could penetrate the mists 
 of the future, saw darkly that the life of the austere wan- 
 derer was somehow nearing its end. So, taking with him 
 his own friends, and two of the Hermit's converts who 
 prayed to be allowed to follow the new teacher, he went 
 down to Vergennes, a few miles to the south. 
 
 How different was his entry of the little city from that 
 other time, eleven years before, when he had gone up 
 there from his home in Nashburgh, a young carpenter 
 looking for work! Vergennes the home of Mary Mag- 
 nus. Where was she now? Was she seeking, in some 
 far foreign land, ease for her restless soul? Or should 
 he find her there in the old place, awaiting in solitude the 
 messenger of her fate? He had known for many years, 
 with that inner certainty surer than all pledges, that in 
 some unknown way this woman was to be closely connected 
 with his own high destiny.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 MARY MAGNUS, twenty-eight years old, sole mistress 
 of herself and of her dead father's fortune, had come home 
 to Vergennes after a three-years' journey around the world. 
 She was more beautiful than ever. From New York 
 through Europe and Asia eastward to Yokohama, she had 
 been followed, feted and adored. Suddenly, in the latter 
 city, about a month before, she had dismissed her follow- 
 ers and friends, and had caught the first Pacific steamer 
 for San Francisco, keeping secluded in her stateroom nearly 
 all the way. Arrived on shore, she had taken the fastest 
 train across the continent; but even the steam-winged 
 dragon of the plains was too slow for her restless passion 
 to be in Vergennes. Why had that insignificant dot on 
 the world's map suddenly loomed so large in her eyes that 
 it shut out the view of all things near and far? She could 
 not give a reasonable answer to the question. Was it a 
 call of Destiny, she wondered, one of those vague, un- 
 reasonable commands that move the souls of men and 
 women at long intervals to fly in the face of judgment 
 and discretion, fly wildly toward some unknown goal? 
 
 When she found herself at last, one day in July, in the 
 quiet, cool old house, she passed her hand across her eyes 
 in bewilderment. Why was she there? The city, the very 
 State and nation of her birth, had grown distasteful to 
 her long ago. The presence of her dead mother, ever 
 melancholy and complaining, seemed to haunt the shadowy 
 rooms of home. Her intimate girl friends were married 
 and gone away, and the narrow society of the little town 
 had always so wearied her that her listlessness had alien- 
 ated the few old women who had been her mother's inti- 
 mates. Only the green, blossomy garden behind the house 
 seemed to welcome her with love. The buzzing of the 
 bees among the hollyhocks made her eyes fill with tears. 
 Over in the far corner her hammock used to swing between 
 two trees, and she closed her eyes and bit her lips with the 
 
 216
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 217 
 
 onrush of an overwhelming memory. The servant who 
 met her as she re-entered the house wondered why the 
 face of her mistress burned so deep a red. 
 
 In the afternoon of the following day she walked down 
 the main street of the town for the purpose of cashing a 
 check at her father's old bank, now in other hands. Then 
 she went on through the village. Passing the park, she 
 saw a crowd of people gathered about someone who was 
 talking to them in clear, ringing tones. A few words only 
 caught her ear in the distance: 
 
 " God is the Power, and I am the expression of the 
 Power." 
 
 Where had she heard that voice? Surely nowhere that 
 voice, but one strangely like it, as the green little bud of 
 the rose is in some way like the full-blown fragrant won- 
 der of the blossom. Why did her heart stand still at the 
 voice of this wandering preacher? She had heard many 
 preachers in many lands: had sat at the feet of Hindu 
 yogis in India, had listened to discourses on the Mahayana 
 in Tokio, had gazed into the eyes of an enthusiastic Ma- 
 hometan as he talked of the power of Allah, had heard 
 the voice of the greatest religious potentate of the world. 
 Yet she trembled at the voice of a wandering preacher in 
 the little provincial town of her birth. Strange! 
 
 Moved by something deeper than curiosity, she joined 
 the spellbound group around the speaker, with a proud 
 grace which made the people give place to her until she 
 stood but a few feet away from the man to whom they 
 were listening. Then she raised her eyes. . . . It 
 was Jesse. 
 
 At first she had no idea of what he was saying. She 
 only saw him, and heard the strange, sweet voice rising 
 and thrilling and deepening with the fervour of his feel- 
 ing. He had been beautiful in the days of his youth, more 
 beautiful still in his early manhood ; but since those forty 
 days on the mountain his face had assumed a look for 
 which there is no name in the vocabulary of men. 
 
 Did he see and recognise her? If so, he gave no sign. 
 In the exaltation of his discourse, the woman who had 
 joined the throng about him was only one of the leaves in 
 the great forest of human souls which he was sent to save
 
 218 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 from the withering breath of spiritual drought. From the 
 bewildering sweetness of his voice her mind began to dis- 
 entangle the threads of thought of speech. 
 
 " When the soul serves the animal in man, great is the 
 degradation; but when the animal in man is servant of the 
 soul, undreamed of is the power that waits on both. 
 
 " Whatever the soul lends to the body, it should demand 
 again with usury. 
 
 " There is one Spirit, but there are many bodies. . . . 
 Consider this. 
 
 " Grieve not for the absence of those who are dead, 
 nor for the deeds of those who are living. The Spirit is 
 one, and can never die, and the deeds of man cannot pre- 
 vail against It which is yourself. 
 
 " Do you fear death and dissolution? That which the 
 fire cannot burn, nor the air corrupt, nor the waters dis- 
 solve, nor the earth bury out of sight, That you are. 
 
 " Be not disturbed by any passing event. Shall not the 
 Eternal prevail over the accidents of time? and are not 
 you eternal? 
 
 " He that is the same in pain and pleasure, want and 
 plenty, success and failure, honour and dishonour, is greater 
 than he that is praised by a nation. 
 
 " As many stars as there are in the limitless sky, so many 
 ages of bliss are there for the free spirit. Therefore, seek 
 spiritual freedom. 
 
 " Until you are master of the outer senses, the inner 
 senses will not serve you the inner hearing and the inner 
 sight. These are royal servitors, and they never answer 
 to the call of slaves. 
 
 " When a man has sacrificed the pleasures of sensation, 
 he lives in the embrace of the Eternal Friend." 
 
 What subtle power was there in the words of this man 
 that those who listened should so hang upon his breath? 
 What was there in his presence that when he ceased to 
 speak made men and women gather round him fascinated, 
 held by an invisible chain, unable to turn and go about 
 the business of their lives? 
 
 Mary Magnus was not among those who pressed for- 
 ward to have speech with him when he had ended his ser- 
 mon. Instead, she turned and began to walk rapidly 
 away; but a sudden dizziness overcame her, and she was
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 219 
 
 obliged to hail a passing cab one of the few in the little 
 city and fell half-fainting into the seclusion of its musty 
 interior. At home again, she locked the door of her bed- 
 room and gave vent to her complex emotions in a flood of 
 tears. 
 
 " Why am I weeping? " she asked herself, at every ebb 
 of the rhythmic tide of grief. " What was there in his 
 words or in himself that should so shake the foundations 
 of my soul? His sermon was not meant for me, any more 
 than for those others who listened to him, holding their 
 breath. It was nearly over when I came; it would have 
 been the same had I remained away surely it would have 
 been the same." 
 
 Certain of his sayings were burnt upon her brain: 
 " Whatever the soul lends to the body, it should demand 
 again with usury. . . . Until you are master of the 
 outer senses, the inner senses will not serve you the inner 
 hearing and the inner sight. These are royal servitors, 
 and they never answer to the call of slaves. . . . When 
 a man has sacrificed the pleasures of sensation, he lives in 
 the embrace of the Eternal Friend." 
 
 Her tears flowed afresh. The memory of that wild let- 
 ter she had written to him from California ten years be- 
 fore, came back to her with a sudden rush of shame. Had 
 he ever received it? Oh, of course, of course! Such let- 
 ters never go astray, those we would give our lives to re- 
 call. But why should she wish it ; unwritten ? Why should 
 she wish him to know her less than utterly, he who was 
 so great, so kind, so calm! 
 
 " Whatever the mind lends to the body, it should de- 
 mand again with usury." Oh, she had lent much to her 
 body! Suppose her soul should demand it all again with 
 the usurious interest of devotion to some transcendent 
 faith? Could Jesse give her that faith? 
 
 During the last year of her wandering, an old friend 
 in Burlington had written to her of the Hermit whose aus- 
 terities and prophecies had been the talk of everybody in 
 that region, written to her of the promised coming of some 
 extraordinary being who should change the hearts of men. 
 Suddenly it flashed upon her that Jesse was the one whose 
 coming had been foretold. She remembered strange say- 
 ings of his in early life, remembered the night in the draw-
 
 220 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ing-room downstairs when in a rush of confidence, freed 
 by her sympathy from the trammels of self-restraint, he 
 had spoken of things she did not understand of the lonely 
 mountain and the iron face of the Law, of the empty man- 
 sion of the world's desire, of the slippery ladder leading to 
 real and immortal joys, of the adoration of the people 
 when he had achieved the height. And she recalled that 
 other night in the moonlit garden, when he had said to 
 her: " It is only the man who can live without love who 
 shall show the world a better way of loving." 
 
 But the inevitable other side of every thought, the op- 
 posite pole of every force, now claimed its turn with her. 
 Why should she pledge herself, her warm and beautiful 
 womanhood, to an austere ideal which after all might be 
 only a sublime illusion? The world was hers and the 
 fulness thereof. She was free, and rich, and happy. When 
 Asia beckoned, she could answer, " I am coming " ; to the 
 call of dream-garlanded Europe her glad response could 
 never be questioned; the whisper of the Indian Ocean could 
 bring her to its bosom whenever she desired its warm 
 caress. She had paid the price of freedom, the full market- 
 price, and she hugged it to her bosom. What madness 
 to relinquish a veritable jewel for an immaterial ray of 
 light, however beautiful ! 
 
 Her thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on the door 
 of the bedroom. It was Nannie, her old servant, to an- 
 nounce that dinner was served. As the house had been 
 deserted by its mistress for three years, there was no serv- 
 ant but the faithful old woman who had been her 
 mother's housekeeper, and a young gardener, Nannie's 
 nephew. 
 
 When the coffee was brought on the table, Mary said: 
 
 " Nannie, do you know anything about a young preacher 
 who holds meetings in the park ? " 
 
 ;'Yes, Miss Mary." 
 
 " How long has he been here ? " 
 
 " Only a few days ; but everybody is talking about him. 
 They declare that he is the fulfilment of the prophecies of 
 John the Hermit. He says strange things, Miss Mary." 
 
 " Yes, I heard him this afternoon. Where does he 
 live?"
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 221 
 
 Nannie mentioned a street of small houses on the edge 
 of the town. 
 
 "With whom does he live there?" her mistress ques- 
 tioned further. 
 
 "The Brown family." 
 
 " Thank you. That is all, Nannie." 
 
 But the old woman lingered around the door, straight- 
 ened a chair, and found something to do at the sideboard. 
 
 "Well, Nannie?" 
 
 "I hope you won't be offended, Miss Mary; but my 
 nephew and I joined the people of the new religion only 
 yesterday." 
 
 " Why should I be offended ? Indeed, I am glad, and 
 I hope the new faith may make you both happy." 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Mary." And she went back to 
 the kitchen, wiping her old eyes on the corner of her 
 apron. 
 
 Mary went upstairs to her father's library and walked 
 aimlessly among the ghostly volumes. In that very chair 
 Jesse had sat, eleven years before, on the night when she 
 brought him to her father. Great Herman Magnus! 
 The daughter's eyes were wet. He had recognised the 
 power and poetry of Jesse Bethel, when the tree of that 
 young life was hardly more than a sapling. He had never 
 been afraid, her triumphant father, of the weak judgments 
 of a misunderstanding world. He had made his way 
 against race prejudice, had married an American of malle- 
 able character and educated her to the duties of a dignified 
 position, had made for himself a great place in the small 
 State of his adoption. But he had never understood his 
 own daughter. Though she had given her confidence to 
 no one save in that wild letter to Jesse years before, vague 
 rumours were afloat regarding her strange friendships with 
 more than one distinguished man; but it would have been 
 a bold person who should have dared to repeat those ru- 
 mours to Herman Magnus. 
 
 As she sat there in the library, a telegram was brought 
 to her, reading: 
 
 " Shall I come to Vergennes, or will you come to New 
 York? "V. L."
 
 222 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Taking a blank from the messenger, she wrote her 
 answer : 
 
 " Do not come. I will write. M. M." 
 
 Then she went to her bedroom. And the night-watch- 
 man, making his solitary round at three o'clock in the 
 morning, saw a light still burning in her window.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 JESSE and his companions were sitting quietly the next 
 morning in the little house on the outskirts of the town. 
 They were still comparatively few in number. The time 
 when thousands were to follow him, when he could find 
 no solitude nor leisure anywhere, was yet to come. That 
 morning he was not preaching, nor even privately instruct- 
 ing his friends. They sat together in the shaded sitting- 
 room in almost silent communion nine or ten men and 
 several women, their faces shining with the peace of a new 
 faith which hardly one of them could have defined by any 
 word other than the loved name of their leader. Their 
 real belief was in him, and the things he taught were mere 
 beautiful accessories to the real and intimate fact of his 
 existence and his love for them. 
 
 The boyishly affectionate John sat at the left of Jesse, 
 with one hand clasped in his; Peter was at Jesse's right, 
 and the others sat around the room in a circle, some of 
 them on chairs and hassocks, others cross-legged on the 
 floor, as the furnishing of the house was not on a scale to 
 accommodate even so small a number of guests. The eyes 
 of all were fixed on the radiant head of their teacher, who 
 sat opposite the door on the other side of the room. 
 
 Suddenly they saw him rise, his face alight with wel- 
 come. Turning in the direction of his glance, they saw 
 standing in the doorway a tall and beautiful woman robed 
 in white. A few residents recognised her as the richest 
 woman in the city; the others knew not who she was. 
 
 "Mary!" 
 
 He met her in the centre of the room and took both her 
 hands in his. She tried to speak but could not. The 
 self-possessed woman of the world, she who had many times 
 stood unembarrassed in the presence of a king, was stricken 
 mute, trembling before the majesty of simple faith. She 
 bowed her head, and a tear fell on the tender hand which 
 held hers. 
 
 Jesse turned to John. 
 
 223
 
 224 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Kindly tell them that I wish to have private speech 
 with our sister." 
 
 When the door was closed behind the last retiring figure, 
 Jesse led Mary to the chair next his own, the little low 
 rocking-chair where John had sat almost at his master's 
 feet a few moments before. 
 
 " I am glad you have come," he said. 
 
 She bent quickly and kissed the hand which still held 
 hers. 
 
 " I want to be your servant," she breathed, " your dis- 
 ciple." 
 
 "You are my sister, whom I have never forgotten all 
 these years." 
 
 " Oh, let me be one of the members of this brotherhood 
 of yours, the lowest, the humblest. ... I who am so 
 unworthy ! " 
 
 "You wish to learn of me? That is well. The first 
 lesson I teach my children is to love one another : with your 
 great heart, that will be easy for you. And the second 
 thing I teach them is the essential worthiness, the gran- 
 deur of their own souls. Your gentle humility will make 
 this also an easy lesson for you, as the height and the 
 depth of the soul are equal. But beware of the pride of 
 humility. . . . Of all the forms of pride it is per- 
 haps the most dangerous, because the most subtle." 
 
 " Beautiful friend," she said, and her voice was low 
 with wonder, " where do you learn the wisdom your very 
 presence sheds like a perfume? Is all this poetry written 
 on the pages of some book ? " 
 
 " I no longer read any book," he answered, " save that 
 of my own soul and the souls of men and women." 
 
 " Can you read my soul, Jesse? " 
 
 " Yes, and more clearly than most, because the globe 
 of mind through which the light of your spirit shines is 
 crystal clear. The minds of most persons are clouded, 
 soiled and partially opaque. How have you kept your 
 mind so pure, Mary? " 
 
 " I do not know. I thought ... I feared . . ." 
 she stammered, crimson with memories. But the steady 
 voice of the teacher went on, as if he were unconscious of 
 her self-accusing thoughts.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 225 
 
 "You wish to serve the Spirit? And do you realise 
 what that service means? " 
 " Teach me." 
 
 " It is to forget the limits which separate yourself from 
 other selves; to surrender all personal rights and privileges; 
 to dwell in the quiet and eternal Home of the Spirit 
 wherever you may be; to cry no longer for anything, 
 because in the Spirit you have everything; to be fearless 
 of danger, because nothing can harm the Spirit you know 
 yourself to be, nor cast you out of the universe which is 
 your eternal country; to realise that nothing is really 
 yours until you have given it away; to be as unconscious of 
 the criticism of the world as of the buzzing of flies a thou- 
 sand miles distant; to seek that wisdom which is incom- 
 prehensible; to live by the light of that faith which needs 
 no proof, because it is itself the final proof; to desire no 
 power save only that of worshipping the Spirit with such 
 intensity as shall command response; to adore invisible 
 Beauty until the very passion of your adoration gives it 
 form and colour; to see in every material appearance but 
 the shadow of the immaterial Reality which will never 
 appear; fearlessly as a little child to place your hand in 
 the hand of heavenly Pity, and go with her through all 
 the dungeons and evil places of the world and the human 
 heart, singing there of the purity which is unsoilable; to 
 realise that the only possessions which can never be taken 
 from you are those which have no weight, no form, no 
 value in the eyes of the selfish world. . . . This is to 
 serve the Spirit, Mary. Are you ready?" 
 
 ' I am ready." 
 
 ' And do you know what the Spirit is ? " 
 
 ' I feel I believe it is God." 
 
 'And what is God?" 
 
 1 Tell me, Jesse." 
 
 ' God is the Spirit and God is the Self, immortal, limit- 
 less, without beginning or end, knowing the universe as 
 the singer knows his song, loving the universe as the 
 mother loves her babe, as the lover the beloved. God 
 is the Spiritual Sun, giving light and warmth to all; God 
 is the Spiritual Moon reflected in all the separate drops 
 that are human souls. The consciousness of God is the
 
 226 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 consciousness of unity. Would you realise that con- 
 sciousness? You who know the ecstasy of the union of 
 two loving beings, imagine the inconceivable intensity of 
 the unity of millions . . . billions. . . . That 
 is the consciousness of God." 
 
 But in the overpowering greatness and nearness of the 
 thought, Mary had lost consciousness. 
 
 Bending over her, with a potent word he called her 
 spirit back to the bewildered mind it had escaped in the 
 rush of cosmic emotion. With a touch of his finger on 
 her brow he cleared away the mists that enveloped her. 
 Then gently, lovingly, he further explained the meaning 
 of the great decision she had made. 
 
 " In giving yourself to my cause, you cannot be certain 
 of remaining always near me. It may be that I shall 
 send you out alone among uncongenial and scoffing people, 
 to testify of me and of my faith. And even though you 
 should remain with me, it may be that you and I will 
 never again have speech alone together. I do not belong 
 to myself, but to the Spirit whose instrument I am. The 
 friends whom you have known in the past will not follow 
 you across the frontiers of the spiritual country. In this 
 democracy of faith to which you pledge allegiance, those 
 who will be nearest you are humble persons ignorant 
 women, men with calloused hands, artisans, tillers of the 
 soil. You will need always to guard your speech, that 
 their simplicity may not misunderstand your complexity; 
 sometimes you will need to share the household labours 
 of the women, that your flower-like hands may not be a 
 barrier between their hearts and yours; even the servants 
 in your own employ will call you sister, as they joined 
 our brotherhood before you came. Are you still sure you 
 can be one with us ? " 
 
 "I am still sure." 
 
 " So be it, then. You are sealed for ever as my friend 
 and helper in the spiritual harvest-field. Now I will make 
 you known to your fellow- workers." 
 
 He opened the door and called them all back into the 
 room the little band of simple and faithful souls who were 
 pledged to him and to each other. He named her to them 
 as " Sister Mary Magnus," and she gave her hand to the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 227 
 
 men in token of fraternity, and kissed the women on the 
 cheek. A great wave of happiness rushed over her. They 
 were less than a score of souls, yet they seemed to have 
 the power of thousands, an overwhelming, cumulative 
 power that in its onrush through the world would sweep 
 caste, selfishness and falsehood before it like barriers of 
 sand. 
 
 With a voice which thrilled the hearts of all these 
 new-found friends, Mary spoke to them of a plan which 
 had been growing in her mind since the night before. 
 
 " This little house," she said, " pleasant and homelike 
 though it seems, is too small to hold so large a company. 
 Now I have a great empty house with room enough for 
 everyone. Will you not all come and live with me ? " 
 
 This was more than even Jesse had expected of the daugh- 
 ter of Herman Magnus. 
 
 " Those of us who have no home in Vergennes," he 
 said, " will go to live in our sister's house for the short 
 time we can remain in this city, and those who have homes 
 of their own will be welcome there at any time of the day 
 or evening." 
 
 So it was settled. And within an hour the gossip of 
 Vergennes was set a-buzzing by the sight of Mary Magnus 
 walking through the main street of the town side by side 
 with the extraordinary gold-haired preacher of new doc- 
 trines, while behind them came a band of strange-looking 
 persons of both sexes who, judging from the rapt look on 
 their faces, were all oblivious of the curious eyes which fol- 
 lowed them.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE whole city came out that afternoon to listen to 
 Jesse's sermon in the park. Many who would have looked 
 askance at the new teacher with headquarters in the little 
 home of the Browns on the outskirts of the town, consid- 
 ered him worthy of their interest when housed in the home 
 of the dead banker. So hungry is the world for spiritual 
 food when offered on a silver dish! But though Mary 
 Magnus knew the importance of accessories, she dared not 
 hint to Jesse any change in the manner of his ministry; she 
 would as soon have offered advice to a king. 
 
 After the sermon, it seemed to her that half the popula- 
 tion of the city followed Jesse back to her house. So great 
 was the crowd that he led them around the house into the 
 garden. 
 
 " What can they expect of him more than he has already 
 given them ? " the bewildered Mary asked of John, who 
 was standing by her side. 
 
 " You will see," he answered, with the ecstatic look 
 which shone so often in his eyes. 
 
 Jesse sat in large garden-chair under a spreading elm- 
 tree, and the people gathered round, gazing at him and 
 asking him questions. He had spoken that afternoon of 
 the limitless power of the Spirit, of the stupendous potency 
 of faith. 
 
 " Even the maladies of the body are subject to the 
 awakened soul," he said to them now. " Is there anyone 
 among you who is sick? " 
 
 An old man hobbled forward, leaning on a staff. 
 
 " I have been bent with rheumatism for ten years," he 
 said, stretching out his gnarled and yellow arms. " Cure 
 me, and I will believe." 
 
 " You must first believe, and then you will be cured." 
 
 " I believe in you" the old man answered, with vehe- 
 mence. " Is that enough ? " 
 
 "That is enough." 
 
 228
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 229 
 
 Gently as a mother touches an ailing child, Jesse passed 
 his hands over the drawn and painful body of the grand- 
 sire, whose son and daughter stood beside him, watching. 
 They saw a light break gradually over the withered 
 countenance, the knotted arms relaxed, the staff dropped 
 to the ground. 
 
 "It's gone, it's gone!" he cried, "the pain I feel it 
 no more." 
 
 " Go home," said Jesse, " and pray to the Spirit, to 
 God, that you may never fall into unbelief." 
 
 Then came another, a middle-aged woman, pale and 
 weak from some obscure malady. After he had laid his 
 hands upon her, she cried joyously to the women around 
 her that she was cured. 
 
 A child with a sad, pinched ;face, who was led by his 
 mother to the side of the beautiful stranger and leaned 
 for a time in loving converse against his knee, went away 
 joyously to play with his little comrades, as he had never 
 done before in all his seven painful years of life. 
 
 Then Jesse arose from his chair, and dismissing the crowd 
 with a gentle benediction, passed from their sight into the 
 house. Slowly the people dispersed, some talking together 
 in little groups, others silent and awestricken after the 
 things which they had seen and heard. 
 
 That night and for many days the strange words and 
 strange cures of Jesse Bethel were the sole subject of dis- 
 cussion in the little city. When two or three men stood 
 together on the corner of the street, the passer-by was sure 
 to hear one name; when women went to visit one another, 
 it was of him they spoke ; even the children played at 
 preaching and healing in their little games. Some de- 
 clared the things which he had done to be incredible; others 
 were aggressive in proclaiming that they had seen with 
 their own eyes the old victim of rheumatism throw aside 
 his staff and walk upright, and seen the pale child grow 
 rosy under the touch of the marvellous man. And so the 
 wonder grew. Already it was beginning to pass from 
 mouth to mouth that Jesse was the one whose coming the 
 Hermit had foretold. Everybody in that region had heard 
 of the prophecies concerning a mysterious being who should 
 transform the world, and a few of the dwellers in Ver-
 
 230 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 gennes had seen and heard the austere John in Burlington 
 or elsewhere. 
 
 In the house of Mary Magnus everything was changed. 
 The wife of the lumberman in whose home Jesse had rested 
 after his sojourn on the mountain, helped old Nannie in 
 the preparation and service of the meals, while two of the 
 other women kept the large house in order. The room 
 once occupied by Herman Magnus was given up to Jesse's 
 exclusive use, and Mary guarded his solitude in those rare 
 hours when he withdrew himself from those who hung upon 
 his words. 
 
 During the first evening there Jesse had written a long 
 letter to his mother, giving her as clear an understanding as 
 possible of what he was doing. The sojourn on the moun- 
 tain he merely mentioned; but of the preaching and healing 
 which had followed his period of solitude he wrote much. 
 At the end, after referring to a letter of hers which Peter 
 brought up to him from Capronville a few days before, and 
 in which the mother had expressed her sadness that the 
 peaceful days which they had spent together were now to 
 be no more, Jesse said: 
 
 " Why mourn for what is past? Do you weep that 
 last night's sunset was so beautiful? Turn to the dawn: 
 it may be that you will not find it void of beauty." 
 
 So many were the guests in Mary's house that she even 
 shared her own room with one of the young women, a 
 pale and ecstatic girl who had been a teacher in a neighbour- 
 ing district school; but who, having heard the first sermon 
 of the new teacher, had abandoned home and profession to 
 remain near the fountain of her inspiration. Anna Martin 
 was her name, and Mary had been interested in her from 
 the first day. She had seen how the eyes of the bashful 
 Andrew of Capronville followed every movement of the 
 girl; how sometimes, even when Jesse was speaking, the 
 young man's thoughts seemed busy with some blissful dream 
 which had no relation to the messenger of the Spirit. But 
 something even more interesting to Mary than a love-story 
 was soon to show her the pale girl's importance in their 
 religious life. 
 
 On the second evening after Anna came, Mary found 
 her sitting alone in the twilight of their chamber, writing
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 231 
 
 with a pencil on a scrap of paper and whispering some- 
 thing over to herself. 
 
 "Do I disturb you, Anna?" 
 
 The girl started, as if surprised in some guilty secret; 
 she blushed and stammered then threw her arms about 
 Mary in utter abandon of confidence. 
 
 " Oh! do you think he would be pleased the Master?" 
 
 " Be pleased with what, dear child ? " 
 
 Anna held out the paper, crumpled from the nervous 
 pressure of her hand. " Read it," she said, " and tell me 
 if I may show it to him." 
 
 Mary went over to the window, for the waning light 
 was dim. The writing was in the form of verse, and after 
 the first few lines she cried, " Oh, Anna! " then read 
 rapidly to the end. 
 
 " You like it ? " the girl asked timidly, as Mary raised 
 her eyes from the paper. 
 
 " Yes, and you know I have knowledge of such things. 
 Some of the most famous poets in the world are friends 
 of mine." She gazed out of the window, her eyes dreamy 
 with reminiscences; then she asked: 
 
 "Where did you learn to write technically good verse? 
 Did you ever know a poet? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " Anna was breathless at the very idea. 
 
 " Have you ever been away to school anywhere?" 
 
 "Only to the high school in Greenburg." 
 
 " That is hardly an academy of poetry," Mary answered, 
 smiling, " though I have heard it spoken of as a good 
 school, of its kind. But you surprise me, child! Have you 
 written any other things like this?" 
 
 " A few." 
 
 " You know I'm something of a musician," Mary went 
 on. " It's no special credit to me, Anna, for I've had some 
 of the best teachers in Europe. I can sing a little, as well 
 as play the piano, and I know how to write music, though 
 I don't call myself a composer not after meeting Grieg 
 and Debussy." 
 
 Anna had never heard of Grieg or of Debussy; but 
 the names had a foreign and wonderful sound. She was 
 half-fainting with joy when Mary said: 
 
 " I am going to make a song of this."
 
 232 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Having learned that Jesse and the others were in the 
 garden, Mary went down to the drawing-room and closed 
 the doors. Then, for an hour or two, sprays and ripples 
 of music floated upon the evening air. About ten o'clock 
 she went out to the garden and called them all into the house. 
 The eyes of Jesse were large and soft, for he felt the intan- 
 gible presence of some act of love which was about to mani- 
 fest its beauty. Anna was pale, but in her eyes shone a 
 light which seemed to the watchful Andrew like the beam 
 of the evening star. 
 
 When the others were all seated, Mary stood facing 
 them, with one hand on the top of the grand piano. 
 
 "There is only one thing our beautiful life has lacked," 
 she said, " and that is songs of our very own, songs to 
 express our faith, our love, our joy in the Master and in 
 each other. Sister Anna Martin and I " here she made 
 a loving little gesture in the girl's direction, and the heart 
 of Andrew beat fast " Sister Anna Martin and I have 
 made a song together and I will now sing it to you." Then 
 Mary sat down at the piano, and sang: 
 
 " When our mild-eyed Master came 
 
 From the mountains of the soul, 
 In his heart God's secret name, 
 
 Round his head Love's aureole, 
 We believed the Dawn had taken 
 
 Form of man for our surprise, 
 And our dreaming souls were shaken 
 
 With the signal of his eyes. 
 
 "Roses which no time shall fade 
 
 He has given us to keep, 
 And the world his words have made 
 
 Lovely as the hills of sleep. 
 Now, revealed to one another, 
 
 We are one since life began, 
 And the sacred name of brother 
 
 We may breathe to every man. 
 
 "We have found the faith that gives 
 
 Mountain air for every breath, 
 
 Fragrant bread for each that lives. 
 
 And behind the doors of death
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 233 
 
 Lurks no dread to make us fear it, 
 For our souls have found the clime 
 
 Where the lilies of the Spirit 
 Blossom in the winter-time." 
 
 With the tears streaming from his eyes, Jesse came for- 
 ward and clasped both the singer and the poet to his melting 
 heart. 
 
 " Oh, my children ! " he said, softly, " Love is the mas- 
 ter-musician, the master-poet; and the song which gushes 
 from the heart of even a little child will find the child- 
 heart of the listening world. You two shall make songs 
 of faith together, and sing them to the multitudes that 
 gather to hear my sermons; and after you have melted the 
 hard hearts of those thousands with your song, I will turn 
 them to pure gold by the alchemy of the Spirit." 
 
 After a little while he called Mary out into the dining- 
 room, that he might have speech alone with her. 
 
 " Dear sister with the thrush's voice," he said, " I ask 
 you to arrange that song so that the others may also sing 
 it, men and women, and to teach it to them with loving 
 patience." 
 
 " I will do as you say," she answered. 
 
 " In the choir of the Spiritual Kingdom," Jesse went on, 
 " each one is a lone singer; but the song of each is blended 
 with the song of all the others, forming the universal har- 
 mony. Your voice will carry its clearness over the other 
 voices which follow yours, even as your faith, which is 
 followed by the men and women of your city, soars high 
 above them all." 
 
 That was his way of thanking her for the help she had 
 given to his mission at its beginning. Then he led her 
 back to the drawing-room, where the others waited for 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 JESSE remained only a few days longer in Vergennes, for 
 it was not his plan to confine his teaching to that region. 
 He would return to Capronville; but on the way he would 
 revisit the place where he was born, the unimportant farm- 
 ing section which would ever be for him the most beautiful 
 spot on earth, the green valley consecrated by first mem- 
 ories, and watched over for ever by the blue old Thunder 
 Mountain. How would they receive him those stolid, 
 unimaginative people who had known him as a child ? What 
 would be their interpretation of the motives of his life? 
 He would not take with him to Nashburgh the whole of 
 his ever-growing band of personal followers, for the size 
 of his cousin's house was inadequate for such a large num- 
 ber of guests, and he could not rely on the hospitality of 
 the neighbours. Only Peter and Andrew and John would 
 he take to Jim Bethel's, and Mary should go to her cousin 
 Susie's house with Anna Martin. The others he would 
 send on before him to Capronville, to spread the news of 
 his coming. Judson Carey should be entrusted with the 
 preparation for his first meeting in that town, a mission 
 the dignity of which would reconcile the man to his being 
 omitted from the group going to Nashburgh. 
 
 Mary had worked wonders with their choir. She was 
 surprised to find that John had a clear tenor voice which 
 under proper training might even have given him a liveli- 
 hood. Anna Martin made a passable contralto, though 
 hers was not what Mary called a voice; and there was 
 much happy laughter while they taught the blushing An- 
 drew to carry the bass. Those were care-free and never- 
 to-be-forgotten days, and in the sterner times which fol- 
 lowed they often looked back at them with wistful tears. 
 
 The last few days in Vergennes passed by, and Jesse had 
 not asked Mary to sing with her new choir at his meetings 
 in the park. Their singing was for the future in other 
 
 234
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 235 
 
 places, and the delicacy which restrained Jesse from asking 
 Mary to sing in the streets of her native city was one more 
 link in the chain binding her to him. A nature less fine- 
 fibred than his would have considered it a personal triumph 
 to have overcome her natural reluctance, would have made 
 of it a test of her devotion. 
 
 "How considerate you are of me! " she said to him on 
 the day before they were to start for Nashburgh. " Do 
 you want me to sing Anna's song with our choir in the 
 park this afternoon ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 He sat looking at her in silence for a time, and then he 
 said: "If I really doubted your willingness to serve my 
 mission, even at the sacrifice of your personal feelings, I 
 should have asked that very thing of you. There are two 
 kinds of devoted disciples, Mary: those who need to be 
 tried and tested, and those who need only to be trusted. 
 You are among the latter." 
 
 " I am so glad you did not ask me to do it! " she cried 
 impulsively. 
 
 " Yes, I know, dear sister. But I shall ask you to sing 
 at my meetings in all the other places where you go with 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, gladly will I!" 
 
 " You may begin at Nashburgh, in the little church 
 where I first heard the preaching of the Word. But," 
 and his voice grew low and sad, " I cannot promise that we 
 shall be received there in a manner worthy of our high 
 calling." 
 
 " I remember them so well," she said, " the heavy- 
 footed women and the sharp-eyed men. How could they 
 understand one like you?" 
 
 " And yet I love them so ! " he whispered. " They were 
 my first companions; we drank together of the same cool 
 spring, played together the same childish games. There is 
 a boy down there for whose sake I did the only action 
 which ever troubled my conscience. Is not that a tie? " 
 
 Mary's eyes were large and soft, but she made no 
 answer. 
 
 During his last sermon in Vergennes Jesse seemed more
 
 236 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 than ever to be inspired. His listeners gazed at him en- 
 tranced, and many who had not really accepted his teach- 
 ings wondered if, after all, there might not be something 
 beyond our common humanity in this flaming man around 
 whose form, as around metal heated in the sun-rays, the 
 very light seemed to dance and vibrate. He spoke of the 
 unrealised powers of the human being, and toward the 
 end of his sermon he cried to them: 
 
 " Your soul is a bird whose wings are tied that it cannot 
 fly, whose tongue is stopped that it cannot sing. 
 
 " He who refuses to see that there is something beyond 
 and behind this self of matter, of flesh and sinew, is like 
 a man imprisoned in a cell bolted on the inside, a prisoner 
 who could be free by merely lifting his hand to the latch, 
 and who not only refuses to lift the hand, but denies that 
 there is any such thing as freedom. 
 
 "Only he who desires the unattainable shall know the 
 perfect satisfaction of achievement. 
 
 " The highest spiritual ecstasy you can feel in your 
 present state is only a hint of the Reality which lies be- 
 yond. Should you fully realise it now, you would cease 
 to identify yourself with the man of flesh. 
 
 " I may suggest, but cannot describe, the joy of the free 
 soul. Can you describe a rose to a man born blind? or 
 can a maiden realise the rapture of maternity? 
 
 "You would find the Spirit would find God? Where 
 there is neither light nor darkness, neither man nor woman, 
 neither east nor west, neither above nor below, neither hope 
 nor fear, there He is. 
 
 " But he who sees God in all beings, and all beings in 
 God, has also found the Spirit. 
 
 " And he who shall fully realise that God is everywhere, 
 shall dwell in God wherever he may be. 
 
 " Man's only true home is in his own heart, and he car- 
 ries it inside him, even as a tortoise carries his home out- 
 side. 
 
 " He who seeks the supreme abode of the Spirit shall 
 find it in the hearts of men and in his own heart. 
 
 "Does the way seem hard to you, and the goal far off? 
 How much harder must the way seem to those who do not 
 know there is a goal? 
 
 " Does the night seem long to you, and the sunrise slow
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 237 
 
 in coming? Blind men there are whose night is a genera- 
 tion long, and who do not even watch for the sunrise. 
 
 " Give some men wings, and they would have only an 
 added burden on the back, instead of the means of flight. 
 
 " He who has faith in the Spirit will not be discouraged 
 by the shifting appearances of matter. 
 
 " In you is the God who shall answer your own prayer. 
 
 " He who has really found himself has discovered a 
 fountain from which all other men my drink. 
 
 " Do you seem to yourself to go backward ? Sometimes 
 the soul grows most when the mind is unconscious of its 
 growing. 
 
 " But having once turned your face toward the Spirit 
 and having started thither, though you afterward turn in 
 some other direction, you will seem to yourself to be going 
 away from home. 
 
 " First make clean the mind, for the mind is the vehicle 
 of the soul, the soul is the vehicle of the spirit, and the 
 spirit is the vehicle of That which you are and which 
 God is. 
 
 " Will you not enter into your divine inheritance ? O 
 you who are one with That which is both within and 
 without matter; That which shall never taste of death; 
 That which is more powerful than electricity, more en- 
 during than the stars, more loving than the sun which 
 warms the earth ; That which germinates in the corn, which 
 sighs in the wind, which smiles in the sunlight; That 
 which the mother feels in the heartbeat of her child, which 
 the lover sees in the eyes of the beloved, which the dying 
 soldier hears in the bugles of victory; That which man 
 calls God!" 
 
 The exaltation of his vision on the mountain was with 
 him that afternoon, and all who came within the radius 
 of his presence were lifted out of themselves. The wild- 
 est enthusiasm was loosed among them; the self-restraint 
 of their northern blood was melted in the spiritual fire 
 emanating from him, and the more emotional ones aban- 
 doned themselves to the waves of feeling that surged and 
 rocked around this being who seemed to be of another 
 world than theirs. Many men and women he healed that 
 afternoon of their diseases, for the faith he had stirred 
 in them performed the good work almost of itself.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THEY left the train at the station north of Nashburgh, 
 Jesse and the five whom he had selected as companions 
 on this journey to his native valley. It was his wish that 
 they should arrive unheralded at the house of his cousin, 
 Jim Bethel. As that house lay on the border of Nash- 
 burgh, midway between the two railway-stations, by leav- 
 ing the train at Dellville they avoided passing the houses 
 of the neighbours. The station was two miles from their 
 destination, and Jesse asked the two women if they could 
 walk that distance along the sandy country road. 
 
 " I have climbed the Matterhorn," was Mary's con- 
 vincing answer. 
 
 Anna was a farmer's daughter, and Vermont farmers' 
 daughters never walk; but she declared her willingness to 
 try. 
 
 " If you grow weary by the way, ' said Jesse, " you may 
 lean on Andrew." 
 
 O potent words, spoken half playfully! O understand- 
 ing heart of their master! The young man and the girl 
 blushed deeply and took opposite sides of the road without 
 daring to look at each other; but in the soul of each the 
 bird of joy sang as never sang the hermit-thrush, for they 
 interpreted his message to their hearts as meaning that they 
 might dream of one another without disloyalty to the 
 cause for which they would even now have sacrificed all 
 hope of earthly happiness. And they were not misled in 
 their belief. For where should bloom the white rose of 
 virgin love, if not in the garden watched over by him who 
 loved the whole world better than any lesser being could 
 love the one supreme and chosen companion of his soul? 
 But he had yet to teach them the master-lesson of love, 
 the lesson of voluntary postponement, for the service of 
 the Ideal. 
 
 John was like a child in his joy at visiting the place of 
 Jesse's birth. 
 
 238
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 239 
 
 "Do we pass your old home on this road?" he asked, 
 with breathless interest. 
 
 " No, I was born in a house on the West Road ; my 
 cousin lives at the very edge of Nashburgh, on the other 
 side. But to-morrow morning I will take all of you to 
 stand in the room where the light first shone upon my 
 face; to touch the rose-bushes in whose moon-shadow I 
 believed that I saw fairies; to sit under the old lightning- 
 scarred pine-tree which was the comfort-whispering con- 
 fidant of the secret griefs of my child-heart. You shall 
 drink the water from the old well in whose black deeps 
 the mystery of reflected things first roused my mind to 
 wonder; you shall enter the old barn in whose resounding 
 interior I first addressed imaginary multitudes on the newly- 
 discovered problems of life and death." 
 
 " The old barn will be more wonderful to me than the 
 Colosseum," John said, " and maybe it will be the same 
 to generations yet unborn." 
 
 " Before that time," Jesse answered, " the hand of thrift 
 will have used the old timbers for fire-wood; the very 
 stones of its foundation will go to make a sheep-barn for 
 the man who hates me, the man who now owns the place." 
 
 " How can you possibly know that? " asked Peter; then, 
 correcting himself, he added, " Pardon me, Master, I be- 
 lieve that you know all things." 
 
 " Return to Nashburgh a few years nence, Peter, and 
 behold the verification of this prophecy." 
 
 " Shall you be with me, when I return ? " 
 
 " I shall always -be with you, whether visibly or invisi- 
 bly." His eyes had suddenly become wide and grave, and 
 all the bright colour had gone out of his face. 
 
 "What is it, Master?" they asked, with anxious looks. 
 
 " It is nothing that need trouble you now," he replied. 
 " The power to behold the future by a clearer light than 
 that of ordinary reason is a boon which does not always 
 bring happiness to man. But let us talk of the present. Is 
 it not a joy for us, who love each other with a pure and 
 perfect love, to walk together along this beautiful road; 
 to behold in the distance the blue mountains which spoke 
 to my soul as a child? And is it not fitting that I should 
 re-enter the neighbourhood of my birth on foot, followed
 
 240 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 by my faithful friends? It is thus that pilgrims visit holy 
 places." 
 
 A little farther along the road, John, who was walking 
 arm in arm with Jesse, slackened his pace that they might 
 fall behind the others. 
 
 " You wish to have private speech with me. Is it not 
 so, John?" 
 
 " Yes, Master, to ask a question. May I ? " 
 
 " Anything you will." 
 
 " It is about Judson. Why is he not with us ? " 
 
 " Because I gave him an important mission, to prepare 
 the way for us to return to Capronville." 
 
 " Is that the only reason ? " 
 
 " It is not the only reason. When you were a little one 
 at school they gave you simple lessons in addition and sub- 
 traction, not complicated problems in geometry which would 
 have puzzled and discouraged you. Our brother Judson 
 is still a little one, so I give him simple lessons in addition 
 and subtraction; the geometrical problems of my reception 
 by my fellow townsmen might puzzle and discourage him." 
 
 " How wise you are! But Judson was grieved." 
 
 " His grief will turn to joy when I thank him for the 
 labours he will faithfully perform. I have already ob- 
 served his skill in addition; he brought many strangers to 
 our meetings in Vergennes. But I charge you not to repeat 
 to anyone what I have said to you. Now you may call to 
 the others to wait for us; and when we rejoin them, re- 
 move your arm from mine, that I may walk side by side 
 with Peter for a while. The tenderest mutual love has 
 often need to borrow from its provident brother wisdom." 
 
 " I understand," John whispered, with a quick pressure 
 of Jesse's arm as he relinquished it. "The price of the 
 king's favour may be the envy of the court." 
 
 " And he who wins the favour of the Spirit must share 
 it freely with all the world. You may be nearer to me 
 when I lean upon the arm of Peter than when you lean on 
 mine." 
 
 Over the trees they saw smoke rising from a chimney, 
 and by the smile which lighted Jesse's face the five knew 
 that they were nearing his cousin's house. They paused a 
 moment before an open gate, and down the path from the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 241 
 
 long white dwelling came a collie dog, wagging a shy 
 and friendly tail. There was no person in sight. 
 
 " Shall Anna and I go on to Susie's house now? " Mary 
 asked, glancing at a brown cottage a few rods further 
 along the road. 
 
 " Yes," replied Jesse, after a moment's thought, " and I 
 will send Andrew over after you when Jim's wife has 
 recovered from the surprise of our arrival." 
 
 There was in his voice a boyish eagerness which made 
 the old forbidden pain surge back to Mary's heart. When 
 the sublime master of her reverence displayed his simpler 
 and more human qualities, the task she had set herself 
 became a giant's labour; the path of her discipleship wound 
 steeply up the rocky hill, of whose sharp acclivity one being 
 only knew besides herself, and of which no being ever 
 spoke. 
 
 Followed by Peter, John and Andrew, and preceded by 
 the friendly, leaping dog, Jesse went up the path to his 
 cousin's house and rapped on the casing of the open door. 
 There was a sound of steps in the room at the end of the 
 passage, an exchange of muffled words; then a tall man 
 in the working-garments of a farmer appeared at the hos- 
 pitably inviting door. A silent look, a start of recognition, 
 and the two loyal kinsmen clasped hands across the years. 
 
 "Jesse! Is it really you?" 
 
 " Yes, it is really I, and I have brought three friends 
 with me." He mentioned them by their full names, and 
 the welcome they received was genuine. In another mo- 
 ment they were all in the cool grey sitting-room, and 
 Jim's wife was adding her shy welcome to the noisier 
 repetition of her husband's. 
 
 "We've heard of your preaching up north," Jim de- 
 clared, in his hoarse, kindly voice. " Some of the train- 
 men told the station-master here, and everybody knows 
 about it. They do say, too, that you've been curing sick 
 folks by only touching them. I wouldn't have believed it 
 if I hadn't recalled what you did to that wild horse of 
 Taylor's years ago. Do you remember, Jesse ? " 
 
 " I remember." 
 
 "And it's all true?" 
 
 " It is all true, Jim."
 
 242 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Then the steadfast, clear-eyed Peter, whose words even 
 a stranger had never disbelieved, testified to his master's 
 kinsman of the extraordinary things which he had seen 
 and heard. He told of their first journey from Capron- 
 ville to Burlington, of their baptism by the Hermit and 
 of the phophet's words regarding Jesse, of the mysterious 
 forty days upon the mountain, of Jesse's return to Bur- 
 lington with the glory of heaven in his face, of the preach- 
 ing in Vergennes, the triumph, the multitudes, the mirac- 
 ulous cures. 
 
 " And we have left our business and our homes to fol- 
 low him," declared Peter, " because he has the word of 
 spiritual truth which lifts our hearts." 
 
 The eyes of the listening man and woman grew wider 
 during this recital of faith in mighty works. Could such 
 things be? Could one whom they had known as a child 
 so elevate himself? Granted that a man might somewhere 
 in the world perform these wonders; but could they be 
 done in Vermont, and by Jim Bethel's cousin? In India, 
 now, or Egypt, or any of the other far-off places Jim had 
 learned about in the old .geography-book but in Vermont ! 
 Something of these ideas he managed to express in his 
 slow way. 
 
 Jesse said : " Does God, then, so despise your native 
 State that He would scorn to manifest Himself within 
 its borders? " 
 
 " I never thought of that," the puzzled fellow answered. 
 " But it does seem very mysterious." 
 
 " So is the birth and nourishment of every blade of grass 
 on your broad acres," replied Jesse ; " so is the shining of 
 the stars that light your barnyard on a winter night. Yet 
 God performs these wonders. Could He not also send a 
 messenger with the word of truth even to Vermont?" 
 
 " You have a way of putting things which makes a man 
 believe against his will." 
 
 " So long as you believe," smiled Jesse, " I care not 
 though it be against your will." 
 
 " And you do believe ! " cried the zealous Peter, eager 
 for new converts. " You even now believe ! " 
 
 " If I could only see with my own eyes some of these 
 strange things, perhaps "
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 243 
 
 Jesse raised his hand as a signal for silence and atten- 
 tion, and they looked at him in breathless expectation, 
 feeling that something extraordinary was about to happen. 
 He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, clear 
 and blue, upon their questioning gaze. 
 
 " In the room directly above this room in which we sit," 
 he said, " is an old mahogany table. It was not there 
 when I was last in this house, eleven years ago." He 
 paused, and looked at Jim's wife. " Is it not so?" 
 
 " Yes, my father's writing-table, which I brought with 
 me from New Hampshire after his death," she answered, 
 in a low voice that quivered with suppressed excitement. 
 " It stood at the head of his bed, and no one was ever 
 allowed to use it but himself." 
 
 "Yes, your father's writing-table. It has a shallow 
 drawer, in which he kept his papers. All this you know. 
 But you do not know that by pressing a nail on the left 
 side of the false-bottom of that shallow drawer, a sliding 
 panel will be released. You were surprised that your 
 father left so little money for his only child. Go up now, 
 and claim your inheritance." 
 
 Without a word the husband and wife rushed upstairs. 
 Jesse had not even risen from his chair, but the three men 
 from Capronville were walking excitedly about the room. 
 Suddenly they heard a cry from the floor above. The 
 men turned triumphantly to Jesse, saying, " They have 
 found it! They have found it! " But he answered them, 
 with a sad smile: 
 
 " You told them of the words of immortal life, and 
 they would not believe. You told them of the testimony 
 of the inspired Hermit, of the multitudes awakened by 
 the Spirit, of the comforting of the sad, the healing of 
 the sick; still they would not believe. I tell them of a 
 store of hidden wealth, revealed to me by that simple 
 clairvoyance which is the stock-in-trade of many common 
 charlatans, and now they will believe. O my friends! 
 How few there are, even among those who shall profess 
 their faith in the Spirit, who shall really breathe the air 
 of the spiritual mountain." 
 
 A moment later Jim and Eva Bethel, having satisfied 
 themselves as to the contents of the secret drawer, were
 
 244 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 overwhelming Jesse with their thanks and protestations of 
 unshakeable belief in everything that he should ever say 
 or do. They were richer by three government bonds of 
 one thousand dollars each, and some five hundred dollars 
 in currency. The sadness that had lain upon the heart of 
 Jesse passed from him, and he enjoyed their gladness with 
 them. In the first flush of gratitude, they even offered 
 him a portion of the money; but he said: 
 
 " The Spirit that I follow has given me riches beyond 
 your understanding. I have no need of any earthly 
 thing." 
 
 The fire within him shone so clearly at that moment 
 through the pure envelope of his body, that even their dull 
 souls were lighted by reflection. They gazed at him, for- 
 getting their new-found wealth in the sudden glory of his 
 countenance. Finally Jim found voice to say: 
 
 " I don't know what it is that makes you different from 
 every other being on God's earth, and I don't know very 
 clearly what you want me to do, or what you expect me 
 to believe; but I am with you from this hour, in word and 
 deed. So help me God ! " 
 
 Jesse's voice was gentler than the whisper of the summer 
 wind in the pine-trees, as he answered: 
 
 " He who shall really claim the help of God to strengthen 
 his belief, shall feel his spirit lifted by invisible wings 
 into the thrilling atmosphere of the new life."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 WITHIN an hour or two the news of Jesse's arrival in 
 Nashburgh, and the finding of the hidden fortune through 
 his mysterious powers, had flown from one end to the other 
 of the little district. Jim's farmhand had started the fire 
 of rumour, and it spread hither and thither on the winds 
 of hurried visiting. Women who had not been to see their 
 nearest neighbours for a month put on their hats and went 
 forth. Mrs. Olin Madison heard the news from her hus- 
 band, who had it from Thomas Taylor, who had it directly 
 from the hired man on Jim's place. Ten minutes later 
 the eldest of the Brown girls, still unmarried, rang the 
 newly-installed electric bell on the Madison front door. 
 
 " Come right in, Florence," cried Mrs. Madison, when 
 she caught sight of her. "Of course you've heard the 
 news ? " 
 
 " Yes ; what do you think of it ? " Florence Brown 
 never had any well-defined views of her own, but formed 
 her judgments of the value of her fellow beings by the 
 latest quotations of popular opinion. 
 
 Mrs. Madison paused a little before answering, to give 
 more weight to her pronouncement. " I think," she said 
 at length, pausing again to adjust a hairpin in her coronet 
 of iron-grey hair, " I think I shall not go far out of my 
 way to seek religious instruction from a young fellow that 
 I fed with sugar-plums when he was in baby dresses." 
 
 " I quite understand your feeling," answered Florence ; 
 " but they do say he has quite a following in Vergennes. 
 You remember the rich Mary Magnus who used to visit 
 Susie Smith? Well, she is one of the five converts he's 
 brought with him to Nashburgh." 
 
 " That may be. But, still, I don't believe that many of 
 the best people go in for that sort of thing. David wrote 
 me from Burlington that Jesse was there with that crazy 
 Hermit, and that their followers were mostly poor people, 
 
 245
 
 246 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 many of them quite disreputable. You know that David, 
 having so high a position in the bank there, has to be very 
 careful what sort of people he associates with. I always 
 liked Jesse well enough, and so did David; but you know 
 that in a place like Burlington the bankers and the car- 
 penters don't go in the same society. Of course," she 
 added, with heightened colour, " my own husband is only 
 a farmer; but everything is quite different in a place like 
 this." 
 
 " Of course," Florence assented. " But they say he 
 cures people of all kinds of diseases, just by touching 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, hysterical women, no doubt, who imagine them- 
 selves cured by the presence of a wonderfully handsome 
 young man! " 
 
 "Yes; but there were men also, and little children." 
 
 Mrs. Madison drew a long breadth and sat very straight 
 in her chair, while her lips tightened into a thin red line. 
 " Of course, it's all very interesting." 
 
 Florence was leaning forward, with a flush on her 
 usually pale face. " Did you hear about the bonds and 
 the money he discovered in a drawer upstairs, without 
 moving from his chair in the sitting-room? " 
 
 Something half-way between a superior smile and a 
 sneer curled the thin lips of Mrs. Madison. " Of course," 
 she said, " I wouldn't accuse Jesse, or Jim either, whose 
 parents I knew thirty years ago, of making up evidence; 
 but the whole thing looks to me very queer. Thomas 
 Taylor said that nobody really saw the money in the secret 
 drawer except Jim and Eva." 
 
 " You really don't think . . ." Florence was be- 
 ginning to feel that perhaps she had spoken too sympathetic- 
 ally of this new religious teacher, of whom Mrs. Madison 
 apparently disapproved. 
 
 " I really have no opinion on the subject," that lady 
 went on, in her deliberate, judicial manner. " David says 
 that no one should ever express an opinion based on in- 
 sufficient data." 
 
 " They say," ventured Florence, " that Jesse and his 
 friends are going to hold a meeting in the church on Sun- 
 day morning, the day after to-morrow."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 247 
 
 "Are you going?" Mrs. Madison's face was non-com- 
 mittal. 
 
 "Why, I don't know. . . . Shall you?" 
 
 " Possibly, though I seldom attend the meetings of 
 religious agitators. Still, Jesse was always extremely 
 courteous to me, and I don't know of any reason why I 
 shouldn't go to his meeting." 
 
 " I think everybody will go, if only out of curiosity," 
 Florence said, rising and reaching for her parasol. 
 
 Mrs. Madison followed her visitor to the door, and as 
 Florence was going down the steps she called after her, 
 with a doubting laugh: 
 
 " You might get Jesse to cure your sister Jane's nervous 
 trouble." 
 
 While Jesse was being weighed in the petty scales of 
 local gossip at one end of Nashburgh, at the other end he 
 rested in the cool grey sitting-room of Jim's house, sur- 
 rounded by the five faithful ones and his now grateful 
 kinsfolk. Susie Smith and her brother Stephen were also 
 there, for Eva had sent them an invitation by Andrew to 
 come over to supper. Jim's younger brother, Joe Bethel, 
 had returned from the grist-mill in Wheelerville, where 
 he had gone that morning with a load of grain; and when 
 he saw the illumined face of Jesse and heard the story of 
 the strangely discovered fortune, he lost all power of 
 speech, and sat gazing at his cousin as at some incredibly 
 gigantic being from another planet who had suddenly de- 
 scended with a shower of meteors upon the dwellers in 
 drowsy Nashburgh. 
 
 Mary Magnus was charming to Jim's wife, who thought 
 her the most delightful person she had ever seen with 
 the sole exception of Jesse. Mary insisted on helping Eva 
 prepare the supper, a very welcome service, as there were 
 plates for twelve at the long table that night. Eva had no 
 way of knowing that the eggs which Mary boiled so 
 deliciously were her first experiment in the culinary art. 
 When the table was almost ready, Mary went out into 
 the old-fashioned flower-garden, and coming back with 
 both hands full of the blue, crimson and white blossoms, 
 she covered the cloth around Jesse's plate with their fra-
 
 248 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 grant sweetness, that he might seem to eat from the very 
 cups of flowers. 
 
 " Behold," she cried, laughingly, as he came into the 
 dining-room, "the first meal I ever cooked for you!" 
 Then she added, in a murmur for his ears alone, " the 
 first meal I ever cooked." 
 
 Thanking her with a tender smile, he loosened eleven 
 blossoms from the half-hundred which wreathed his plate, 
 and passing slowly around the table, laid one flower beside 
 each of the other plates. 
 
 " That you may blossom in the Spirit like these flowers," 
 he said to them. It was done with a grave dignity and 
 sweetness that made it seem a mystic ceremony. The 
 flower Mary received from his hand was a white lily, with 
 a heart of gold. 
 
 Glancing round the table, Mary wondered who was the 
 twelfth member of their company, a ruddy-faced young 
 man who seemed to be rather uncomfortable in a coat too 
 small for him, worn over a blue cotton shirt without a 
 collar. She whispered to Jim Bethel, who was beside 
 her: 
 
 " Who is the young man on the left of your brother ? " 
 
 " The hired man." 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course!" 
 
 And the clear eyes of Jesse, watching her, saw no shadow 
 of surprise or prejudice on her peaceful face. In adopting 
 their simple life, she had come to them with no reservations 
 of class superiority, not even that affectation of over-affabil- 
 ity which really draws a broader line of demarcation than 
 the haughtiest reserve. It seemed to Jesse as if she were 
 unconscious of any difference between the new life and the 
 old. The perfect tact of the widest social experience, and 
 the self-effacing simplicity of a loving heart, those two ex- 
 tremes which so often resemble each other in externals, were 
 fused in her by the flame of devotion to Jesse. She was not 
 even aware of either, and therein lay the secret of her charm 
 for these sensitive and independent owners of the soil. 
 
 It was a delightful meal, that first meal of the wander- 
 ing community of the Spirit in Nashburgh. Neither John 
 nor Mary had ever seen Jesse appear so simply and humanly 
 happy. Even in the intimacy of their communal meals in
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 249 
 
 Vergennes, he had always been the Master, removed a little 
 from them by the very greatness which brought them closer 
 to him. But here in the valley of his birth, in the house 
 of those who were akin to him in blood, he seemed, some- 
 how, at a lesser distance from the life of ordinary humanity ; 
 not less transcendently himself, but more appealingly like 
 them. 
 
 " Is the horse-chestnut still standing on the hill in the 
 middle of the north pasture ? " he asked Jim, as Eva passed 
 the bread. 
 
 " No, the wind blew it down last year." 
 
 " Dear old tree ! " Jesse was smiling with reminis- 
 cences. " Often have I come over here across-lots to visit 
 Jim and Joe in the early spring, when all the other trees 
 were still in their grey-green nakedness, and turning a cor- 
 ner of the barn I have seen appear before me like an 
 earth-spirit rising out of the ground to breathe the upper 
 air and warm itself in the sunshine that white-veiled 
 tree. . . . And the spring flood, Jim; does it still 
 cover the flats over there in April?" 
 
 " Yes, Jesse, the flood still rises every spring." 
 
 " And so it will for ever ; as long as the mountains stand 
 above the marshes, they will send down the water from 
 their melted snows and their spring rains to form a tem- 
 porary lake around Nashburgh. And generation after 
 generation of growing children will gaze at dawn across 
 the mirror of the flood, and see reflected there the vast, 
 blue, distant mountains, the inaccessible mountains, lying 
 at their very feet; as if a god had left his home on the 
 white horizon and come down to play with them in the 
 valley. 
 
 " When I was a child," Jesse went on, " I made up a 
 wonder-story about a Nashburgh boy who loved the 
 mountains so much that he thought of it all day and 
 dreamed of it all night; but no one would ever take him 
 to the mountain. And one lovely April morning, when 
 the flood lay over the marshes beyond his home, the boy's 
 heart leaped with rapture; for there on the blue reflecting 
 surface of the water, only a few rods distant, was his 
 beloved mountain. The white, inaccessible top of it was 
 toward him, reversed by the reflection; and as the wind
 
 250 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 passed in little ripples over the surface of the flood, it 
 seemed to the boy that the mountain on the water was 
 waving and beckoning to him. And he thought that if he 
 should take his father's boat, and row out to the spot where 
 the top of the mountain was reflected in the water, when 
 the reflection rose he would rise with it and find himself 
 up there where he had always longed to be. Then he 
 would lay his cheek against the white sky as against his 
 mother's bosom, while the mountain would sing to him 
 over and over for a long time the song he had sometimes 
 heard down in the valley, when the autumn winds blew 
 cold and his father would say, ' The mountain is singing 
 to-night: we shall have a storm to-morrow.' And he 
 would dwell up there an immensity of years, learning all 
 the secret things the mountains whispered to each other 
 in the dark (for the boy was never afraid) and if, being 
 so near to God up there, he should ever hear Him speak 
 out of the whirlwind, as He spoke to Job, perhaps the boy 
 would go down again to the valley for a little while and 
 tell the people what God said, that they might love each 
 other better, and sometimes look up at the sky without 
 considering the weather. 
 
 " With his heart full of these things, the boy went down 
 to the edge of the flood, and loosing the boat moored 
 there, he started to row out to the beckoning mirrored 
 mountain, that he might rise with it when it rose. But 
 with every stroke of the oars which should have brought 
 him nearer to the goal of his dreams, the mountain on the 
 water receded farther and farther away. At last he 
 reached the other shore. The mirrored mountain had 
 gone from the surface of the water, and the real mountain 
 seemed as far away as ever, as blue, as inaccessible. 
 
 "The boy sat down on the sodden ground beyond the 
 water, and wept." 
 
 No one spoke for a little time; they all sat looking into 
 space, carried beyond themselves by the imagination of the 
 narrator. Then Jim said: 
 
 " I guess you were that boy, Jesse." 
 
 They had been so absorbed in the story that they had 
 not noticed a tall, thin figure standing in the door of the 
 dining-room. The young man now came forward shyly,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 251 
 
 twisting an old cap between his nervous hands. Jesse 
 smiled a radiant welcome. 
 
 "Why, Marty! Marty White! " 
 
 " I heard they told me you were here," he stammered, 
 standing beside Jesse, who had turned in his chair to clasp 
 the young man by both his hands. 
 
 Jim and Eva added their welcome to Jesse's, and a 
 place was made for Marty at the table, next to his friend. 
 Mary Magnus remembered the poor boy to whom Jesse 
 had given the big red apple, her first offering to him, down 
 in the old schoolhouse twenty years before. 
 
 "You were the boy who was bitten by the snake," she 
 laughed. " How well I remember that day ! " She said 
 nothing of the tears she had shed that afternoon because 
 Jesse had gone home without bidding her good-bye. 
 
 " And you were the lovely little girl who visited the 
 school, and wore such soft white dresses. For years after- 
 ward, whenever I heard anyone speak of angels, I always 
 thought of you." 
 
 It was said with such naive sincerity that Mary blushed 
 with pleasure. He did not seem to know that he was 
 paying her a compliment, which made the simple tribute all 
 the more worth while to a woman who had been surfeited 
 with disingenuous flattery. 
 
 Marty knew all about Jesse's preaching up north; he 
 had questioned the train-men who brought the news to 
 Nashburgh until they were tired of his insistence, for he 
 made them tell their story over and over again, while he 
 wrote down on scraps of wrapping-paper the sayings of the 
 new teacher which were beginning to be current in men's 
 mouths sayings Marty only half understood, but which 
 charmed him even as they charmed others. Sitting there 
 at the table beside Jesse, he repeated all that he had 
 heard. 
 
 "They tell me you said this, Jesse: 'If you have the 
 courage to examine the recesses of your own nature without 
 fear and without shame, you have found the key which 
 shall unlock for you the doors of eternal safety and 
 honour.' >: 
 
 "Yes, Marty." 
 
 "And this, too: 'Even the average man who would
 
 252 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 measure the greatness of his own soul,, or the soul of 
 his brother, needs a tape long enough to reach the stars.' " 
 
 " I said that also." 
 
 "And did you say: ' God is the Power, and I am the 
 expression of the Power ' ? " 
 
 "Yes. Do you not feel it to be true?" 
 
 " It seems to me it's the truest thing I ever heard. 
 And this also I feel to be true, which they tell me you 
 said: 'There is one Spirit, but there are many bodies.' 
 Is that why you love everyone so much, Jesse? Is that 
 why you've always been so good to me? " 
 
 " As the Spirit is one," Jesse answered, " we are really 
 all one being: you and I, these friends of ours, and those 
 others who are not our friends; yes, all the human beings 
 in the world, whether we know them or not, are really 
 a part of ourselves. So why shouldn't we love each 
 other?" 
 
 " It's wonderful," said Marty, " and I've been so happy 
 ever since the hour I heard it. I used to be lonesome; 
 but now I'll never be so any more. How can I feel alone, 
 when there are so many of me? " 
 
 The impulsive Mary laid her soft hand on the rough 
 brown hand of Marty. Her eyes and voice were gentle. 
 
 " You are one of us" she breathed. 
 
 " I'd like to be Oh, how I'd like to be! " His eyes 
 were full of tears, and his homely face seemed almost 
 beautiful. 
 
 " Henceforth," said Jesse, " you will follow me wher- 
 ever I go. You are the brother of these faithful ones."
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 THE following morning Jesse set out to visit the house 
 of his birth. As the principal road through Nashburgh 
 was formed like a horseshoe, with Jim Bethel's house at 
 one end and Jesse's birthplace at the other, in years gone 
 by a foot-path had been made across-lots, a path worn 
 brown and grassless by feet which_ no longer moved 
 about the surface of the earth. From Jim's dooryard, down 
 through a marshy meadow and up a little hill, through a 
 stretch of woods and over a rocky pasture, went the nar- 
 row, pathetic path, whose every rod was sacred with 
 memories. Wishing to share the enjoyment of this pil- 
 grimage with one who knew the stories of every rock and 
 tree along the way, Jesse had asked Marty to join them 
 early in the morning and make the seventh of the little 
 band of pilgrims. 
 
 Strange paradox of this great nature, with its blending 
 of the sweet human and the superhuman! Now in the 
 dawn of the fulfilment of his mission, with the weight 
 of a tremendous destiny upon his shoulders, he carried the 
 burden so easily that he could pause by the wayside to 
 gather the violets of childhood memory. He would preach 
 better on the morrow, would stand more firmly on the 
 isolate height of impersonal prophecy, for this wandering 
 in the valley of personal attachment. 
 
 But with all his tender familiarity of association, his 
 unity with these friends in the little ways of daily life, there 
 was always about him that majesty of humility which ele- 
 vates the great religious teacher above the reach of kings. 
 
 Jesse was unusually quiet that morning as they climbed 
 the hill beyond the marshy meadow and entered the woods. 
 The hill seemed not so steep as when he was a boy, the 
 trees seemed not so high; but the mysterious green shadows 
 of the woods had deepened with the deepening of his soul, 
 and the stillness made him still. Marty knew this region 
 
 253
 
 254 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 as well as Jesse did, though less intimately; but the deli- 
 cacy which is often native with those who live near to the 
 earth restrained him from intruding with even a pleasing 
 mutual reminiscence upon the privacy of his friend's 
 thoughts. 
 
 When they had gone a little way into the woods, Jesse 
 stood still and raised his arms in ecstatic invocation of that 
 Power which to him was ever consciously near, ever in 
 union with himself. He seemed to have forgotten the 
 presence of the others. 
 
 " O Spirit of the universe," he prayed, " father, friend, 
 sustainer and pervader of the souls of all that live! Thou 
 who art in me and around me, whose thought is vibrant 
 in my brain, whose love looks out at me from the eyes 
 of those I love, and enters me with the air I breathe! 
 Thou whose voice speaks to me in the song of yonder bird, 
 and is silent with the loving silence of my companions, I 
 adore Thee, and I am Thy servant! 
 
 " Though the world should refuse to receive me my 
 God is wiser than I. Should the gifts that I bring be 
 thrown back at my feet my God is more loving than I. 
 Should my labour fail of its harvest my God is more 
 patient than I." 
 
 Something in the spirit of this strange prayer clutched 
 at their hearts and made them afraid. Why did he speak 
 of the world's refusal of him? Was he not to trans- 
 form the world? What gifts would ever be thrown back 
 at his feet? Why, all mankind were waiting for his 
 gifts! How could his labour fail of the harvest? And 
 why should he remind himself of the patience of God? 
 They questioned him and each other with their eyes, but 
 no one dared to speak. 
 
 They left the woods and entered the rocky pasture, 
 warm with the summer sun, and cut diagonally across 
 by the immemorial foot-path. Jesse was the only one who 
 walked in the narrow brown line; the others trailed irreg- 
 ularly behind him over the green and yellow grass, clipped 
 short by the grazing cows. He who had never walked in 
 any mental or emotional path made by his predecessors, 
 found an intense pleasure in following this physical path; 
 it seemed to prove his claim upon the region of his birth,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 255 
 
 to establish a tie between himself and the past and present 
 of its inhabitants. Whoever he might be, whatever he 
 might become, his life, his thoughts, were indissolubly 
 twined with the path which crossed Taylor's pasture. 
 Strange that it should be Taylor's; stranger still that the 
 old house they were going to was now Taylor's also. In 
 former days the pasture had been Smith's pasture, and the 
 house had been his father's house. But the mere owner- 
 ship of portions of the earth's surface had never been a 
 matter of much importance to Jesse; the pasture really be- 
 longed to him who loved it most, and so did the old grey 
 house, and all the other beautiful things in the world. 
 
 Suddenly an unwelcome thought crossed his mind. He 
 turned to Marty and asked: 
 
 " Is anyone living there now ? " 
 
 " Yes, a family from Wheelerville. The man works on 
 the railroad-track." 
 
 So he was not to have the freedom of the empty place, 
 after all! Some sordid story of the present was written 
 over the ideal shadow-poem of the past a palimpsest he 
 must decipher as best he could. 
 
 "The house has been empty most of the time for the 
 last few years," Marty went on. " Taylor has let the 
 place run down so that nobody wants to live in it, if they 
 can find any other house. The orchard is half eaten up 
 by worms, and your mother's old flower-garden has been 
 spoiled by Taylor's sheep; for he uses the dooryard as a 
 pasture when he isn't able to let the house." 
 
 Jesse made no answer. He was thinking of the fairy 
 play-ground under the rose-bushes now desecrated by 
 small cattle; thinking of the mystic grove where he had 
 dreamed in the moonlit evenings now " half eaten up 
 by worms." 
 
 They came to the bars on the west side of the pasture, 
 and Andrew let them down for the women to pass through. 
 There they had their first glimpse of the old blue-grey 
 house and the orchard. Jesse gazed across the intervening 
 twenty rods of space, gazed across the intervening years. 
 He had thought of his childhood's home as a rather large 
 house; but this seemed to be a small house, low-roofed, 
 and narrow as the life of Nashburgh. Then, too, its pro-
 
 256 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 portions were inharmonious; and he now realised that the 
 beauty he had seen about it all these years was but the 
 glamour of his early dreams. 
 
 From where they stood at Taylor's bars the land sloped 
 gradually down to the West Road, then rose less gradually 
 to the level of his old home. A few yards to the left of 
 the bars stood " the ghost house," shaded and made gloomy 
 by its now overgrown hedge of cedar-trees. This shelter 
 of vagrant and occasional families had been given its name 
 by the ten-year-old Jesse, because of the strange way in 
 which the light used to fall whitely on the glass of its 
 usually empty windows. In this house he and his 
 mother had once nursed a whole family of unfortunates 
 through the horrors of black diphtheria, nursed them into 
 the peace of hurried charity graves. No one else, except 
 the doctor and the nervous undertaker, would come near 
 the place. But Jesse and his mother were untouched by 
 the disease, for diphtheria, like calumny, respects those who 
 have no fear of it. 
 
 At the foot of the hill, beside the road, was the old 
 well. There was no pump, and Jesse raised the wooden 
 cover and looked down down to where his head was 
 reflected in the black water, twenty feet below the sur- 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, I would like to drink from the well ! " cried 
 Mary; and Andrew went up to the house to borrow a 
 pail, and the rope with a hook at one end which was their 
 primitive means of drawing water. 
 
 When the brimming pail was placed at his feet, Jesse 
 filled a cup and gave it to Mary, saying: 
 
 " That you may quench your thirst for ever with the 
 water from my well." 
 
 Then he gave the others to drink. 
 
 "Though Mary was the first to ask for it," he said, 
 "the water is for all, and the well is deep." He always 
 delighted in playing upon words, though often the duller 
 wits around him did not grasp his meaning. 
 
 The wide gate was open, and they went up the road 
 to the house, where a group of ragged children stood 
 around the door, staring open-mouthed at the strangers. 
 
 A care-worn woman came out at the call of the children,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 257 
 
 and asked rather gruffly what they wanted. She was 
 trying to do her Saturday baking, and the mouths in her 
 charge were many. 
 
 Jesse's smile was like sudden sunshine breaking through 
 the clouds of her hopeless gloom. With that sweet cour- 
 tesy which would have opened for him the doors of a 
 palace had he cared to enter a palace, he asked this frowsy 
 drudge if he might show his friends the house in which he 
 was born. 
 
 For a moment the woman looked at him, without a 
 word. No one had ever spoken to her in that way be- 
 fore. An unaccustomed dignity now straightened her 
 slatternly figure, and a flush rose to her cheek. 
 
 " The house ain't over-clean," she murmured. 
 
 " So many little mouths to feed do not leave the mother 
 much leisure," he answered, as they passed into the untidy 
 kitchen. 
 
 Jesse led his companions to the broken west window, 
 and pointed to the long line of purple and yellow marshes 
 beyond the railroad, fifty rods away. 
 
 " This," he said, " is the lonely world my mother gazed 
 at every day during the long months before I was born. 
 Oppressed by the material nothingness, she was forced to 
 find a spiritual something to respond to the yearning of 
 her soul." 
 
 "Do you mean yourself?" asked Peter, to whom the 
 clearness of an idea was more than the poetry of its ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " I mean the love that brought me into being the love 
 of the Spirit for the human soul." 
 
 He turned away from the window and went into an 
 adjoining room, followed by his friends, and by the house- 
 mother with her brood of children. 
 
 " This is where I slept for eighteen years," he said. 
 
 He did not linger there, but passed through a bare little 
 entry, through another room littered with untidy beds 
 and bedding, and thence into a smaller room at the north 
 end of the house a room absolutely empty. The needs 
 of a numerous family had not intruded here; instinctively 
 the casual guardians of the memorable place had kept 
 sacred this bare altar in the midst of desecration. The six
 
 258 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 who came with Jesse knew the meaning of his silence. 
 This was the Room of Birth! These narrow walls had 
 listened to the first sound of that voice whose words would 
 reverberate through the chambers of human consciousness. 
 Through that one little window facing east, the light of 
 day had discovered him. 
 
 Mary and John moved forward to the window, that 
 the rays of the morning sun might fall upon them. Each 
 read the other's thought, but neither could speak. These 
 two who loved their teacher most had many beautiful se- 
 crets in common. They were roused from their reverie 
 by the touch of Jesse's hand. 
 
 " Will you ask them all to go out, and leave me a little 
 while alone? " 
 
 He closed the door softly behind them. The air was 
 heavy in the Room of Birth, even as the atmosphere of 
 the world into which he was born was not pure enough 
 for him. He raised the window, and fastened it with the 
 very nail on the end of a cotton string which had been 
 there when he was a child. Turning his back to the light, 
 he contemplated the small square space, hallowed with vast 
 meanings. To him it was a symbol of the narrow room 
 of material existence, of the world-life into which he had 
 been born, from which he had escaped on the mountain 
 of enlightenment, and to which he had voluntarily re- 
 turned for the great purposes of his mission. This little 
 room seemed far from the mountain of enlightenment; but 
 he had found his way unaided from the one to the other. 
 Could the human race he loved find that long way, even 
 with his aid? 
 
 The immortal Spirit, that was himself, had in this room 
 taken on the vesture of mortality. It seemed to Jesse 
 that here in Nashburgh he was plunged more deeply into 
 matter than in any other place; that the wings of the Spirit 
 drooped ever so little. He now saw the reason why: The 
 Spirit, elsewhere free, was here reminded of its incarna- 
 tion. 
 
 He closed the window, refastening it with the old nail; 
 then he rejoined his friends in the dooryard. But the 
 rose-bushes he had promised to show them were now no 
 more, the grape-vines were no more, the blue and the white
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 259 
 
 lilies were no more. The orchard where the worms fore- 
 gathered he had no wish to visit. 
 
 When Jesse turned to say good-bye to the tired-faced 
 woman who baked her bread in his mother's kitchen, he 
 noticed an unhealthy-looking child lying on a pillow in a 
 rough wooden box, placed in the shade of a maple-tree. It 
 seemed to be about two years old; its face was flushed with 
 fever, and its thin arms tossed restlessly. Seeing the 
 sympathy in the eyes of the stranger, the mother bent over 
 the rude crib and tenderly smoothed the forehead of the 
 child. 
 
 " I don't know what's the matter with him," she said. 
 " I'd send for the doctor, if I had anybody to send, but 
 the nearest one is seven miles away. He was taken sick 
 yesterday morning, wouldn't eat, and all last night he 
 moaned and tossed about so that I didn't get any sleep, 
 and he hasn't slept all day, either. Do you think, sir, he's 
 very sick?" 
 
 Jesse bent over the child. He took the hot little rest- 
 less arms and laid them gently at the sides of the hot little 
 restless body; he straightened the tangled clothing, closed 
 the child's eyes, and drew the mosquito-netting over the 
 top of the box. The mother watched. Her face had 
 grown pale. 
 
 " Why, the boy's asleep ! " she whispered, gazing round 
 at the little group with astonished eyes. 
 
 " He will sleep until five o'clock," said Jesse, " then he 
 will wake of his own accord. You may give him a bowl 
 of mush and milk, let him play about a little, and put him 
 to bed again at eight o'clock. To-morrow he will be as 
 well as ever better than ever, for I see that he has not 
 been a very healthy child." 
 
 The eyes of the mother grew wider and wider. 
 
 " When the shade of the tree moves around," Jesse con- 
 tinued, " you may move the crib toward the other side. 
 Do not fear that you will disturb the child; he will not 
 wake until five o'clock. But leave him in the open air." 
 
 The eyes of the mother now filled with tears, and Jesse 
 took both her hands in his gentle clasp. Then she found 
 her voice to thank him, looking up into his face as at some 
 wonderful and sacred thing.
 
 260 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Love is the great physician," he said to her. " Be at 
 peace, my sister." Then he turned toward the old grey 
 barn, followed by his friends. 
 
 Mary Magnus lingered a moment with the mother of 
 the child. She had taken something from a little purse at 
 her belt, and pressed it into the woman's hand. 
 
 " Whomever he calls sister is my sister. Will you not 
 take a little gift from me?" 
 
 When the woman saw the figures on the yellow-backed 
 paper, she gasped. But the New England independence re- 
 strained her. She looked wistfully from the money to the 
 beautiful woman who had given it. 
 
 " We're not so very poor," she said, " my husband makes 
 good wages." 
 
 " But it's for the children," Mary smiled at her. 
 " Those little feet wear out shoes so fast, and the little 
 mouths enjoy beefsteak and broth and other good things. 
 I haven't forgotten when I was a child." 
 
 " Who is he? " the woman asked. " Is he your 
 brother?" 
 
 "He is the brother of all the world." 
 
 " He has cured my child, I feel that he has cured my 
 child." 
 
 " He cured me also," Mary answered, " and of far more 
 grievous things than summer fevers." 
 
 " Shall I never see him again ? " The woman's eyes were 
 wistful. 
 
 Mary replied to her question by asking another: " Have 
 you a horse?" 
 
 " Yes." She pointed to the spavined old mare tied by 
 a rope to a tree in the scrubby orchard north of the house. 
 
 " Then come to-morrow morning to the little Nash- 
 burgh church. He will preach there." 
 
 " Then he's a preacher ? Why, I thought he was a doc- 
 tor!" 
 
 " He is the doctor of both the soul and the body. I 
 shall expect to see you at the church to-morrow morning 
 with the little one whom he cured." 
 
 Then Mary walked quickly over the grass to join her 
 friends in the old barn, where years before Jesse had first 
 tried the power of his voice among the reverberating raft-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 261 
 
 ers. The rafters were still there, inviting reverberations; 
 but Jesse did not raise his voice above a murmur. There 
 was little hay in the barn now, and the spavined old mare 
 was wise to browse in the orchard during the summer 
 days, reserving this meagre store of provisions for the 
 melancholy days to come. 
 
 Andrew had discovered an immense wasps' nest high up 
 under the ridge-pole, and pointed it out to Anna. His 
 shy and reverent love, always burning to call attention to 
 itself, was so very shy and reverent that it left him only 
 the courage to approach her on impersonal subjects, to call 
 her attention to such things as sunsets and wasps' nests. 
 Had she but hinted a desire for this marvel of the construct- 
 ive art of the dangerous insect, he would have offered to 
 scale the thirty-foot perpendicular west wall of the barn 
 to get it for her; had she expressed a desire for the sunset, 
 he would have made ready for the quest provided always 
 that it should not take him away from Jesse. In this case 
 the divided allegiance was better than the single eye; for 
 he could not have revered Anna so much had he not re- 
 vered Jesse more. That she was also his disciple threw the 
 aureole of infinity around her finite womanhood. 
 
 " It's beautiful to see how all winged things aspire, in 
 building their homes high up," said Anna, referring to the 
 position of the wasps' nest. 
 
 Andrew knew of birds that built their nests on the 
 ground, but it would have seemed profane to refer to them 
 at that moment. 
 
 " Even human beings," he said, " build high when they 
 love." 
 
 " That is because their souls are winged, too," she an- 
 swered, with a pretty blush. 
 
 They did not linger in the barn, but set out across the 
 pasture for Jesse's pine-tree, the witness of his childhood's 
 tears, the confidant of his youth. Lonely and solemn the 
 tree stood, its dark form outlined against the sky and the 
 marshes. Of all the trees on the earth's surface, this 
 would ever be for him The Tree; but how could he make 
 his companions understand? Long ago he had come to 
 realise that while his life was a type of the life of mankind 
 on its long journey, yet in him all the human feelings and
 
 262 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 perceptions were many times magnified; that his life was 
 the life of man, raised to a higher power. And a great 
 loneliness now overwhelmed him the loneliness of him 
 whose thoughts are beyond the comprehension of those he 
 loves. Even the old pine-tree could not sympathise with 
 him any longer, for his present joy and grief were beyond 
 the ken of mindless Nature. 
 
 And to-morrow he must stand up in his native town, 
 before a crowd of camp-followers of the army of mate- 
 rialism, and try to make them feel the beauty of the im- 
 manent Spirit. Had he descended from the clouds, had 
 he come from some remote region of the earth with the gla- 
 mour of the unknown around him, then the very flame of 
 their curiosity might have lighted the viscid oil in their 
 souls' lamps. But, as it was, he would ever be to them 
 but the son of a fellow camp-follower in the material army. 
 Should he tell them of the mountain of illumination, whose 
 height was really farther from them than were the peaks 
 of the Himalayas, they would place that height on the 
 mountains east of Burlington, and mock at the presump- 
 tion of one of Nashburgh's sons in thinking to instruct 
 the fathers of Nashburgh. 
 
 To-day there was no communion between his soul and 
 the soul of the pine-tree; the wind that whispered through 
 its ancient branches seemed preoccupied with some busi- 
 ness of importance only to Nashburgh. There was some- 
 thing vaguely resentful in the indifference of the tree. It 
 seemed to hint that he who had made new confidants among 
 the trees of the mountain of illumination, had better go 
 back to the mountain.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THERE was no regular minister at that time in Nash- 
 burgh. The town could not afford to keep a minister, and 
 one who could afford to keep himself in the town was not 
 forthcoming. Wandering preachers occasionally spoke in 
 the little wooden church, young men who wanted prac- 
 tice and old men who wanted pay; but none of them was 
 " called." A preacher was sure of nothing there except 
 an audience; there could, of course, be no admission fee, 
 and free entertainment of any sort was a welcome break 
 in the monotony of the long weeks. As subjects of con- 
 versation were few and news was at a premium, any man 
 who announced to anybody in the town that he would 
 speak in the church on a certain Sunday, could depend 
 upon mouth to mouth announcements to advertise his meet- 
 ing. That part of Jesse's complicated problem in his na- 
 tive town was easy of solution. 
 
 Some time before the appointed hour, along the three 
 roads leading to the meeting-house came wagons of all 
 ages and conditions, some shining with respectability and 
 recent ablutions, others grey and crusted with the clay- 
 mud of many months' accretion. The passengers were va- 
 ried as the vehicles. There were toothless grandsires, who 
 had been old men when Jesse was a little boy; young men 
 who had known him in the casual fraternity of the station- 
 platform, and of the post-office and general-store, that 
 lyceum of rural opinions; young married women with their 
 babies, who had secretly dreamed of his beauty in years 
 gone by, when marriage was a fascinating possibility of the 
 future, and these noisy children were still in the bosom of 
 infinity; corpulent mothers of families, who had held 
 Mary Bethel's boy upon their knees in days before he 
 learned of his relation to the Spirit; stern or jocose farm- 
 ers, weather-beaten, seasoned with the juice of bad tobacco, 
 and cynical with the ethics of the horse-trade; boys and 
 girls, most of them unborn when Jesse left Nashburgh, 
 
 265
 
 264 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 who went to the meeting-house in the same spirit as they 
 went to schoolj because it was expected of them; and here 
 and there the fresh young wistful face of a youth or a 
 maid in the Maytime of emotional possibilities, who might 
 have been fired with the enthusiasm of Jesse's faith had 
 they not been predisposed against him by the compromising 
 fact that he was born in Nashburgh. There were also a 
 few strangers, the floating population of the township, men 
 and women who were unconscious of what a suspicious 
 circumstance it was to have been born in this pretty valley ; 
 but they were mostly of the lower and least respected 
 classes. 
 
 By a quarter of eleven the church was nearly full, and 
 five minutes before the hour there was not a vacant seat, 
 except the long " mourners' bench " in front, and the one 
 black horse-hair chair on the platform, to the right of the 
 pulpit. Nashburgh had turned out in force to hear what 
 Jesse had to say, and to see how Jesse looked. Though 
 their motive in coming was nothing more reverent than 
 curiosity, at least they had come. The bare white walls 
 of the little meeting-house had never before enclosed so 
 large a gathering. 
 
 Mrs. Olin Madison sat with her husband, about mid- 
 way between the pulpit and the door. To have gone 
 farther forward would have evinced an interest in the 
 speaker and his sermon to which she was not ready to com- 
 mit herself; to have sat farther back would have been 
 compromising to her dignity, would have placed her among 
 those whom she called " the riff-raff." The presence of 
 Mrs. Madison in the meeting-house was in itself an un- 
 usual event. She did not tell herself that she hoped the son 
 of Mary Bethel would appreciate her condescension, but 
 such a feeling dwelt vaguely at the back of her conscious- 
 ness. It was three minutes of eleven by Mrs. Madison's 
 gold watch, and still Jesse had not come. 
 
 Thomas Taylor and his wife sat well forward. He had 
 married his hard-faced housekeeper some years before, after 
 repeated hints from the neighbours that such a course was 
 expected from him if she was to continue a member of 
 their God-fearing community. Taylor's younger son was 
 also with them. The three Brown girls had followed Mrs.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 265 
 
 Madison's lead, and sat about half-way back. The station- 
 master, the store-keeper, the constable, and two hundred 
 of Nashburgh's other inhabitants were also listening and 
 watching. 
 
 It was one minute before eleven when every person in 
 the church became suddenly aware of a presence. The 
 thick carpet down the aisle gave back no sound from his 
 footsteps; but they felt that he was there behind them, 
 beside them. There was a lightness in the atmosphere, a 
 response in their hearts as to the air of high mountains, 
 and he passed by them to the platform and sat down. He 
 did not kneel, nor shade his eyes with his hand in silent 
 prayer, nor do any of the other things to which they were 
 accustomed. He simply sat down. High and pure he 
 seemed, even to their dull perception. He did not wear 
 the solemn and ill-fitting black clothes usually seen be- 
 hind that pulpit; his soft, well-made garments were of dark 
 blue, and above them shone his beautiful face, with its 
 nimbus of gold hair. He looked at them, and a tremour 
 passed over every man and woman there. 
 
 Then down the aisle came his companions: the three 
 men from Capronville, Mary Magnus and Anna Martin, 
 Stephen and Susie Smith, Marty White, and the three 
 Bethels, Jim, Joe and Eva. They sat on the long front 
 seat, called the " mourners' bench," and the four singers 
 were in the centre. 
 
 For perhaps thirty seconds there was utter silence. Then 
 Jesse rose, and the four rose with him; they stepped for- 
 ward a little, faced the congregation, and without a word 
 of announcement began to sing the song of love and dis- 
 cipleship which Mary and Anna had made for the glory 
 of their teacher. 
 
 " When our mild-eyed Master came 
 
 From the mountains of the soul, 
 In his heart God's secret name, 
 
 Round his head Love's aureole, 
 We believed the Dawn had taken 
 
 Form of man for our surprise, 
 And our dreaming souls were shaken 
 
 With the signal of his eyes.
 
 266 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "Roses which no time shall fade 
 
 He has given us to keep, 
 And the world his words have made 
 
 Lovely as the hills of sleep. 
 Now, revealed to one another, 
 
 We are one since life began, 
 And the sacred name of brother 
 
 We may breathe to every man. 
 
 " We have found the faith that gives 
 
 Mountain air for every breath, 
 Fragrant bread for each that lives. 
 
 And behind the doors of death 
 Lurks no dread to make us fear it, 
 
 For our souls have found the clime 
 Where the lilies of the Spirit 
 
 Blossom in the winter-time." 
 
 The song was a confession of faith, a challenge to dis- 
 belief, a statement of the claims made by him and by 
 others in his name. It fell upon the ears of listening Nash- 
 burgh like a song in an unfamiliar tongue; yet its purport 
 was somehow plain, however its finer meanings might 
 elude them. The voice of Mary Magnus rose pure and 
 clear above the untrained voices of her choir, leading them, 
 luring them on in the fearless quest of the Spirit along the 
 paths of sound. No one could listen unmoved 'to that pas- 
 sionate voice, and had she sung the glory of some far-off 
 god, some long-dead prophet, their minds would have as- 
 sented; but they realised that this new song was in honour 
 of the son of Mary Bethel, realised that it presumptuously 
 exalted him to a place on the mountain-peak of humanity, 
 within hailing distance of God. And the heart of Nash- 
 burgh rebelled against the assumptions of her son. The 
 religious members of the congregation were shocked as 
 by some bold profanity; the irreligious listeners hardly 
 realised the enormity of the claim. 
 
 The choir sat down, and Jesse opened the Scriptures 
 which lay upon the pine pulpit. It was not his habit to 
 read from the Bible at his meetings, but he chose to do so 
 in this place. He turned to the Book of Isaiah, and read 
 a verse here and there:
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 267 
 
 "'I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, 
 and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.' 
 
 
 
 "'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: 
 they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath 
 the light shined.' 
 
 
 
 " ' And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a 
 covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
 
 " 'And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears 
 of them that hear shall hearken. 
 
 " ' The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and 
 the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.' " 
 
 He closed the book and stood for a moment looking 
 down at them in silence, that all the meanings and sug- 
 gestions of the words which he had read might be grasped 
 by their slow minds. When he saw in their eyes that they 
 understood him, he began to speak. 
 
 " I am the mouthpiece of the Spirit, the voice of the 
 everlasting stillness. My words ring loudest in the soul 
 when the ears no longer hear them; for what the Spirit 
 utters can never be gainsaid. 
 
 " You have read how Moses wrote that the world and 
 the heavens were formed in six days; but the Spirit will 
 re-form them now in twice as many months. 
 
 " You have been taught how to protect yourselves from 
 one another; but nothing can protect you against the ag- 
 gression of the Spirit. 
 
 " You have learned the lessons of selfishness and thrift ; 
 but in the school of the Spirit that knowledge will be of 
 no use; the penniless man who loves his neighbour shall 
 stand higher than the wealthy man who loves only himself. 
 
 "The world values you by the costliness of your gar- 
 ments, and by what you have accumulated; the Spirit 
 values you for your nakedness, and by what you have re- 
 linquished. 
 
 " You pride yourselves upon your morals. Morals are 
 as desirable as frequent bathing; but as mere bathing will 
 not change the face, so mere morals will not change the 
 heart. Both are external. That which shall transform
 
 268 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the face and make the heart beautiful is love, and it comes 
 from within. 
 
 " What are love's duties ? The privilege of high souls 
 to give themselves for others. 
 
 " When you speak for the sake of others and not^ for 
 your own sake, then only will the whole world listen. 
 
 " Many fail who are personally ambitious ; but a few 
 personally succeed who are ambitious only for the prog- 
 ress of mankind. 
 
 " He who does a good action for the sake of reward, 
 may receive what seems to be a reward; but there is a 
 higher motive. 
 
 "Why do you build such towering structures on the 
 perishable foundation of your body? A little while and it 
 will be no more; it will sink into the earth, and all your 
 building with it; for the you which shall endure is not 
 this body. 
 
 " That which is immortal and indestructible, which 
 water cannot drown, nor fire burn, nor the passing seasons 
 leave behind That you are." 
 
 Someone had placed upon the pulpit a vase of flowers. 
 He separated one a white lily and held it up for them 
 to see. 
 
 " Is it not beautiful ? " he said. " Yet its beauty is more 
 than the dust from which it sprang. There is a Some- 
 thing concealed in every object that is more beautiful than 
 the object. Look for that. When you have found it, you 
 will have found the Spirit. 
 
 "The sun is a luminous body giving light of itself; so 
 is that Something at the centre of man and of all things. 
 
 " Alas, that men should carry in their souls a ray of 
 the Great Light, and yet should walk in darkness!" 
 
 He spoke to them of the wonders of the immanent Spirit, 
 and the grandeur of the human soul, using the same beau- 
 tiful words he had spoken in the house of the Hermit's dis- 
 ciples on that first night in Burlington, when he was fresh 
 from the exaltation of the mountain. He told these 
 weather-beaten, cynical farmers, to whom a dollar was more 
 certain than a God, that they themselves were gods 
 gods who denied or bartered their divinity. He told them 
 also that they were good; that somewhere among the lit-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 269 
 
 ter and confusion of their life's lumber-room was the price- 
 less pearl of spiritual goodness, often trodden under foot, 
 always disregarded, but indisputably there; and that even 
 their meanest and most disobliging neighbour possessed 
 such another pearl. He said: 
 
 " Does the heart of man seem evil to you? Look again. 
 
 " He who declares that the heart of man is evil, is like 
 one who ties a bandage over his eyes before he lights the 
 lamp. 
 
 " Or do all other men seem evil to you, and do you 
 alone seem just? Then pity the poor world which has 
 laboured for a million years to produce only one creditable 
 work! 
 
 " Do you shrink from the contemplation of an evil man? 
 It is the sinner in you which recognises and fears the sin- 
 ner. 
 
 " Do weak and evil men seem small compared with you? 
 How do you fancy that you appear when compared with 
 great men? 
 
 " I have said that there is a god in you ; but there is 
 also a devil, and one of his many names is self-righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 " If you refrain from lifting your fallen brother for fear 
 of soiling your own stainless garment, beware of the slip- 
 pery rock which will throw you in the mud but a step or 
 two farther on. 
 
 " Anything which really separates you from humanity is 
 an evil, even though it be your own virtue. 
 
 " When a man seems to you to be utterly depraved, it 
 may be that you are not pure enough to understand him. 
 
 "When you enumerate all the follies and vices of which 
 you have never been guilty, try to remember a time when 
 you preferred the happiness or welfare of your enemy to 
 that of yourself. 
 
 " Do you rejoice that you are superior to your neigh- 
 bour? Humble yourself before him, and prove it. 
 
 " The repentant sinner may pass the threshold of the 
 spiritual chamber and take his seat among the elect within, 
 while the self-righteous saint remains outside with the 
 uninvited." 
 
 Again he stood in silence for a moment, looking down
 
 270 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 at them. The thin lips of Mrs. Madison were set in a 
 straight line; on the dark face of Thomas Taylor was a 
 threatening frown; but here and there about the congre- 
 gation Jesse saw a face alight with wondering admiration, 
 and the church was still as virgin space. 
 
 Then he told them this allegory: 
 
 " There was a wise physician who discovered the heal- 
 ing properties in a familiar flower which grew in every 
 meadow. 
 
 " And he told his neighbours and his friends, offering 
 them freely of the medicine distilled by his own labours. 
 
 * But they laughed at him and scorned his medicine, say- 
 ing: ' All our lives we have known this common flower, 
 and our children have played with it. How could it heal 
 our fevers, or allay the weariness in our bones? We want 
 neither your medicine nor you.' 
 
 " Then the wise physician went to another country, 
 whose people were unacquainted with the source of his heal- 
 ing draught, and he cured these strangers of all their dis- 
 eases and raised them from the level of the grave, so that 
 his very name became sacred, and he was called the great 
 physician, the healer of the world. 
 
 " And a fever came to scourge his native valley, and 
 those who had refused the wise physician and his remedy 
 went down before it as a field of grass before the mower. 
 But the potent flower still bloomed above their graves." 
 
 Another silence, longer and more tense than before. 
 . . . Then Jesse raised his arms in signal of the com- 
 ing benediction, and the whole congregation rose in invol- 
 untary obedience to his will. 
 
 " May the Spirit which never sleeps awake you to a 
 realisation of its invisible presence."
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 THE congregation seemed to be in no hurry to leave the 
 church. Many came forward at once and gathered around 
 Jesse, who had left the platform and was standing below 
 the pulpit. People were talking together all over the 
 room; the usual Sunday hush was not preserved on this un- 
 usual day did not seem to be demanded by the occasion. 
 
 In groups or singly, everyone in the church came for- 
 ward finally to have a word with Jesse. Mrs. Madison 
 held back for a time, not wishing to compromise her dig- 
 nity by unseemly haste. She stood talking to the Brown 
 girls and others, who listened to her with wandering eyes 
 and wandering attention; she spoke of other things instead 
 of the sermon, every-day things, as if the commonplaces 
 of village gossip really occupied her mind to the exclusion 
 of the burning subject which occupied the mind of every- 
 body else. But the restless manner of her companions told 
 her they were not listening, and in order to preserve the 
 appearance of being a centre of social exchange she was 
 obliged to refer to the matter in hand. 
 
 "What do you think of the sermon? " she asked, with a 
 nonchalant air which did not commit her to any opinion, 
 but invited her unwary listeners to commit themselves. 
 
 " It was certainly not what we're accustomed to," an- 
 swered the eldest Miss Brown, with spasmodic efforts to 
 control the twitching of her face, known in Nashburgh as 
 her " nervous trouble." " I mean," she added, " it was 
 much better than anything we're accustomed to." 
 
 Mrs. Madison lifted her eyebrows. Secretly she ad- 
 mired the young woman's courage in being the first to voice 
 a fact which they all vaguely realised; but she was by no 
 means ready to surrender to the spell of the young man 
 whom she had " fed with sugar-plums when he was in 
 baby dresses." 
 
 " His claims are high," she answered, with a laugh 
 which might have been mockery and might have been from 
 
 271
 
 272 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 mere nervousness. " As far as I can make out, he considers 
 himself a sort of Messiah, sent by God for the reforma- 
 tion of the world." 
 
 "What blasphemy!" ejaculated Thomas Taylor, who 
 had joined them. " The son of Mary Bethel! A Messiah, 
 indeed!" 
 
 The boss of the railroad section was a respectable man 
 of religious professions, and he now joined the group 
 around Mrs. Madison, saying incredulously: 
 
 " Have you heard that he cures disease by the laying 
 on of hands? " 
 
 " You don't say so! " exclaimed the afflicted Brown girl. 
 
 "When and where?" demanded Mrs. Madison. 
 
 He told them of the incident of Saturday morning, when 
 this man had cured the Bennett child of fever, in the door- 
 yard of his old home. " Or so the parents say," he added. 
 " That's almost as remarkable as rinding a hidden fortune 
 in a cupboard." 
 
 " It was a secret drawer," corrected the youngest Brown 
 girl. 
 
 " Suppose you go up and ask him what he thinks he is, 
 anyway," suggested Taylor. 
 
 "I'll do it!" declared Olin Madison. "Come on, 
 Maria." 
 
 In a body they moved forward, all but Taylor, who dis- 
 creetly watched from the centre of the church. The Ben- 
 nett woman and her brood of children were in the fore- 
 ground. The mother, in a clean calico dress and with her 
 hair neatly done up in a pug under her rusty bonnet, was 
 telling everyone who would listen to her of the strange 
 healing of her child. Mary Magnus had seen the woman 
 in the back of the church, and had sent Andrew to bring 
 her forward where her testimony could be heard. 
 
 " He merely touched the child and looked at him, and 
 the fever left him and he slept, after a day and a night 
 of crying and moaning," she was saying as the group came 
 up. "I don't know what you call it, but I call it the 
 power o' God." 
 
 " The power of the Spirit that makes him like to God," 
 thrilled the voice of John, his clear eyes challenging any- 
 one to disbelieve the miracle he had witnessed.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 273 
 
 Mrs. Madison shook hands with Mary Magnus before 
 she spoke to. Jesse. Broken straws of gossip about the 
 banker's daughter had blown about in the pure air of 
 Nashburgh; but the solid certainty of Mary's wealth 
 weighed heavily in the popular mind against the uncertain 
 rumour of her lovers, and Mrs. Madison turned to her 
 as to the one indisputable, well-dressed fact in this ques- 
 tionable riot of fancy. 
 
 "And did you really see him cure this child?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I saw him cure this child, as I have seen him cure 
 many others," Mary answered. " He cures everyone who 
 is afflicted and who has the faith without which all cures 
 are impossible." 
 
 " Has he ever cured you of anything? " Mrs. Madison 
 laughed her unpleasant little laugh. 
 
 " Oh, he cured me of seven devils ! " Mary replied, with 
 more enthusiasm than discretion. 
 
 " How very interesting ! I hope they were polite, well- 
 bred devils; but I'm sure you wouldn't associate with any 
 other kind." 
 
 Mary bowed with courteous reserve, and turned to 
 speak with John. That was the beginning of the story 
 of the seven devils, a story which survived all the real 
 facts of her life save only her devotion and her faith. 
 
 Mrs. Madison turned with her husband to the place 
 where Jesse stood surrounded by an eagerly questioning 
 crowd. She was displeased with the obvious necessity of 
 going t Jesse if she wished to speak with him at all, dis- 
 pleased also at having to wait a little time behind a group 
 of unimportant persons who lived in the shanties behind 
 the railway-station. She had heard that he made no dis- 
 tinction between respectable people and the riff-raff, and 
 now he was actually talking, and with every show of con- 
 sideration, to a mulatto woman who took in washing 
 while Mrs. Madison was kept waiting. Becoming impa- 
 tient, she put out her hand to him across the mulatto 
 woman. 
 
 " I am glad to see you again," he said, taking her hand 
 in a warm clasp which sent an electric current through 
 her whole body. " But will you kindly wait one mo-
 
 274 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ment? " When he had finished what he was saying to the 
 other, he turned again to Mrs. Madison with his irresist- 
 ible smile, and shook hands with her husband. 
 
 " I found your talk very interesting," she began; 
 but " 
 
 "We want to ask you," Olin Madison interrupted, 
 " just what you mean by some of the things you said." 
 
 " Which things ? " 
 
 " Well, er " the old man stammered and the colour 
 
 deepened in his cheeks under the sunburn " what do you 
 mean by saying that you are the voice of the Spirit, or the 
 mouthpiece of the Spirit, or whatever it was that you did 
 say?" 
 
 Jesse looked down into the eyes of his father's friend: 
 
 " You are familiar with the voice of the robin, and with 
 the voice of the storm; but the voice of the Spirit is not 
 like either of these, nor is it like the voice of man. Are 
 you sure that you would recognise it if you should hear 
 it?" 
 
 Several of the leading men of Nashburgh had now 
 joined the circle around Jesse. Their eyes were sharp and 
 their mouths had an unpleasant look. He had said that 
 they were gods who bartered their divinity; he had accused 
 them of selfishness, and made light of their morality. A 
 regularly ordained minister might be allowed to tell them, 
 in time-honoured scriptural language, devitalised by repeti- 
 tion, that they were sinners; but here was a man, without 
 the authority of the established church, who dared to tell 
 them, in language of his own, that they were something 
 dangerously near to self-righteous hypocrites. They were 
 not pleased, these leading men of Nashburgh. 
 
 Thomas Taylor had left his place in the centre of the 
 church and had come down to the fringe of the circle 
 around Jesse. 
 
 " I have said that I am the mouthpiece of the Spirit," 
 the thrilling voice went on, " and you ask me what I mean. 
 When you hear the voice of the thunder you do not ask 
 its meaning; but if your hay is dry upon the ground, you 
 hurry it into barns." 
 
 When, still unsatisfied, they asked for further explana- 
 tions, he said: "The Spirit will purify the atmosphere
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 275 
 
 of the world with lightning and with rain. Will you not 
 come with me into the sheltering house of faith? " 
 
 " But why with you? " they persisted. " You are only 
 one of us, a man born in our town, whose parents we all 
 knew." 
 
 His answer staggered them: 
 
 " The shittah-tree, from whose wood was builded the 
 Ark of the Covenant^ had no great honour in its native 
 hills." 
 
 " What do you want us to believe that you are, any- 
 way ? " It was Thomas Taylor's first question to Jesse, 
 and the tone was a challenge. This is the answer he re- 
 ceived : 
 
 "The pine-tree dominates the hill, however the grass- 
 blades may deny it." 
 
 " You mean that you are the pine-tree, and that we " 
 
 " The pine-tree is the symbol of the Spirit." 
 
 Taylor could make no reasonable objection to this, and 
 he was again silent, awaiting his opportunity. 
 
 "We are told that you can cure diseases by the laying 
 on of hands," said Mrs. Madison. " Come here, Jane 
 Brown ! " The young woman with the twitching face 
 came forward. " Here is a case which has baffled all the 
 doctors. Cure her! " The woman's voice was high-pitched, 
 half-mocking, half-excited. " Cure her," she repeated, 
 " then tell us that you are really something extraordinary." 
 
 Jesse drew a long and deep breath, while a smile of ec- 
 stasy lighted his face. He took the trembling, ungloved 
 hands of the young woman in both his own. "Look at 
 me," he said, and she raised her timid eyes to his. For 
 a few seconds he held her thus, hand to hand, eye to eye, 
 while her quivering fingers relaxed, and her eyes grew 
 clear and steady. She realised that he was speaking to her, 
 yet the voice seemed to come from the depths of her own 
 heart. 
 
 " You trust me, do you not ? You believe that the 
 Spirit can cure you?" 
 
 " I do believe." 
 
 " Faith is more potent than all medicine ; it is the cove- 
 nant of the human soul with God. If you unite your faith 
 with the power of Heaven, that faith becomes an irresist-
 
 276 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ible engine, and neither space nor matter can prevail 
 against it. The body is the servant of the spiritual will, and 
 the ally of the spiritual will is faith. Faith is the prom- 
 ise which is always fulfilled; it is the source of power, the 
 treasure house that is fuller for every blessing you take 
 from its abundance. It strengthens the soul as food 
 strengthens the body; it refreshes the soul like a well of 
 water on a weary road. It is the shelter from attack^ the 
 chamber of sweet rest. There is no mountain which faith 
 cannot climb, no sea it cannot cross, no star it cannot 
 reach. It guides the farmer's hand in the sowing of the 
 grain; it leads the mariner across the trackless ocean; it 
 steadies the heart of the earth for its awful plunge through 
 the dark of unknown space. Believe, and whatever you 
 believe shall be" 
 
 He placed his electric hands upon Jane's forehead, still 
 holding her gaze with his eyes; then slowly, with lingering 
 beneficent pressure, his healing touch passed over every part 
 of her afflicted face. 
 
 " You may turn and speak with them," he said ; " you 
 are cured for ever your face will never twitch again" 
 The concentration of his gaze, the power of his command, 
 were indescribable. 
 
 Jane turned as he directed her, half-dazed by the mys- 
 terious force emanating from him. She looked around 
 upon what seemed a sea of staring eyes; she opened her 
 lips slowly, as if speech were some new power to be ex- 
 ercised with caution. Then, looking straight before her, 
 she repeated the twenty-third Psalm which she had learned 
 at the age of seven years, beginning: " The Lord is my 
 shepherd ; I shall not want," and ending, " I will dwell 
 in the house of the Lord for ever." 
 
 The face which had twitched and struggled for ten years 
 was calm as Jesse's own. 
 
 Then pandemonium broke loose: the sanctity of the Sab- 
 bath, the restraints of the sanctuary were forgotten, and a 
 hundred tongues were speaking all at once: "He's cured 
 her." ... "I don't believe it." . . . "She's 
 been unsightly for ten years." ..." It's some trick." 
 ..." It's the power of God." ..." The power 
 of the Devil." ..." He's only Mary Bethel's
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 277 
 
 son." . . . "The son of God, I tell you." . . . 
 " She's tried every doctor in Burlington." ..." It's 
 witchcraft." ..." Blessed be witchcraft, then." . . 
 " I say, it's a trick." ..." Go down on your knees 
 to him." ..." Drive him out of town." . . . 
 " He could kill a man and leave no mark." ..." The 
 mouthpiece of the Spirit." ..." I tell you again, it's 
 a trick." ..." Blessed be such tricks." . . . 
 " He's dangerous," ..." He's sacred." . . . 
 " He can't stay here." ..." I couldn't sleep nights 
 if he did." . . . "Glory be to God!" . . . 
 "Keep silent, will you?" . . . "Where did he get 
 such power?" . . . "It's hypnotism." . . . 
 "Who cares what it is?" . . . "He's bewitched 
 her." . . . "He's cured her." . . . "Why, 
 where is he? " . . . 
 
 Jesse was gone. The little party loosed their horses 
 and started homeward, leaving the crowd behind.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 SUSIE SMITH was helping Eva Bethel to get the dinner, 
 when Marty rushed out into the kitchen. 
 
 "They're coming!" he cried. 
 
 Eva was putting the potatoes to bake, and she rose from 
 her knees and banged the oven door. "Who's coming?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " A whole crowd of them." 
 
 "Where's Jesse?" 
 
 " Upstairs in his room. Come to the front door, Eva." 
 
 Jim Bethel was on the verandah, and the three men from 
 Capronville were behind him. Coming up from the gate 
 were about forty men; they had left their horses at Tay- 
 lor's, a short distance down the road. At the head of the 
 moving crowd was Taylor himself. They stopped at the 
 edge of the verandah. 
 
 " What can I do for you ? " asked Jim Bethel, folding 
 his arms and looking down at his fellow townsmen as if 
 they had been strangers who intruded on the quiet of his 
 Sabbath. 
 
 " We want to see him." Half a dozen voices spoke at 
 once. 
 
 "And what do you want of him?" 
 
 " We want to ask some questions." 
 
 Jim shrugged his shoulders. " I'll tell him you're here," 
 he said. "The house is hardly large enough to hold all of 
 you." 
 
 " We'll stay where we are," someone said, and others 
 echoed the words, " Yes, we'll stay where we are." 
 
 Mary Magnus and Anna had been watching from the 
 window of the sitting-room, and they now came out on 
 the verandah. Anna was pale ; but Mary was calm and even 
 smiling. She had seen religious riots in the Orient, thou- 
 sands of madmen struggling with each other; and this 
 handful of farmers in their Sunday clothes, who declared 
 they had come to ask questions, did not arouse in her mind 
 
 278
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 279 
 
 any serious apprehensions. An important part of Jesse's 
 mission was to answer questions. Why not here as well 
 as anywhere? 
 
 "The other mouthpiece," she heard someone murmur. 
 She supposed it was a reference to her singing. 
 
 Jesse now appeared in the doorway, calm and beautiful 
 as always. He looked down at the men and smiled; then 
 came to the edge of the verandah, and said with grave dig- 
 nity: 
 
 " I am glad to see you. Ask me anything you will." 
 
 He sat down in a large armchair, and waited for their 
 questions. Was he weary, Mary wondered; or did he seat 
 himself for some subtle reason which she could not fol- 
 low? 
 
 " When do you intend to leave this place ? " asked a 
 man whose face was vaguely familiar to Jesse, but whose 
 name he had forgotten. 
 
 " I intend to leave Nashburgh on the train passing 
 through about ten o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Why did you come here ? " was the next question. 
 
 " To bring you the message of the Spirit." 
 
 "Who sent you?" 
 
 ' The Spirit.'; 
 
 "Whose spirit?" demanded Thomas Taylor. 
 
 " The Spirit is not a possession," Jesse answered ; " it is 
 something which possesses." 
 
 "And do you consider yourself possessed by a spirit?" 
 Taylor still questioned. 
 
 Jesse looked down at him, half-sternly, half-pityingly. 
 
 " Thomas Taylor," he said, " you are interpreting the 
 language of God in the terms of a petty sect. The Spirit 
 I have tried to reveal to you is not one of the irresponsible, 
 table-rapping spirits which may or may not haunt your se- 
 ance rooms; but the one and supreme Spirit of the universe, 
 whose other name is God." 
 
 " Then why don't you say God, and be done with it? " 
 cried Taylor, and other voices also cried, " Yes, why not 
 say so? " 
 
 " There are some words," said Jesse, " some phrases, that 
 have lost all their potency by meaningless repetitions, soul- 
 less, parrot-like repetitions. The name of God is often on
 
 280 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 your lips, but what do you know about God? His spirit 
 is not in your hearts." 
 
 " How do you know that? " they demanded. 
 
 Jesse smiled. " When a tree puts forth no leaves in the 
 spring, we know that the sap has not risen in it. Why, 
 if the faith of the Spirit, the faith of God, were really in 
 your hearts, you, too, could heal the sick, or do any other 
 thing in accordance with the will of Heaven." 
 
 " You have declared that you are the mouthpiece of the 
 Spirit," said the schoolmaster from the station district, the 
 village logician, " and you say that the Spirit is God. Then 
 your word must be the word of God. Is that what you 
 would claim? " 
 
 " All the powers of the Spirit are held in trust by the 
 sons of the Spirit, even the power of divine speech." 
 
 " Then, if you are the chosen one of the Spirit," Taylor 
 screamed, with an evil laugh, " take the muzzle off this 
 devil of a dog, and make him lick your face." He snatched 
 from the hand of his hired man the chain of a great ugly 
 black dog, and dragged the growling animal toward the 
 steps. 
 
 Jesse raised his eyes to Jim's and smiled. The minds of 
 both flew back over the years to the young horse which 
 had been known as " Taylor's devil." Jim's eyes answered 
 Jesse's, but he did not smile. He knew the animal and 
 was afraid. 
 
 " If you urimuzzle that dog and make him lick your 
 face," roared Taylor, " may I fall down in a fit the next 
 minute! " 
 
 "Rash man! Madman!" exclaimed Jesse. "Do you 
 realise what you are saying? " 
 
 " I know that dog, and I'm safe enough." 
 
 Jesse's voice was calm, but in his eyes was the sadness 
 of resignation. 
 
 " You have challenged the power of the Spirit," he said, 
 " you have invoked the pitiless, iron-visaged Law, and even 
 I cannot protect you from the reaction of that invocation. 
 You have summoned the same power to smite that I sum- 
 mon to heal. Do you still demand that I unmuzzle the 
 dog?" 
 
 " Unmuzzle him, yes, and let him kiss your face."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 281 
 
 " Why are you fastening his chain to the pillar of the 
 verandah ? " Jesse asked, in a low, sweet voice. 
 
 " Do you think I'd let him loose with all these women 
 around ? " 
 
 " The only women here are the women of my house- 
 hold, and they are protected by me." 
 
 " Don't unchain that dog ! " cried a dozen men from the 
 yard below. 
 
 " You had better return to your friends," Jesse said to 
 Taylor, very gently. " I am powerless to protect you." 
 
 When Taylor had retreated to a safe distance, Jesse 
 rested his chin on his hand, looking at the dog with tender, 
 pitying eyes. " Poor helpless victim of cruelty ! " he mur- 
 mured, "dumb martyr to the dominance of man!" He 
 now leaned forward in his chair and drew the dog toward 
 him by the chain. It seemed afraid, it trembled, whining 
 and cowering. " Poor dog, has no one ever loved you ? " 
 Mary, who was watching with the wings of her soul 
 aquiver, saw Jesse's tears fall on the rough black head. 
 The animal raised its eyes to the sympathetic face above 
 it, and the strange fear it had never felt before gave way 
 to even a stranger feeling confidence. Jesse stroked its 
 head, he ran his fingers along the furry throat, and the 
 dog wagged its tail ever so little shyly, hesitatingly, as an 
 aged man might falteringly repeat some half-forgotten 
 lesson of his childhood. Still murmuring kind words, Jesse 
 unstrapped the muzzle which held the chafed mouth and 
 threw the torturing thing away. The animal gave a little 
 whine of relief and shook himself. Then Jesse smilingly 
 unhooked the chain which held the poor beast's collar, 
 leaving the other end of it still fastened to the pillar. The 
 dog was free. 
 
 " Come up, old brother," cried Jesse cheerily, patting 
 his own knees in signal to the animal, that there was the 
 place for his front paws. Up jumped the dog, his tail now 
 joyously thumping the verandah post. Jesse bent forward; 
 and excitedly, ecstatically the dog licked his face, from the 
 gold hair above the forehead to the gold beard below the 
 beautiful mouth. Then Jesse gathered up the great beast 
 in his arms and settled him in his lap, looking over the 
 shaggy head at the gaping crowd below.
 
 282 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "Are you satisfied, my friends? " he asked. 
 
 A sigh of relief went up from the group behind him. 
 
 " Have you any further questions to propound ? " Jesse 
 was still smiling at the men in the yard. 
 
 But he was never answered, for at that moment Thomas 
 Taylor, with a tortured, inarticulate cry, fell on the ground 
 in strong convulsions. Then all was excitement. No one 
 knew what to do. The men below walked hither and 
 thither, talking wildly; but they did not go near the suf- 
 ferer. 
 
 " Can you do nothing for him, Master?" Peter cried. 
 
 " I am powerless to help the man now," was Jesse's 
 answer. " The force of his hatred for me would kill him, 
 if he felt the touch of my hand. Go you down, Peter, 
 and lay your hands upon him. He does not hate you." 
 
 Peter went to the writhing man on the ground; he held 
 his arms and talked to him, while the crowd looked on with 
 amazement in their eyes. 
 
 When Taylor finally became quiet, his companions took 
 one of the shutters from a window of the house, and using 
 it as a stretcher, four of them carried him slowly home 
 down the green road by which he had come with sturdy 
 strides only half an hour before. But the black dog re- 
 mained behind. 
 
 Was it the weight of his own baffled rage that had 
 stricken the man down? Was it the power of his invo- 
 cation of the Great Law his challenge flung in the face 
 of God? Or was it one of those coincidences which the 
 enemies of Jesse, the disbelievers in his mission, were 
 always seeing in the strange happenings that followed his 
 track across the world? 
 
 " I would have shielded him had I been able to do so," 
 Jesse said to his friends, as they sat around the table at 
 their belated dinner; "but no man may turn aside the 
 lightning of the Law. He who chains himself to his own 
 hearthstone and sets fire to the house, will perish in the 
 flames. Taylor will recover; he did not call upon God 
 to kill him only to strike him down. Oh, my friends," 
 Jesse continued, " beware of hatred ! It is a poison cor- 
 rupting the body as well as the soul; it is a venom in the 
 blood, a madness in the brain. Even the resentment you
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 283 
 
 feel for one who has injured you will hurt you more,*han 
 the injury itself. Taylor knew I would remove the muz- 
 zle from that dog, and he believed the dog would lacerate 
 my face. Had one throb of resentment toward him tingled 
 in my blood, his evil wish had been fulfilled." 
 
 " Master, what did you do to the dog? " It was John 
 who spoke. 
 
 Jesse answered: " I cast out of him the spirit of his 
 former master, by substituting my own. It is easier to 
 control an animal than a man, because man has a spark 
 from the flame of the divine will. He chooses his own 
 course; while the course of the animal is chosen for him, 
 by Nature or by man." 
 
 The next day Jim Bethel left his new-mewn hay upon 
 the ground, his waving grain untouched by the sickle, his 
 wife to the care of his brother, and enrolled himself among 
 the followers of Jesse. Eva and Joe, the brother, were 
 destined also to join them in the fulness of time; but their 
 day was not yet come. As for Marty White, no river 
 would have been too wide for him to swim, no mountain 
 peak too steep for him to climb, if by so doing he might 
 have walked with his friend. 
 
 They were a hopeful company that went to the Nash- 
 burgh station the following morning to take the train 
 for Capronville. Eva gave her husband to Jesse's cause 
 without a tear not that she loved him little, but that 
 she loved him much. Less than three days had Jesse been 
 with them; but in that brief time their hearts had been 
 changed. They had always taken for granted that they 
 loved each other, but now they asked themselves if they 
 loved other people; if perhaps their very absorption in 
 home and the domestic love had not narrowed their feelings 
 a little, had not built a wall between them and the fresh 
 life-giving breezes of fraternity that blow across the wider 
 world. Eva felt, when she consented to Jim's going, as 
 the queen of some little, isolated kingdom might feel on 
 sending her first ambassador to a great world parliament. 
 She wore her crown of wifehood with a more conscious 
 dignity. 
 
 There was a crowd at the station. The feelings aroused
 
 284 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 by Jesse in the hearts of his fellow citizens were a mixture 
 of curiosity, admiration and resentment. They were glad 
 that he was going away, they would breathe more freely 
 when they had seen the last of him; but they wanted to 
 see the last of him. Hence the crowd at the station. 
 
 Three wagons were coming down the Creek Road. 
 Jesse and the men from Capronville were with Jim and 
 Eva in the carryall; Mary and Anna came with Stephen 
 and Susie Smith in their two-seated wagon, and Joe Bethel 
 and Marty came behind in the one-horse buggy. The 
 crowd on the platform waited breathlessly. The rumour 
 had gone round that Jim Bethel was going to leave his 
 wife and follow Jesse, so the latest charge against the 
 new religion and its founder was " the breaking up of 
 homes." Had Eva's husband left her for any other cause, 
 the gossip of Nashburgh would have hinted darkly at flaws 
 in her character; but as it was, they were ready to give 
 her the wreath of martyrdom, so they might strip hare the 
 stalk of Jesse's honour for leaves with which to weave it. 
 
 Thomas Taylor had recovered from his seizure of the 
 day before sufficiently to go to the station. Pale and hag- 
 gard, and with an unnatural glitter in his eyes, he watched 
 the three wagons coming down the road. The postmaster, 
 who had himself brought over the bag of mail that morning, 
 did not like the looks of Taylor, and watched him closely. 
 The postmaster's wife had recently been sent to an insane 
 asylum, and he would always feel vague apprehensions at 
 the sight of preternaturally brilliant eyes set in a haggard 
 face. 
 
 The horses which had brought the travellers were tied 
 to the fence near the bridge, and the little group of twelve 
 persons came down to the station together. From their 
 appearance they might have been a care-free picnic party, 
 setting out for a day's pleasure; not the nucleus of a great 
 religious movement that should carry everything before 
 it. They were early at the station, though not so early 
 as the waiting crowd. The first sound wafted to the 
 listening ears on the platform was the ripple of Eva's 
 laughter, inspired by some remark of the grimly humourous 
 Peter. The wreath of wifely martyrdom would lie lightly
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 285 
 
 on her brown hair. Mary Magnus walked ahead with 
 John, and Jesse came last with Andrew. 
 
 " Harmless looking crowd," smiled Olin Madison, who 
 was inclined to take the whole affair as a joke. But Tay- 
 lor glared at him without a word. Well might Olin 
 smile, that dark look seemed to say, he had not fallen in a 
 fit the day before. 
 
 " Eight tickets for Capronville," said Peter Bond at 
 the office window. Then the crowd knew for certain that 
 Jim was leaving town. 
 
 " Going to help your cousin transform the world ? " 
 asked a voice in his ear. 
 
 " I'm going to do my best," was the answer. 
 
 " Have you got those bonds in your satchel ? " asked 
 another voice. This question was ignored. 
 
 " Mail-train twenty minutes late," called the station- 
 master, as he passed along the platform. 
 
 " Let us go and walk on the hill over there," said Jesse 
 to the men of his party. He preferred his last memory 
 of Nashburgh to be of the green fields and the trees, not 
 of these curious and unfriendly faces. 
 
 " I'll stay behind with Eva," Jim said, as the other 
 men started down the platform. Mary and Anna also 
 remained in the waiting-room. 
 
 West of the station was a hill, one side of it a gentle 
 grassy slope, the other side a sheer and rocky declivity. 
 Scarcely had Jesse and his companions reached the top, 
 and turned to look at the long blue range of mountains, 
 when they became aware that they were not to have this 
 last half-hour for the quiet enjoyment of nature. Two- 
 thirds of the station crowd were following. But were the 
 men following them, or were they following Thomas Tay- 
 lor? 
 
 Going before the others, with his head down, kicking 
 the stones out of his path with impotent fury, the im- 
 placable hater of Jesse Bethel came up the hill. He stopped 
 some ten feet from the man he sought, and the other Nash- 
 burgh men, including the postmaster, stopped with him. 
 Jesse was standing on the very peak above the rocky 
 precipice.
 
 286 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Suddenly, with a bellow like that of an angry bull, 
 Taylor made a rush for the object of his wrath. 
 
 "Stop him!" . . . " Close in on him !" . . . 
 "He'll throw Jesse off _ the cliff!" . . . "He's lost 
 his mind! "... cried the jumble of voices; and 
 Jesse saw Taylor surrounded by the other men. He was 
 screaming, striking with his fists, kicking with his feet, 
 hurling his great form to and fro in the rage of his madness. 
 
 " Get a rope," cried the voice of the postmaster, " we'll 
 have to tie him down. I tell you, he's gone insane ! " 
 And one of the men rushed off to the store for the means 
 of harsh restraint. 
 
 "Oh, come away!" said Jesse. "Come away!" 
 
 They returned to the station building, and the men who 
 had not followed Taylor met them at the end of the 
 platform; for everyone had seen and heard the tumult on 
 the hill. Eva and Anna were crying wildly in the waiting- 
 room, but Mary was tearless and utterly still; she hardly 
 seemed to breathe; all the life of her body was burning in 
 her eyes. 
 
 John came and touched her cold hand. " He is safe, 
 sister," he breathed to her. " Oh, will the train never 
 come and carry us away from this place ! ' 
 
 Mary's white lips moved, but no sound came. 
 
 "Why, he'd have thrown you off the cliff! " was Olin 
 Madison's rather obvious remark to Jesse. 
 
 " What have they done with him ? " It was the first 
 time Jesse had spoken since they left the hill. 
 
 " Tied him down in the baggage-room." 
 
 "Will you ask them, for me, to treat him gently?" 
 
 Olin never forgot the look in Jesse's eyes as he made 
 this last and strange request of the citizens of Nashburgh. 
 And as the belated train drew into the station at last, 
 the request was repeated: 
 
 " Please tell them to treat him gently for my sake."
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 IT was on the train going to Capronville that Jesse 
 learned that the wandering Hermit had been cast into prison 
 in the North, for some defiant violation of the laws of 
 order. The news saddened him, even more than the tragic 
 incident of their last hour in Nashburgh. Not only had 
 he failed to convince the people in his native town of the 
 greatness of his mission ; but the austere and authoritative 
 friend who had proclaimed him, and by so doing had made 
 easier the early steps on his hard road, was for the time 
 discredited in popular opinion. The agitator in prison 
 may be considered a hero in some places; he is not so 
 considered in Vermont. 
 
 For some minutes after hearing the disastrous news Jesse 
 allowed the shadows to lie upon his heart and upon his 
 face. He was not only grieved at his friend's imprison- 
 ment, but grieved at this new proof of the disagreement 
 between the Law of God and the laws of man. And he 
 knew that when the time came to send forth his own 
 disciples, they might any day be tested in this same fur- 
 nace of the world's power. Would they meet the trial as 
 John was surely meeting it they w T ho were still babes 
 in the great school of faith? Of danger to himself he had 
 no dread. As he had told his mother long ago, " The price 
 of the song is the singer." She had trembled at the words, 
 though she hardly understood their meaning. He who un- 
 derstood profoundly, trembled not at all; but the shadows 
 lay upon his heart and upon his face. 
 
 " Do not grieve, Master." 
 
 It was the sweet, appealing voice of John, and his eyes 
 were raised to his teacher's face, as they sat side by side in 
 the crowded car. That gentle presence was a pale candle- 
 flame struggling with the gloom of his mood. How little 
 the boy knew, in his mystic adoration of the Idea, the 
 awful reality of Jesse's mission ! He said, " Master, do 
 
 287
 
 288 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 not grieve " ; but there was so much more to grieve for 
 than he knew. The imprisonment of the Hermit was more 
 than a mere fact; it was a symbol of the Spirit's imprison- 
 ment in the jail of human society. 
 
 Jesse had dwelt so intimately with the idea of the Spirit, 
 that he loved it even as his friends loved him. And it 
 came to him now that the light of the Spirit, though always 
 burning in him, was obscured for the moment by this cloud 
 of sadness, as the light of a lamp is darkened by a clouded 
 globe. Then with an effort of will he cleared his con- 
 sciousness of every darkening thought, and the great light 
 shone once more upon his path. He would succeed in 
 Capronville. 
 
 " John," he said, " and Andrew and Peter," turning to 
 include the two who sat in the seat behind him, " this is 
 not the hour to weaken our souls with grief for that which 
 cannot be changed. A great labour lies just ahead of us. 
 That I have healed men's souls and bodies in the North 
 will not avail me here. To conquer in one battle does not 
 make a mighty warrior. Are you ready now to charge 
 with me as you have never charged before? Is your faith 
 booted and spurred with will ? " 
 
 Their eyes glistened, their breath was long and deep 
 as they answered yes, and Jesse saw that they were indeed 
 ready. 
 
 The crowd at the Nashburgh station was a mere hand- 
 ful compared with the crowd that awaited their arrival at 
 the station in Capronville. Judson's failure, should he 
 ever fail, would not be from a lack of zeal in advertising 
 his master; for the light of Jesse's glory was reflected upon 
 his friends, and Judson loved glory as they only love it 
 who have known the opposite. Every waking hour of the 
 three days since his return he had spent in preparing for 
 this demonstration of public interest in Jesse. Judson had 
 few personal friends, but Peter and Andrew and John had 
 many; and it was through the popularity of these that he 
 did his most effective work. He could not ask men as 
 a favour to him to go in a body to meet the returning 
 travellers; but he could arouse their curiosity, and pique 
 their incredulity, and excite their enthusiasm, by the 
 stories he told of the great preacher's success in the North,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 289 
 
 of the beautiful and rich woman who had embraced the 
 new religion, and especially of the devotion of Peter and 
 Andrew and John. In all these announcements he named 
 the hour and the train by which the triumphant party would 
 arrive. 
 
 As religious movements can only live and grow by the 
 enthusiasm of many people, this way of Judson's was not 
 a bad way. He had been told by Jesse to prepare for his 
 coming, and this was his interpretation of the trust im- 
 posed. He loved Jesse as he had never before loved any- 
 body, and he wanted him to shine, not only in the North 
 where Judson Carey was unknown, but here in Capron- 
 ville where he was very well known, indeed. His rein- 
 statement in the favour of Peter Bond had meant more 
 to him than anyone knew, save Jesse. Self-love is innate; 
 but self-respect is more or less dependent upon the respect 
 of others. Even his coat now set more squarely on his 
 shoulders; his very back had straightened with his belief 
 in his own straightness. Something more than divine pity 
 had drawn Jesse to this man; there was in him the force, 
 the passion, that is the great dynamo for success in good 
 or evil. Neither John nor Peter, with all their advantages 
 of popularity, would have done so much in those three days 
 as he had done. But, on the other hand, the depreciation 
 of Jesse in Nashburgh, which only strengthened the devo- 
 tion of those other men, would have made Judson doubt- 
 ing and discouraged. As it was, he knew nothing which 
 would have dampened his ardour. 
 
 When the train bearing Jesse and his seven friends drew 
 into the station at Capronville, they were surprised at the 
 mass of people; and the faces they saw were not like those 
 they had left behind at Nashburgh, unfriendly or uncer- 
 tain; these faces were alight with interest and smiling with 
 sympathy. Jesse's heart grew warm and his courage high 
 at the first sight of them. He could preach the imma- 
 nence of the Spirit to those men and women, for their eyes 
 were aflame with it. 
 
 As he came out of the train they gathered round him, 
 smiling and holding out their hands. These were his first 
 words to them: 
 
 " They who go out to meet the Spirit, bring the Spirit
 
 290 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 also with them. You have a message for me, even as I 
 for you." 
 
 "When will you speak to us?" they cried. "When 
 may we listen to your words?" 
 
 He turned to counsel with Judson, who had arranged 
 for the use of the largest church in the town that very 
 evening. 
 
 " To-night," he said, naming the hour and the place, 
 " we will meet with one another, and invite the Spirit to 
 be present." 
 
 He would have preached to them then and there, but 
 it was nearly one o'clock, the time when the labourer re- 
 turns to his work after the respite of the noon-hour; and 
 he knew they would all be at the appointed place, bringing 
 others with them. 
 
 " Weave and measure and hammer thoughts of me into 
 your work this afternoon," were his parting words to a 
 little group of men who seemed reluctant to leave him. 
 
 While Jesse was thanking Judson for the visible proof 
 of his activity in the service of their cause, he noticed a 
 tall, brown-haired young man of about thirty years of 
 age standing beside John, and waiting as if to speak to 
 him. 
 
 " My brother James," was John's response to Jesse's 
 look of invitation; and the young man eagerly came for- 
 ward and placed his hands in Jesse's. 
 
 " I have thought of nothing but you since John first 
 went with you to Burlington," was his impulsive greet- 
 ing. 
 
 Jesse answered: " May you think of nothing but me 
 and the Spirit that I serve from this time on, for ever." 
 And James Dana was numbered among his followers from 
 that hour. 
 
 Among the faces around him Jesse saw one which drew 
 him by its look of tender melancholy. It was that of a 
 young man with jet-black hair and eyes, and whose sensi- 
 tive mouth was shaded by a long drooping moustache of 
 the same hue. His skin was of a pale ivory-colour, and 
 the dark coat he wore hung loosely around his tall and 
 slender body. Without knowing who he was, guided only 
 by that infallible intuition which often made him seem
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 291 
 
 omniscient, Jesse touched the arm of the strange young 
 man, saying: 
 
 " You are one of those who are chosen to follow me." 
 
 "I, who am so imperfect?" The sombre eyes were lit 
 with a strange fire. 
 
 " They who are too certain of their perfectness," replied 
 Jesse, " will never follow a prophet; they seek rather to 
 be followed by those less self-righteous than themselves." 
 
 " My name is Philip Manning," the dark young man 
 said simply, " and I was born in the same place as Peter 
 and Andrew Bond." 
 
 " And you shall go to the same place they go to the 
 home that is builded on the rock of faith, by the hands of 
 the Unseen." 
 
 " And I may help you in your work? " 
 
 "Yes, from this moment. Go now up yonder street, 
 and do whatever work the Spirit bids you." 
 
 Surprised and half-bewildered by the suddenness of his 
 call to this new faith which he but vaguely understood, 
 Philip turned away and went up the street, looking to the 
 right and left for what, he did not know. He had gone 
 but a few rods when he saw a friend of his walking slowly 
 along in the same direction. Like a flash it came to him: 
 this was the unknown errand on which he had been sent. 
 
 Calling his friend to stop, he told him all that he knew 
 and felt about Jesse Bethel, adding: 
 
 " He is down at the station now; come and see for your- 
 self." 
 
 Jesse greeted this man, Nathan Evans, by his full name, 
 though he had never seen him before, and told the sub- 
 stance of his conversation with Philip, picturing the place 
 where they had met. 
 
 " If you can see what people do at such a distance, and 
 hear what they say," cried the astonished man, " then in- 
 deed you must be all that John the Hermit claimed ! " 
 
 Jesse answered: " Do you believe in me because I men- 
 tion a certain place which you must have passed in order 
 to come here? Do you believe in me because I know what 
 Philip would be certain to speak to you, and because I 
 greet you by the name John spoke when he saw you com- 
 ing? All that is nothing. Not every man who is really
 
 292 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 gifted with psychic sight and hearing is a safe guide to fol- 
 low. But should you know a man who prefers his 
 neighbour's interest to his own, though he be deaf and 
 blind, you will find him a safe guide to follow." 
 
 " You are what I have always wished to see," said 
 Nathan Evans, his eyes wide with admiration. 
 
 " And through me," replied Jesse, " you shall also be- 
 hold the Invisible, and feel the very touch of the intangible 
 Spirit."
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 JESSE'S fame in Capronville was given immediate impetus 
 by the first cure he performed there, for the story of it was 
 repeated all over town before nightfall. 
 
 Leaving the station, they went to the house of Peter 
 Bond Jesse and his personal followers, old and new. 
 There he found the mother of Mrs. Bond lying sick upon 
 her bed ; and by a touch of his magnetic hand, he raised her 
 immediately to active health and cheerfulness, and she went 
 about her duties of the household, helping to prepare din- 
 ner for the young Master and the friends who came with 
 him from the North. 
 
 The mother of Peter's wife, old Mrs. Lewis, was well 
 known for her rugged virtues and her charities; and a wise 
 Providence could not have chosen a better instrument in 
 all the town for the demonstration of Jesse's power. To 
 rich and poor alike, her very name suggested loving service 
 in affliction. Within half an hour the story of her recov- 
 ery was well started on its round ; and the picture of Jesse 
 in the popular mind, hitherto a vague outline, suddenly as- 
 sumed colour and brilliancy. 
 
 Immediately after the midday dinner Mary Magnus, 
 with Andrew and Anna and John, went away on some 
 mysterious errand. At the table Judson had casually men- 
 tioned that there was a good organ in the church he had 
 secured for Jesse's sermon that night, and Mary had ex- 
 changed smiles and meaning glances with the other mem- 
 bers of their choir. Jesse, who divined everything before 
 it happened, knew there would be another song. 
 
 He had no seclusion that day, for a steady stream of 
 villagers climbed the hill to Peter's house, to see and talk 
 with the new teacher. There were no sick among them, 
 but almost everyone had questions to ask; and as all who 
 came were reluctant to go away, the house and dooryard 
 
 293
 
 294 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 were alive with the moving throng from dinner-time to 
 sunset. 
 
 That night the church was crowded. There was not 
 even standing-room for the late comers, and Jesse was 
 obliged to place his friends behind him on the platform, in 
 order to make space for a few more persons below. Even 
 the steps leading to the choir-loft were packed with men 
 and women. 
 
 Mary had called on the organist of the church late in 
 the afternoon, with the music of the new song and the old 
 one; and by the charm of her beauty had persuaded the 
 half-reluctant young man (who had never seen Jesse) to 
 play for them that evening. 
 
 When every seat and every foot of standing-room in the 
 church were rilled with the expectant throng, the tones of 
 the organ rolled out above their heads. Then Jesse arose 
 to listen to the song of the Spirit he adored; for though 
 they sang of him, he told himself it was the Spirit in him 
 that inspired the singing, and he listened for this new ex- 
 pression of their love with soul and body tremulous with 
 emotion. The great voice of Mary touched and caressed 
 the voice of the organ, and the lesser voices mingled with 
 hers. 
 
 "Before the young bird breaks the shell, 
 
 It has no voice for song, 
 No dream of all the winds will tell 
 
 When summer days are long. 
 Before we heard our Master's word, 
 
 And broke our soul's dark shell, 
 We knew no more than that young bird 
 
 Of all that life can tell. 
 
 " Under the ground the roots lie warm, 
 
 And wait the quickening hour 
 When Spring shall call them, and transform 
 
 Their sap to leaf and flower. 
 Your souls have slept through many springs, 
 
 But God has kept them warm; 
 And now the love our Master brings 
 
 Shall wake you and transform.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 295 
 
 " O dwellers in the busy world, 
 
 Your toils and tears are vain ; 
 From birth to death your souls are whirled 
 
 Around the wheel of pain. 
 But now our Master, armed with might, 
 
 Shall change you and the world, 
 And round the Spirit's wheel of light 
 
 Your souls will yet be whirled." 
 
 There was a charm, like that of childhood, in the naive 
 lines of this untaught singer, Anna Martin, with their 
 quaint conceits and nature images the spontaneous ex- 
 pression of a simple heart, which found its parallels for 
 spiritual emotions in the every-day experiences of the farm 
 and the woodland. Almost everyone in the great audience 
 realised that this was a song composed for the occasion, 
 and the sublime daring of so exalting a man of their own 
 time aroused in them a surprised admiration. Before 
 their minds had time to react, to doubt, to question, Jesse 
 began to teach them. He said: 
 
 " To be fearless, and free from anxiety, is the a, b, c, of 
 faith. 
 
 " Doubt and anxiety are spendthrifts that waste the 
 substance of the soul. 
 
 " That man who through all the changes of life, in for- 
 tune and misfortune, pain and pleasure, strife and peace, 
 preserves an even faith, shall be untouched by change, 
 misfortune, pain and strife. 
 
 " Until you can hear the melody of life in the raucous 
 cries of the market-place and in the roar of the field of 
 battle, know that your ears are not attuned to the eternal 
 harmony. 
 
 " When you are unconcerned as to the outcome of the 
 battle, and yet fight valiantly, know that the battle is 
 going your way; for either way is your way, when you 
 are one with the will of Life. 
 
 " What you take for cries of pain and pleasure from 
 the lips of your fellow men, are really the tones of the 
 immortal mass which Life plays upon the organ of Eter- 
 nity. But if, in your absorption in the music, you neglect
 
 296 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 to still one cry of pain which may be stilled, then will a 
 discord mar the harmony. 
 
 " Fear nothing. If the hand of the disciple trembles 
 when he knocks at the door of wisdom, the door will not 
 be opened. Only he who can take, shall have. 
 
 "You can never look God in the face so long as you 
 fear the eye of the Devil, his opposite. 
 
 " He who fears anything, even his own failure, has not 
 learned the powers that lie in the awakened soul. 
 
 " It is only when the mind is darkened by anxiety that 
 one sees adverse omens. 
 
 " A lion in the daytime is far less terrible than a com- 
 mon wildcat in the night. 
 
 " Accept every disappointment as the promise of some 
 other attainment for the balance must be preserved. 
 
 " He who has faith in the Spirit will not be disturbed 
 by the shifting appearances of matter. A man who does 
 not live his religion does not believe his religion. 
 
 " Know that the mountain whose cloud-crowned height 
 is the goal of your aspiration, is based on the rock which 
 so cruelly tears your feet. 
 
 " He who is afraid of anything can never face the dragon 
 of evil and set his heel upon it. 
 
 " He shall succeed who does not fear to fail. He shall 
 attain who would sacrifice the attainment. He shall live 
 who is not afraid to die. 
 
 " Fearlessness, guided by caution, will finally unveil all 
 the guarded secrets of Nature^and of God. 
 
 " Life is a nettle that, touched too carefully, will sting 
 and irritate the flesh; but fearlessly and firmly grasped, is 
 harmless as a rose-leaf. 
 
 " You who believe in the power and wisdom of the 
 Spirit, fear not to put your faith to the trial. A golden 
 truth is of no real value to a man until he has tested it 
 with the acid of his own experience. 
 
 " If your faith in the Spirit were as great as your faith 
 in matter, you would accumulate spiritual treasures and 
 touch the souls of men. 
 
 " Do not fear the surface-judgments of your fellow beings. 
 He who is too careful never to seem ridiculous, will never 
 trust himself to be sublime.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 297 
 
 " The world is not moved by rules of conduct ; it is 
 moved by faith. 
 
 " You sow and plant in the spring, and wait long months 
 for the harvest; how much greater should your faith be 
 in those spiritual seeds which can neither rot in the ground 
 nor be eaten by crows. 
 
 "And do not be discouraged when you seem to have 
 made a mistake. Nature is more experienced than you, yet 
 she produces many a crooked tree and blights many a har- 
 vest. 
 
 " Perseverance is the cord which holds together the pearls 
 of endeavour. Without it they are scattered along the high- 
 way of life, and are lost to the owner." 
 
 He told these people of Capronville, as he always told his 
 audiences, of the Spirit dwelling in their souls, the Power 
 of which their lives were the expression. He compared the 
 Spirit to a candle-flame, their souls to the light, their minds 
 to the wick, their bodies to the wax which is consumed. 
 
 " Be not surprised when I say that your souls are the 
 light of the Spirit's flame. Your souls are one with the 
 flame, one with the Spirit, wherever the Spirit is expressed. 
 As fire is latent in all matter, so is the Spirit; and as fire 
 can express itself only through something which burns, 
 so the Spirit can express itself as soul-light upon the earth 
 only through the mind of beings. Oh, little do you realise 
 the power and wonder of yourselves! You are really one 
 with the Spirit with God and God is one. 
 
 " The pleasures and pains, the struggles and attain- 
 ments of the many are only the passing experiences of the 
 One; and in order better to understand the existence of 
 that One, we call it God. But it is really ourself. 
 
 " God and the soul are one. What the soul perceives 
 through the senses is the many. 
 
 " If the One is eternal, and you are the One, then must 
 you be eternal. 
 
 " The Spirit is everywhere, either latent or expressed. 
 Wherever you find what seems to be a void, look deeper: 
 you have found a room in the house of God. 
 
 " Look for the still place in the centre of the world's 
 confusion: God is there. 
 
 " They who think only with the material surface of
 
 298 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 their minds may say that all this talk about the Spirit is 
 unreal. But what is reality? Reality is the power which 
 holds appearances together, and that power is God the 
 Spirit." 
 
 The audience was utterly motionless, gazing up at him. 
 It was not only that his words excited their imagination ; 
 but the man himself convinced them by his very presence. 
 To use his own simile of the candle, his mind was a wick 
 of many strands, which fed so well the flame of the Spirit 
 that his light was as the light of a myriad lesser souls, il- 
 luminating everything within the radius of its effulgence. 
 
 They had no idea of how long he stood there talking to 
 them; it might have been half an hour, it might have been 
 two hours. He impressed upon them the importance of 
 giving to spiritual things the first place in their lives, of 
 relinquishing many worldly things which crowded out the 
 soul. He said: 
 
 " A pint cup will hold only a pint. If you fill your 
 day with the petty business of time, there is no room left 
 for the business of Eternity. 
 
 " When you say, ' I want ' a thing, stop and consider 
 which is the ' I ' that wants it the eternal or the non- 
 eternal. Then act accordingly as you desire the greater or 
 the lesser life." 
 
 At the end of the sermon the choir sang again their 
 first song, ending: 
 
 " For our souls have found the clime 
 Where the lilies of the Spirit 
 Blossom in the winter-time." 
 
 V 
 
 He dismissed them with the benediction he had first used 
 in Nashburgh: " May the Spirit which never sleeps awake 
 you to a realisation of its invisible presence." 
 
 The last word was hardly spoken when an old man in 
 one of the front pews began to scream wildly, throwing his 
 arms in the air and jumping up and down. He was the 
 father of one of the leading men in Capronville, and for 
 many years had been considered a quiet and harmless lun- 
 atic, being permitted even to go alone about the village.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 299 
 
 Save for his occasional muttered conversations with some 
 imaginary companion, he was little different from other 
 old fello\vs seen daily about the streets. 
 
 When he began to scream in the church his friends tried 
 to restrain him; but he only cried the louder, pointing to 
 Jesse and asking in a terrified voice if he had come to 
 kill him; declaring also that he knew who Jesse was, a holy 
 man, sent by God. 
 
 The son of the afflicted one felt Jesse's touch upon his 
 arm. 
 
 " Let me approach your father." 
 
 " He has never been like this before," the man declared, 
 looking with troubled, apologetic eyes into the faces of 
 his neighbours. 
 
 " Nor will he ever be like this again," said Jesse. " Do 
 not fear." 
 
 He laid his hands upon the violent man, who immedi- 
 ately became quiet; he spoke some words to him in a low 
 voice, unheard by the others, and the tortured expression of 
 the rolling eyes gave place to a calm, clear look. Be- 
 wildered by the sudden return of a consciousness long lost, 
 the old man gazed at Jesse. 
 
 " I seem to have been in a dream," he said, " and you 
 awoke me. I remember I half remember something you 
 said while you stood up there behind the pulpit. Won't 
 you tell me the words again?" 
 
 Jesse repeated the benediction he had given : " May the 
 Spirit which never sleeps awake you to a realisation of_ its 
 invisible presence." 
 
 " That's it," said the old man. " I think the Spirit 
 must have awakened in me." 
 
 His family and friends were astonished. They had not 
 seen him look like this, nor speak like this, for more than 
 ten years. Indeed, he had never looked nor spoken quite 
 as he did now; for something had gone out from Jesse's 
 soul and had been accepted by his soul. 
 
 "What is this man?" the people asked each other. 
 " What power dwells in him, that the sick and the insane 
 are healed by his touch ? " 
 
 A little later Jesse was standing in the vestibule of the 
 church, still surrounded by eager questioners who would
 
 300 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 not let him go, when a middle-aged man approached on 
 whose face was a look of purposeful intentness which sin- 
 gled him out immediately for Jesse's attention. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, bending his head to look at 
 the man, who was of short stature. 
 
 " It's my old gardener, who is sick," was the reply. 
 " He has worked for me faithfully seven years, and now 
 he lies helpless on his bed, and the doctors can do nothing 
 for him." 
 
 " I will go home with you and cure the man," said 
 Jesse, with that simple certainty of his which seemed able 
 to bring anything to pass. 
 
 But the gardener's master said : " I live on the other 
 side of the town, and I do not want to trouble you to go 
 so far. But if you will say the word, I know he will be 
 cured. I employ two hundred and fifty men in my factory, 
 and when I say that a thing shall be done, it is done. You 
 who have authority over disease, as I have over my men, 
 command the sickness to leave my old gardener, and it 
 will leave him." 
 
 Jesse gazed with wonder at the man, who was the larg- 
 est mill-owner in the town; and he said to those who 
 were with him: " I have not found before, not even 
 among those nearest to me, a faith like this ! " Then he 
 turned again to the man, who still stood waiting for him 
 to command the disease to leave his absent servant: 
 
 " Go home. // shall be done as you believe." 
 
 As Jesse left the church at that moment and the people 
 could not question him any longer, many of them followed 
 the factory-owner to his home, eager to see for themselves 
 if such an incredible thing could really be. At the end 
 of their walk (it was more than a mile, and the hour was 
 late), they found the old gardener upon his feet, stewing 
 a dish of meat for himself on the kitchen stove, for the 
 women servants had gone to bed. 
 
 " How does it happen that you are up and about?" his 
 employer asked. 
 
 " Oh ! I began to feel better about half an hour ago, and 
 I got hungry. But why are all these men here? " 
 
 They told him what had happened in the church. 
 
 " Praise God ! " cried the old man, who also had faith
 
 301 
 
 of his own. " Praise God for revealing Himself to a 
 faithless generation! " 
 
 Then the people went to their homes; but they had little 
 sleep that night for thinking of what they had seen and 
 heard, and every man determined to go to Peter Bond's 
 house in the early morning, for it was well known that 
 Jesse lived there. Who was he, they questioned, what 
 was he, that he could bring sick men to health, a mile away 
 from him, by merely saying it should be so?
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 ANDREW and Anna lingered a little behind the others 
 on the way home. It was a warm and lovely summer 
 night; there was no moon, but the air was like a crystal 
 globe through which the innumerable stars shed their soft 
 radiance. The breeze was sweet with the perfume of flow- 
 ers, and there was a low hum from one of the lumber- 
 mills where the men were working at night. 
 
 " It's less than two weeks since you and I first met each 
 other, Anna," Andrew said, in a tone as if he were telling 
 her some incredible thing. 
 
 "Is it really only two weeks? It seems as if we had 
 known him for ever." 
 
 " It seems as if I had known you for ever." 
 
 " Perhaps you have." 
 
 "Anna!" 
 
 "Yes, Andrew . . ." 
 
 "Do you realise you're living now in my home?" 
 
 " I had thought of it, yes." 
 
 " I used to find the old house rather a lonesome place, 
 for all the faces and voices in it; but I think now I'll never 
 feel lonely again, Anna, unless . . ." 
 
 She was silent the soft singing of the lumber-mill was 
 all the sound he heard. 
 
 " I'll never be lonely again," he went on, " unless some- 
 thing should separate me from you." 
 
 " As long as we both follow Jesse, we're sure to be to- 
 gether, aren't we?" 
 
 " Do you remember what he said that day on the road 
 from the station to his cousin's house in Nashburgh, that 
 if you were tired you could lean on me ? " 
 
 " I remember." 
 
 " He wouldn't have said that, would he, unless he'd been 
 willing we should think a great deal of each other? " 
 
 " I don't know. . . . How many stars there are 
 
 302
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 303 
 
 to-night, Andrew ! You'd think a lot of new eyes had come 
 out in the sky to watch the wonderful things that are go- 
 ing on in Capronville." 
 
 "What lovely things you say, Anna! Do you know, 
 when I'm singing those songs you made, I feel as if my 
 soul was walking alongside of yours in some strange high 
 place a real place, but not like anything I've ever seen 
 in the world. Of course I can't sing like Mary, or even 
 like John; but when I hear my voice mingled with yours 
 why, I don't hear their finer voices at all, but only yours 
 and mine! " 
 
 Again she was silent, and the singing of the mill came 
 up to them from the river. 
 
 "Won't you take my arm, Anna? The sidewalk is 
 rather rough along here." 
 
 " Thank you, Andrew." 
 
 " You know the Master said you might lean on me when 
 you were tired." 
 
 "He is so kind to all of us! Sometimes I feel that we 
 ought never to think of anything, for the rest of our lives, 
 but of helping him to do his great work." 
 
 Andrew said nothing for a little time, then he drew 
 a deep breath. " People work better when they're happy, 
 Anna." 
 
 " Sometimes they work very well when they're miser- 
 able," she answered. " I remember the first time I went 
 away from home, to teach a hard school in a desolate neigh- 
 bourhood, I was utterly wretched; but I worked as I 
 never worked before nor since. I had to, to keep from 
 thinking." 
 
 " I don't like the idea of your working, Anna." 
 
 "Why, I love to work! And especially I love this work 
 we're doing now though it seems more like play." 
 
 " You spoke a little while ago," he said, " as if we'd 
 all be together so long as we work for Jesse; but it isn't 
 so. He's going to send us men away pretty soon, each in 
 a different direction, to preach about him and the Spirit, 
 to carry the message everywhere. I don't know how I'm 
 ever going to preach. I can't talk well; seldom had the 
 courage even to speak in meeting, right here at home. I 
 told Jesse so, and what do you think he said?",-
 
 304 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I'd never undertake to guess what he said." 
 
 " He told me I'd have only to open my lips, forget my- 
 self, and think of him." 
 
 Anna pondered a moment. " Why, Andrew, isn't that 
 the secret of all eloquence? If we forget ourselves, we 
 can't be bashful; and if we're really full of an idea, pos- 
 sessed by it, we've only to open our lips and the words will 
 come. That's how I wrote those songs for him. If I'd 
 once thought of myself, or feared I was going to be ridicu- 
 lous, I'd never have dared to do it. I just thought of 
 Jesse as the Master, and thought of the Spirit, and the 
 songs came." 
 
 "What a beautiful faith you have, Anna! I believe if 
 I could have you along with me, when I go out to preach 
 for Jesse, I could do that very thing. Your faith would 
 help me to forget myself, and your mind would lift mine 
 up. Will you come with me if he is willing?" 
 
 Her heart began to beat so loud that Andrew could hear 
 it in the stillness of the night. He laid his hand, large 
 and warm, over her cold little hand which rested on his 
 arm. She looked up at him with wide, startled eyes, and 
 then looked down again. 
 
 "Will you, Anna?" 
 
 "I . . . I don't know," she faltered, in a voice so 
 low and fluttering it hardly reached his ear. 
 
 " May I ask Jesse if he is willing that we should be 
 married, and then go out together to tell the world about 
 him?" 
 
 She caught her breath, and Andrew went on: 
 
 " I love you so much, Anna. Since that first day when 
 you came to the house in Vergennes, in that little soft grey 
 dress, your eyes so large and shining with the wonder of 
 the new faith that had come to you, why, since that day 
 I've had to bite my lips every hour to keep from telling 
 you how dear you are to me, how wonderfully, sacredly 
 dear. And you care for me a little, too, don't you?" 
 
 " Yes, Andrew, you know I do." 
 
 "And I may ask Jesse?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She raised her eyes again, confidingly; and he bent
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 305 
 
 and touched his lips to hers in a kiss so light it would not 
 have crushed a rose-leaf, the very spirit of a kiss, a seal 
 between their souls. A moment later they came to the door 
 of the house. Jesse had already gone to his room for the 
 night, and Andrew was obliged to wait until another time 
 for an opportunity to ask his great question.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 EARLY in the morning, before anyone else in the house 
 was astir, Jesse arose and went out alone into the grey 
 dawn freshness. He felt the need to commune with the 
 Spirit in some solitary place, far from the troubling at- 
 mosphere of the daily life of even those who were dearest 
 to him. He could not have borne the burden of the flesh, 
 his ethereal self could not have held together the atoms 
 of his body, had it not been for these occasional feasts of 
 spiritual solitude. He climbed the hill that lay to the west 
 of the village, the hill on whose lonely height he had stood 
 that evening at the end of May, when the young John 
 came up to him. 
 
 He sat down on the ground facing the east and folded 
 his hands, drawing into his nerves the electricity of the 
 earth, into his blood the vitality of the air. Strong as he 
 was and sustained by the constant influx of spiritual power, 
 something went out of him with all this preaching and 
 healing, something he needed to renew occasionally in the 
 quiet, face to face with God. Since his day of wrestling 
 with the Demon of Doubt upon the mountain, no questions 
 ever troubled him as to the wisdom of his course or the 
 justification of his personal endeavours. 
 
 " Power of the universe," he prayed, " God who is 
 throned in my soul, whose footstool is this body I consecrate 
 to Thee, possess and sustain this life of mine which is dedi- 
 cated to the service of Thy world. Give me to bathe in 
 the waters of that lake of peace which lies in the garden of 
 Thy dwelling-place the stillness at the centre of life's 
 confusion. Without Thee I should be as a wind-blown 
 leaf that is broken from the parent tree; without Thee I 
 should be no more I, for Thou art the / in me. 
 
 " Give me to feel Thy presence within, Thine enfolding 
 love without. Expand my brain, enlarge my heart, dwell 
 in me consciously, till all men shall be aware of Thine ex- 
 istence by the light that shines from the windows of this 
 
 306
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 307 
 
 Thine house. Measureless One, who yet can occupy the 
 smallest heart and there find room to grow! Master of 
 earth's masters, whose wisest problems only love and 
 charity can solve, the way to whose highest peace is through 
 the renunciation of peace, enlighten and sustain me. 
 
 " Thou to whom each human heart is as a water-drop 
 to the soul of the ocean, pervade and purify the hearts of 
 those who hate, as well as those who love me. For what 
 am I, but a channel to conduct the unwilling as well as 
 the willing stream to the spiritual sea? Call Thou to those 
 who rejected me, that though they despise the channel, they 
 yet may yearn for the ocean. Make known Thy love to 
 that heart which is most full of bitterness, that brain which 
 is wrought with madness. Descend upon him, and rise 
 within him, till all sense of separateness shall be crushed 
 out between the rising and descending love. 
 
 " When I open my lips to testify of Thee, command my 
 breath, and testify of Thyself. When I lay my hands upon 
 a fellow being to heal him, speak Thou the word which 
 shall arouse the will to health; give Thou the touch which 
 shall scatter the forces of disease. 
 
 " Oh, guide these dear disciples of my faith ! Fill them 
 to overflowing with the certainty of Thy favour; reassure 
 them every hour of the reality of the Spirit; hold them 
 by the clinging tendrils of Thy love." 
 
 Jesse now became conscious of the presence of others 
 behind him. Turning, he saw Peter, John, Philip and 
 Nathan, who had been searching for him. 
 
 "Do you also come up here to pray?" he asked them. 
 " It is well to begin the day by communing with Eternity." 
 
 " We come to find you, Master," Peter answered. " All 
 the men of Capronville are down at the house, inquiring 
 for you." 
 
 " It is well that they should come ; but now it is also 
 well that I should go, for I have to preach in other towns 
 besides this one. It was for that I came out of the silent 
 place of the spirit; for that I learned the language of man- 
 kind." 
 
 " Where do we go ? " asked Peter, " and when ? " 
 
 "We go to-day to Myra, where my mother and my 
 brothers live."
 
 308 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 In silence they descended the hill, and when still a long 
 way off they saw the crowd gathered before Peter's house. 
 There were young men and old men, women and little 
 children, though the hour was early; and when the people 
 saw Jesse, many ran forward to greet him. 
 
 " They who go out in the early morning to meet the 
 Spirit, shall not return alone," were his first words to 
 them. 
 
 " Show us more of your wonderful power," they cried. 
 
 " Shall I not tell you, instead, where to seek the power 
 for yourselves ? " And when he came to the place where 
 the mass of the people stood, he told them this story: 
 
 " There was once a traveller who, as all supposed, had 
 visited many lands and learned the secret of strange peoples. 
 And one day the traveller appeared in the public square of 
 a certain city, and exhibited to all men a jewel of surpass- 
 ing size and lustre. 
 
 " Then each of the men of that city wished to secure for 
 himself that jewel, for it was of great value. Some planned 
 how they might buy it, others how they might steal it; 
 but a few there were, a very few, who thought to ask the 
 traveller where he had found it. 
 
 " When the excitement over the man and his jewel was 
 at its height, he climbed upon a wall in the public square 
 and stood there in the sight of all. 
 
 " ' Oh, Traveller ! ' the people cried, ' show us again 
 your jewel, for the sight of it is pleasing to us. We 
 would see it glitter in the rays of the sun.' And they 
 pressed about the man, reaching toward the jewel with 
 their yearning hands, so many and so close that he could 
 hardly preserve his balance upon the wall. 
 
 " Then, looking down with pity at the people, so many 
 and so desirous, the man said: 
 
 "'You call me Traveller; but all the travelling I have 
 done has been in the realm of thought, for I was born in 
 a humble quarter of this very city, and have never been 
 far from home. This jewel which so delights you, I found 
 hidden deep in the common ground on which our city is 
 built. Go you out a little way and dig, each man for 
 himself; there is a hidden diamond for every one of you,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 309 
 
 if you dig deep enough, and never stop until you have found 
 the treasure. I can but point the way.' ' 
 
 The people gazed at Jesse, then gazed at one another; 
 for their perceptions were untrained in the language of 
 symbols, and they understood his allegory but vaguely. 
 
 "Won't you tell us the meaning of the story? " one of 
 the men found courage to ask. 
 
 " Is it not clear to you ? The Traveller in the realm 
 of thought is he who shows to men the jewel of spiritual 
 knowledge; the city is human society; the common ground 
 on which the city is built is the ground of the soul, wherein, 
 if one digs deep enough, one finds for himself the hidden 
 diamond of surpassing lustre. But one must go a little 
 way outside the personal life, and each must dig for him- 
 self, and never rest till he has found the jewel." 
 
 "And how shall we know when we have found it?" 
 someone asked. 
 
 " There are many ways of knowing," Jesse answered ; 
 " but the surest way is by the love that is the jewel's 
 radiance."
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 JESSE was to arrive unannounced at Myra with all his 
 personal followers, as he had arrived at Nashburgh with 
 a chosen few of them. There was no question as to limita- 
 tions of hospitality; three houses at least would be open at 
 all times to him and his, the homes of his two brothers and 
 that of Rose Thomas. 
 
 It seemed almost incredible that only three short months 
 of earthly time had passed since he bade farewell to his 
 mother, going out alone to test his strength among stran- 
 gers. Three months! When he left Myra he was only 
 an obscure young house-builder, whose name was known 
 to scarcely a score of persons outside that little village and 
 the smaller place of his birth. Now he returned to Myra 
 as the accepted teacher of a large group of personal dis- 
 ciples, the prophet and inspirer of hundreds of others, a 
 man whom the newspapers were already celebrating, whose 
 fame was something more than fame, whose words were 
 beginning to change the consciousness of his time. 
 
 During the last half -hour of the railway journey Jesse 
 sat quietly by himself, a little way from his friends, 
 thinking of all he had passed through since he had seen 
 his mother: The first journey to Capronville, the finding 
 of Peter and the others, the quest of the Hermit whose 
 testimony had done so much to raise him in the confidence 
 of men, the sojourn on the mountain of illumination, the 
 subsequent preaching and healing, the multitudes, the en- 
 thusiasm. Had one man ever before changed so much, ef- 
 fected so much, in three months? But though he fully 
 realised the scope of his achievement, in his heart there was 
 no pride ; even to himself he said, " The Spirit has done 
 these things," not " I have done them." 
 
 Andrew sat with Anna, a little way behind Jesse. 
 Though his heart was surging with the desire to ask the 
 Master's permission to marry, he could not bring himself 
 to speak of it now; for the intensity of Jesse's meditation 
 
 310
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 311 
 
 built an invisible wall about him which none could pass. 
 On a crowded railway train he could be as much alone, if 
 he desired, as on a mountain top. 
 
 Leaving the station at Myra, they walked up the village 
 street to the house where Mary Bethel lived with her son 
 Henry and his young wife. 
 
 Jesse's mother was sitting on the shaded verandah, sew- 
 ing on a little dress for her infant grandchild. Since dawn 
 her thoughts had been busy with her absent son, and his 
 last letter was hidden in her bosom. Maternal pride and 
 anxiety struggled together in her heart. That Jesse should 
 succeed in any work he chose to do, she accepted as a mat- 
 ter of course; but this mad enthusiasm, these crowds of 
 followers, the superhuman cures of which he wrote, the 
 stories in the newspapers, filled her with vague fear. Little 
 things, long half-forgotten, came back to her memory: 
 the great maturely-intelligent eyes of Jesse when he was an 
 infant; the moonlit night when he discovered the fairies 
 around the rose-bushes, at the age of seven; the mysterious 
 journey to the mountain when he was a growing youth ; the 
 strange things he had said all his life, illuminating things, 
 that sometimes made one think until thinking was pain, and 
 sometimes lifted one on wings of fire to a place of joy un- 
 speakable. 
 
 There was a sound of steps on the gravel walk, and she 
 looked up and saw him. 
 
 " O my son, my dearest! " 
 
 She was in his arms, crying with gladness. She saw the 
 men and women behind him, but for the moment could 
 not think of them; the form of her returning son shut 
 out the universe. 
 
 "Was the surprise too great, little Mother? I wanted 
 to see that look of wonder on your face when you should 
 see me." 
 
 " Have you come back to stay, Jesse? " 
 
 " Only a few days." 
 
 " And you will go away from home again ? " 
 
 " Hereafter I shall never know the peace of a home with 
 you, Mother. Hereafter my only home will be in the 
 hearts of those who seek the Spirit." 
 
 " And these who are with you . . ."
 
 312 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 His friends had lingered near the gate, with delicate 
 feeling, leaving him to meet his mother alone. He now 
 called them to him. Jim Bethel greeted his aunt affec- 
 tionately, and Jesse made the others known to her. John's 
 face was flushed with emotion as he held the hand of the 
 little woman. 
 
 " You are wonderful and sacred to us," he said, his 
 eyes filling. " You, the mother of our Master! " 
 
 "You call him that?" Her voice was low and tremu- 
 lous. 
 
 " Surely you realise how great he is you, his mother!" 
 
 " I have always known that he was not as others." 
 
 " If all others were like him, then God would really 
 be clothed in the garment of humanity." 
 
 She knew not what to answer, it was all so bewildering 
 to her; so she asked them to come into the house. Jesse's 
 brother Henry was away at work; but his wife sat by the 
 window, with her baby on her knee. She was a heavy and 
 unemotional young woman, and Mary Magnus afterward 
 confided to Anna that the sister-in-law seemed as much 
 out of place in this gathering of the God-intoxicated fol- 
 lowers of Jesse as a cabbage in the midst of a rose-garden. 
 She was too stolid to be easily embarrassed, but it was 
 evident that her slow mind was busy with a problem 
 the possibility of her being called upon to provide shelter 
 and food for these friends of her husband's strange brother. 
 Why, there were more than a dozen of them, and pro- 
 visions were high that year! 
 
 " Mother," said Jesse, " are you expecting Rose Thomas 
 this afternoon ? " 
 
 " I don't think so. I saw her Sunday at church, and 
 she didn't say anything about Why, here she is now, 
 hurrying up the path! " 
 
 Jesse's old teacher came and put both her hands in his. 
 Her eyes were shining with joy. 
 
 " You have come for me ? " 
 
 "Yes, Rose." 
 
 " And I may be one with these ? " She looked around 
 the group of men and women who were his closest friends. 
 
 " You shall, indeed, be one with them. Were you not 
 the first of them, the first who promised to follow me ? "
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 313 
 
 Then Rose told the story of that Sunday, more than ten 
 years before, when Jesse had taken her to the woods to 
 gather trailing arbutus; how his heart had been overcome 
 with pity when he learned of her long-defeated desire for 
 a place in the schools of Myra; how he had sprung to his 
 feet and stood with his back to her, facing the sunset; how 
 the golden light had leaped and quivered and burned 
 around his body, as he hurled his will and his loving com- 
 mand across the distance to the minds of those who stood 
 between her and the object of her hope. With eyes full 
 of tears and voice husky with emotion, Rose told her story, 
 and Mary the mother confirmed it. 
 
 " It was then I knew," declared Rose, " that he who 
 could pity and love and will like that, must some day teach 
 the world the meaning of pity, and love, and will." 
 
 " Some day," said Jesse, " some day in the near future, 
 I will preach for you a sermon, greater than any I have 
 given you, and its theme shall be pity and love." 
 
 " Will you not preach it here," Rose cried, " here for 
 the people of Myra?" 
 
 " No, not here, but in Capronville, where the eyes of men 
 and women are already alight with the awakening Spirit. 
 It shall be a sermon which men will remember, the core 
 of all my teaching. Love and pity! It is only through 
 those two emotions that the human becomes divine. Will 
 is the great commanding power, but will inspired by love 
 is strong as the urge of the universe." 
 
 As if drawn by some call of which they were uncon- 
 scious, Jesse's two brothers came to Henry's house before 
 their working day was over. They came from opposite 
 sides of the village, and met a*t the gate. 
 
 " Why, that's Jesse sitting in the window ! " Fred ex- 
 claimed, as the two men strode up the walk. 
 
 " Maybe he's spent all his money and is going to be 
 sensible and go to work again," replied Henry. " I al- 
 ways knew that his preaching business wouldn't pay." 
 
 When they saw the number of Jesse's companions, and 
 learned of his intention to remain a few days in Myra and 
 preach there, the two brothers were rather interested in 
 the novelty of the idea, notwithstanding their disapproval 
 of what they termed "Jesse's ambition." When Jim
 
 3H THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Bethel, their cousin, declared himself a convert to Jesse's 
 religion, and loudly proclaimed to the astonished Fred 
 and Henry that their brother was a greater prophet than 
 any in the whole Bible, they hardly knew what to say. 
 
 " Do you mean that you've made a religion ? " asked 
 Henry, staring at Jesse. " I didn't know that men made 
 religions in our day." 
 
 " How could you be a prophet?" Fred insisted. "Why, 
 you're only our brother, and we've known you all our 
 lives!" 
 
 Jesse looked from Fred to Henry, half-sad, half-amused; 
 but he made no answer. 
 
 Jim Bethel answered for him: 
 
 " Those are practically the same things I myself said to 
 Jesse back in Nashburgh; but when I realised that he 
 could see through bricks and boards as I can look through 
 glass; when I saw him cure diseases by a mere touch, dis- 
 eases which had been declared incurable by all the doctors; 
 when I heard him say things that lifted me out of myself, 
 why, then I came to realise the truth. 
 
 " What truth ? " persisted Henry. 
 
 John answered him: "The truth, that God is the in- 
 dwelling Spirit, and that Jesse Bethel has declared Him as 
 none other ever did." 
 
 Mary the mother threw herself on Jesse's breast and 
 wept. 
 
 There was to be no preaching that first night in Myra. 
 It was decided that Jesse, John and Peter should remain 
 at Henry's house, the other men were to lodge at Fred's, 
 and the women with Rose Thomas; but they would all 
 take their meals together in Henry's house. Rose would 
 arrange for a meeting the following night in the largest 
 church in the village. 
 
 About nine o'clock Jesse went to the room he was to 
 occupy alone, knowing that his mother would follow. He 
 had been more silent than usual at the evening meal, for 
 the unbelieving eyes of his brothers and the stolid coun- 
 tenance of Ann Bethel, his brother's wife, were not an in- 
 spiration to the ecstatic speech habitual with him when at 
 table. But the attitude of his companions, the way they
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 315 
 
 called him " Master " and adored him with their eyes, had 
 not been without effect upon his family. 
 
 " I want to speak with you, Jesse," his mother said, as 
 she timidly opened the door of his room. 
 
 " It was for that I came up here," he answered, " that 
 we might be alone together." 
 
 Jesse blew out the lamp, and mother and son sat down 
 by the open window. Before their eyes was the star- 
 sprinkled summer sky, in their hearts the calm of true 
 communion. For a little while there was no word spoken; 
 their souls were becoming readjusted to each other after the 
 lapse of time and tremendous experience. Then Jesse 
 touched the silence lovingly with his low voice. 
 
 " Do you remember how we used to sit hand in hand 
 like this on the door-step of the old house in Nashburgh, 
 when I was a little child, and watch the stars come out 
 in the eastern sky above old Thunder Mountain ? " 
 
 " I remember, Jesse." 
 
 " One evening, in the summer after I was nine, as we 
 sat there, you told me the story of Elijah in the days of 
 King Ahab; how, when the four hundred and fifty proph- 
 ets of Baal had failed to call down fire from heaven 
 upon their altar, Elijah made an altar of twelve stones 
 and laid his sacrifice upon it, and poured twelve barrels 
 of water over the sacrifice; then called upon the Lord, and 
 the fire of heaven fell and consumed the sacrifice, and {he 
 altar, and licked up the water in the trench; and how, 
 when the people saw it, they fell on their faces, crying: 
 ' The Lord, he is God ; the Lord, he is God.' ' 
 
 There was silence for a little time, while the two looked 
 out together at the eternal stars the very stars that shone 
 upon Elijah. 
 
 Then Jesse said : " Little Mother, you have seen the 
 fire from heaven that burns in the faith of my disciples; 
 you know of the cures I have performed, of the multitudes 
 that follow me. The proof of the power is the exercise 
 of the power, in my day no less than in the day of Elijah." 
 
 " I know, Jesse, that I have given birth to a great man, 
 a man of a thousand years." 
 
 " If a man is a great prophet, his period is more than a 
 thousand years."
 
 316 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " But, Jesse, I am almost afraid to ask it, what will 
 be the end of all this ? " 
 
 " A real faith has no end, Mother." 
 
 " But what of him who inspires the faith ? For years 
 I have shuddered whenever I have thought of the future 
 in connection with you. Some sublime but terrible destiny 
 is brooding over my best beloved, my first-born. Do you 
 remember the day we left New York together, after my 
 visit there? I begged you then that you would never 
 again go near that terrible city. And I beg you now, 
 Jesse, never to go there. Won't you promise me? " 
 
 " Have you not heard the saying, that a prophet cannot 
 die out of Jerusalem ? " 
 
 She cried out with horror; but he soothed her with his 
 gentle voice and hand. 
 
 " Do you not remember what I said to you on the train 
 that day, as we were borne away from New York : ' The 
 price of the song is the singer ' ? When a man has done 
 his work, it is time for him to go; and whether he lives a 
 hundred years, or thirty, is of no consequence. My mission 
 is to declare the truth of the Spirit, the falseness of what 
 the world calls life. And he who shall speak the truth in 
 a way to make men listen, will need a bodyguard of sol- 
 diers to protect him from the anger of men." 
 
 She shuddered, and drew nearer to him. 
 
 " A little while longer," he continued, " a few months, 
 maybe a year, I shall remain among the simple men and 
 women of this region; then I must carry my message to 
 the great outer world which seems so terrible to you. 
 Here I am happy; but should I remain here, the blossom 
 of my life would never round into the fruit. Meanwhile, 
 be content with me, and follow me wherever I go." 
 
 " I will follow you as long as we both live, and may I 
 ba the first to die, Jesse ! " 
 
 " I feel it is not so to be> little Mother."
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 IN a little lavender-scented room in Rose Thomas's 
 house, Mary Magnus and Anna Martin lay side by side 
 waiting for sleep. In this communal life of theirs the 
 privacy of separate rooms was impossible; and these two 
 women, seemingly so unlike in everything save their devo- 
 tion to one idea, had grown more and more to lean upon 
 each other. Anna found in Mary the power, the courage, 
 the great-heartedness which her own narrow life had 
 lacked; and Mary found in Anna a negative, subduing in- 
 fluence which held her own wild nature in leash and helped 
 her to adjust herself to the demands of a new and difficult 
 position. 
 
 Poor Mary! Could the emotions, the thoughts, the 
 spiritual experiences, the pain and rapture of that strange 
 being have found expression in words, she might have 
 made a book which would have lived as long as Jesse's 
 faith, a human document, written like all human docu- 
 ments in the blood of the heart. Fragments of such a book 
 were in existence for a little while, a journal which she car- 
 ried in the locked travelling-bag that went with her every- 
 where; but it was afterwards destroyed, burned by her own 
 hands, lest by some accident it should be discovered, and the 
 revelations of her tempestuous heart be misinterpreted in a 
 way to raise false questions round the name which shone 
 upon its pages. 
 
 As Mary and Anna lay side by side that night waiting 
 for sleep, Anna sighed heavily. 
 
 " What is it, little sister ? " Mary's hand smoothed the 
 hair from the girl's damp forehead. " Don't you want to 
 tell me, little sister? " 
 
 " You know about Andrew ? " 
 
 " We all know, dear. You wear your secret on your 
 faces, you and Andrew. But why do you sigh so heavily 
 to-night? Often, lying beside you, I have heard you sigh 
 with happiness, and my heart has quivered with sympa-
 
 3 i8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 thetic joy in your joy; but to-night there is another spirit in 
 your signing. Has something happened between you, some 
 lovers' quarrel? " 
 
 " Oh, no, Mary! How could we quarrel? You didn't 
 mean that, did you ? " 
 
 " Of course not; though I've heard of such things, dear 
 little gentle Anna." 
 
 " You're laughing, Mary. But, somehow, there's such 
 a sad tone in your laughter; it seems almost as if there 
 were tears in it." 
 
 " I was laughing to cheer you, little one, though you 
 haven't told me yet why you were sighing." 
 
 " I am sad because Andrew is so sad. The Master 
 won't give his consent for us to marry. Andrew found a 
 way to be alone with him a little while this evening, and 
 asked him if we couldn't marry, so I could go with Andrew 
 when the Master sends the men out separately to teach the 
 faith. And the Master told him that unless he could gladly 
 leave me and go out alone to tell the truths of the Spirit 
 to unbelievers, he didn't deserve to have me." 
 
 "So that is why you sighed, little sister?" 
 
 " Yes. And he says that he will be so unhappy all alone 
 away from me, that he can't preach." 
 
 " That isn't so, Anna. Andrew will work all the bet- 
 ter for the pain in his heart. Jesse understands these 
 things. Why, if Andrew's heart were broken; if he had 
 no longer the faintest hope of any earthly joy; if he had 
 sacrificed everything that makes life dear; if life had 
 stripped him so bare and frozen him so with pain that he 
 had to cry aloud to the Spirit for fire to warm him and a 
 veil to cover his nakedness from the mockery of the world, 
 why, if he could suffer like that, he would preach Anna, 
 he would preach yes, preach as well as I sing! " 
 
 "Mary, you frighten me!" 
 
 For Mary had suddenly sat up, her body tense, her 
 voice ringing bell-like, triumphant, in the very ecstasy of 
 despair, as she made this fiery declaration of her own 
 greatness. Little Anna was dazed. She had sung with 
 Mary and written songs with her; had seen how she made 
 every being near her happy by her utter forgetfulness of 
 self; had slept by her side at night; but not until this
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 319 
 
 moment had she realised the latent, repressed power of 
 her. 
 
 " Anna," Mary's voice had softened now to a tone be- 
 fitting the lateness of the hour, " if you really love An- 
 drew you should rejoice that the metal of his soul is going 
 to be tested in the fire. To you and to him the decision 
 of the Master seems hard, even cruel, maybe; but I am sure 
 that in denying you and Andrew he suffers more for you 
 than you can possibly suffer for yourselves. Believe me, 
 Anna, even we who know Jesse best have but a weak per- 
 ception of the greatness of his love for us. He makes us 
 suffer sometimes, but then he suffers, too; for he loves us 
 in God's own way. We need never be ashamed of letting 
 him see our weaknesses and faults, because his pity and 
 his love are equal; and though we should fall down every 
 day on the path of our duty to him and to the Spirit, he 
 would always be there to pick us up and to wipe the 
 mud from us, without any superior fear of soiling his own 
 pure garment. Being with him, our spirits are forced be- 
 yond their normal growth, like plants in a hothouse. 
 Maybe the plants suffer when they grow so fast; but isn't 
 it worth while for them ? " 
 
 " You give me courage, Mary. I'm going to try to be 
 great and strong like you." 
 
 " I great? I strong? Why, I'm the weakest and most 
 utterly unworthy of all those whom his great heart takes 
 pity on! " 
 
 " He doesn't say so." 
 
 "Why, has he ever spoken of me? " 
 
 " Yes, this afternoon, when you were out in the kitchen 
 helping his brother's wife to get the supper. Rose Thomas 
 and I and the other women were selfish and wanted to stay 
 near him, because he was saying lovely things; but you 
 went out, without a thought of yourself, and made cakes 
 for him and the rest of us to eat. (Your old housekeeper 
 told me in Vergennes that you had never raised a finger to 
 work in your own house since you were born.) After the 
 Master had told us a beautiful story, John said (he's al- 
 ways thinking of you): 'What a pity that Mary should 
 miss that ! ' The Master looked up, with that gentle smile 
 which would make any of us willing to die for him, and said :
 
 320 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ' Mary never misses anything I say, whether she hears it or 
 not ; for she has come nearer than any of you to that self-for- 
 getting love which is the source of all wisdom and all pur- 
 ity. She is the greatest among you, and you let her do 
 your cooking. . . . No, do not call her in now s nor 
 take her place in serving; for when I eat of the food she 
 has prepared, I am nourished with the very essence of de- 
 votion.' " 
 
 This was too much for the taut heart-strings of the 
 woman disciple. Her whole being suddenly relaxed, and 
 she wept as pale little Anna had never seen anyone weep 
 before. Whispering, " Oh, Mary, Mary ! " Anna wept 
 too, her soul being carried on in the rush of the greater 
 woman's emotion. Mary, unconscious of her physical 
 strength in the abandon of her tears, crushed the slender 
 form of the girl until she cried out with pain. 
 
 " Oh, Anna! Forgive me, child! What a brute I am 
 to hurt you! " And Mary got out of the bed and walked 
 about the room, tossing her head from side to side like a 
 wounded animal. 
 
 " Mary, sister, please come back. You didn't hurt me, 
 really you didn't." 
 
 " Don't mind me, little one. I'm not often such a 
 mad thing. I've never behaved like this before, have I ? " 
 And Mary broke into sobs again. 
 
 Anna came and wound her loving arms about the shaken 
 body of her friend. " Tell me, Mary, what it is that hurts 
 you so. I've never loved any woman so much as you, 
 never anybody, except Andrew; for the feeling we all have 
 for the Master is a different kind of love, like that we give 
 to God. Won't you tell me?" 
 "I can't." 
 
 " I've often wondered, Mary, why you never seem 
 to think of the personal happiness, of love for yourself, as 
 other women do. And I've wondered sometimes if per- 
 haps you hadn't loved some man very much in the past, and 
 he was dead." 
 
 "You have thought that?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mary was silent, but she stroked Anna's hair as one 
 strokes the hair of a little child. She did not sob any
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 321 
 
 more. " Let us go back and lie down," she said, after 
 awhile. " I don't want to make you ill with my wild be- 
 haviour." 
 
 They lay down again quietly, side by side, and Anna 
 went to sleep; but Mary remained wide awake, thinking 
 and thinking, until the grey summer dawn came ghost- 
 like through the window.
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 EVEN the brothers of Jesse were convinced by the en- 
 thusiasm of that first public meeting in Myra not that 
 he was a prophet; but, as they expressed it, that he was 
 going to make a success of preaching. Wild rumours of 
 remarkable cures performed in other places by the strangely 
 beautiful young man who used to build houses in Myra 
 had been floating about the village for some days; and the 
 last twelve hours before the meeting were not spent by 
 Rose Thomas in sitting for instruction at the feet of her 
 new master. She spent those hours in going from house 
 to house, from store to store, from office to office, carrying 
 the news that he would preach that night, repeating the 
 stories of his miraculous healing, and exciting the imagina- 
 tion of her fellow townsmen. There were also forty de- 
 voted children ready to run errands for her and to carry 
 letters to those whom she had not time to visit in per- 
 son. 
 
 " The test of devotion is service," Jesse had told her 
 one time in the past when he had been privileged to do a 
 kindness for her, and she had never forgotten the words. 
 They were the seeds which came to fruit in this meeting. 
 There would be plenty of time in the future for her to en- 
 joy his presence. 
 
 The church was crowded. After the sermon, which gave 
 the substance of his spiritual teaching, the power of faith, 
 the indwelling presence of God, the love of human beings 
 for each other, the gentle beauty of forgiveness, he told 
 them this allegory: 
 
 " There was once a wise king who determined to seek 
 out the most perfect man in the realm and make him coun- 
 sellor; so he sent emissaries to the north and the south, the 
 east and the west, with instructions to inquire diligently 
 for any man who might be regarded by all his neighbours 
 as being pre-eminent in virtue. 
 
 322
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 323 
 
 " The first emissary returned, and said to his royal 
 master: ' It is hard to find a man of whom all his neigh- 
 bours approve; but in the town of A. there is a rich mer- 
 chant who is noted for alms-giving.' ' And he remains 
 rich ? ' the king answered. ' He is not the one I seek.' 
 
 " The second emissary returned, and said : ' Most noble 
 King, I cannot find any man who is unqualifiedly approved 
 by everyone; for he who admits a virtue in his neighbour 
 with one breath, regrets or censures a weakness in him 
 with the next breath. But in the little town of B. there 
 is a man who lives on insufficient food and sleeps in a fire- 
 less attic, that his only son may enjoy the luxuries of col- 
 lege-life in the city.' ' That man is fostering the demon 
 of selfishness in the heart of his son,' the king made answer; 
 ' he is not the one I seek.' 
 
 "The third emissary returned to the king, and said: 
 ' Eminent Sire, there is not a virtuous man in your king- 
 dom, judging by the testimony of neighbours. But in the 
 town of C. there is a minister of the established church who 
 preaches sermons so eloquent that poor people deprive them- 
 selves of the necessaries of life, in order to support him in 
 a state befitting his great eloquence and learning.' ' The 
 state befitting a true prophet of God is poverty and hu- 
 mility,' said the king; ' he is not the one I seek.' 
 
 " The fourth emissary returned, and said : ' Your Ma- 
 jesty, I have travelled over all the western part of your 
 kingdom, and I cannot find any man whose neighbours do 
 not censure him for something. If a man is rich, they 
 call him a defrauder of the poor; if he is poor, they call 
 him lazy and inefficient ; if a man is courageous and de- 
 fends his rights, they call him a browbeater; if he is gen- 
 tle and forgiving of injuries, they call him a fool.' 
 
 ' Have you, perchance, found any fools upon your 
 journey? ' the king inquired. 
 
 1 ' I have found that sort of fool,' the emissary answered. 
 ' In the town of D. there is a learned doctor much cen- 
 sured by his neighbours for what they call his laxity in 
 moral judgment. His wife deserted him for another man, 
 and he gave her a house to live in when she was after- 
 ward in need. His brother defrauded him of half the in- 
 heritance, and he refused to prosecute him. His daughter
 
 324 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 lost her virtue and wandered far away, and he sought her 
 without ceasing until he found her and brought her home, 
 where he sheltered her until she died. His dearest friend 
 betrayed his trust, then went, self-murdered, to a dishon- 
 oured grave; and this learned doctor was the only mourner 
 who followed the coffin. Never before, O King! have I 
 found unanimity of judgment regarding any man; but all 
 the neighbours of this man declare that he is a fool.' 
 
 " The king took a great jewel from his finger and 
 placed it in the hand of the fourth emissary, saying: * Go 
 find the man and give to him this jewel, then tell him that 
 he has been made counsellor to the king. He is the one I 
 seek.' " 
 
 Before Jesse's listeners had recovered from their sur- 
 prise at this strange teaching, he told them another alle- 
 gory: 
 
 " There was a man who had five sons, and they had each 
 received from Heaven a peculiar gift. The first had re- 
 ceived the gift of valour; the second had a great mind 
 which joyed to wrestle with deep questions; the third pos- 
 sessed a talent for amassing money; the fourth had a genius 
 for invention; and the fifth was gifted only with a loving 
 heart. 
 
 " And the man had great pride in the first four sons, 
 and sent them out into the world to prove their gifts; but 
 the fifth remained at home, because he would not leave his 
 father all alone. 
 
 " The first son became a soldier ; but so great his valour 
 that it touched the border of foolhardiness, and he was shot 
 in his first battle, neither returning to the father nor prov- 
 ing his gift. 
 
 "The second son studied in the schools till he knew all 
 that they could teach him, and his mind wrestled with life's 
 problems. But the harder he thought, the deeper became 
 the mystery surrounding all things, and the more impos- 
 sible seemed a final answer to any question. The great 
 brain was sterile by reason of its over-activity, and the 
 second son could never prove his gift nor justify the pride 
 of the father. 
 
 " The third son, with the money-making gift, came
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 325 
 
 nearer to the goal than his brothers; but so intense was 
 his passion for gain that it overshot the mark, and he was 
 ruined and disgraced through seeking to possess himself of 
 more than one man's share of a treasure which belonged to 
 many. So his gift proved a curse to himself and to the 
 father. 
 
 " The fourth son, with the genius for invention, be- 
 came so fearless in the pursuit of knowledge through ex- 
 periment that he was killed by an explosion of his own 
 chemicals, and left the world no wiser for his gift. 
 
 " The fifth son, he who was gifted with a loving heart, 
 and in whom the father had no pride, pursued the even 
 way of life in his native village. His love of every created 
 thing endeared him to all children, and the love of the 
 children endeared him to their parents, till there was hardly 
 a man or woman in the town who would not have declared 
 that he was their closest friend. When he would leave his 
 father alone for awhile, there were a hundred houses open 
 to him; whenever he walked abroad, he was hailed with a 
 chorus of welcoming voices. As the years went by, he who 
 was so well-beloved was given the highest position in the 
 town ; and the fame of his loving-kindness spread beyond 
 the borders of his native village, and he was given the 
 highest position in the county, then the highest position 
 in the State. 
 
 " And the surprise and wonder of the father grew with 
 every step of his fifth son along the larger path; for he in 
 whom the father had no pride had become the pride of a 
 million strangers." 
 
 These were the stories Jesse told the people of Myra 
 at the conclusion of his first sermon. Then, as they gath- 
 ered round him to be cured, he commanded a bent man to 
 stand upright, a stammering tongue to speak with ease, 
 a woman with nervous blindness to see steadily. He was 
 followed home by half the people of the village; and the 
 next day and the next they constantly surrounded him, 
 so that he had no rest nor any time for quiet converse with 
 his friends. 
 
 Once again he preached to them, this time in a public 
 hall, and many declared themselves believers in his doctrine
 
 326 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 of love and faith and spiritual power. But when they 
 asked him for some token of their membership in the new 
 church, he said: 
 
 " The seal of the sons of the Spirit is written in fiery 
 characters upon the heart. 
 
 " You are the God of your own seeking, and you are 
 the church wherein His worship must be celebrated. 
 
 " But do not think that by loving himself a man shall 
 find his hidden God. If God did not love the universe in- 
 stead of Himself, both God and the universe would cease 
 to be. 
 
 " If you see the universe in one side of a balance and 
 your God in the other, behold, they shall weigh the same. 
 
 ' This personality of yours, this self of flesh and passion 
 which seems so precious to you, is not your real Self; it is 
 only one of the many, many tools used by the real Self on 
 its great masterpiece the human soul. 
 
 " If you ever really understand yourself, you will know 
 all there is to know about God. 
 
 " You are the only interpreter who can translate the 
 hieroglyphics of your own experience. 
 
 " If you cannot find God in the solitude of your cham- 
 ber, it is useless to look for Him elsewhere. If He does 
 not speak to you in the silence of the midnight, you will 
 never hear the Voice from between the cherubim in the 
 Holy of Holies. 
 
 " Your mortal lives shall fall to the ground like leaves 
 in the autumn; but your life is the life of the Tree that 
 renews it leaves in the springtime. Think of yourself as 
 the Tree and not the leaves. 
 
 " Realise that every human being is a centre of divine 
 experience; that from the eyes of the humblest man God 
 looks out and questions the world. 
 
 " Do not regard with scorn the meanest human creature. 
 His house of flesh is good enough for God to dwell in. 
 
 " Could you read every secret written in the heart 
 of the simplest man, even yourself, you would be wiser than 
 Solomon and all the Magi. 
 
 "You and your brother are not one; but the One is in 
 both of you, and each of you is It." 
 
 When Jesse returned to Capronville, his mother, his two
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 327 
 
 brothers and Rose Thomas went with him. Not that Fred 
 and Henry Bethel accepted the religion of their great 
 brother or believed in his mission; but the force of the 
 tide of popular enthusiasm carried them along with the 
 crowd of Jesse's followers. Though they would never 
 commit themselves to a declaration of belief in his master- 
 ship, they found a certain satisfaction in being called " the 
 brothers of the Master." To each other they expressed 
 a willingness to sacrifice personal interest by leaving their 
 work for a time, that they might be near Jesse in case 
 he should need them; they would stand ready to advise 
 with him and guide him by their judgment and com- 
 mon sense, should his excessive zeal lead him into any 
 trouble. When they listened to his exalted utterances, 
 when they witnessed his cures and felt the wild enthusiasm 
 of the crowds surrounding him, their faces wore a look 
 of deep concern. They felt that a great responsibility 
 had been thrust upon them, and they were ready and will- 
 ing to do their duty. They did not say these things to 
 their mother; for there was something in her worship- 
 lighted eyes which kept them silent out of consideration 
 for her, they would have said, had they been called upon 
 to explain their reticence. 
 
 Mary Bethel herself was living in a dream. She seemed 
 to have forgotten the danger that by his own admission 
 threatened her beloved son. She saw him adored almost 
 as a divine being, she heard his kindling words, she gazed 
 at his illumined face and lived in the glory surrounding 
 him. He had been able to lift her on the wings of his 
 own imagination, to fire her with the ecstasy of his faith. 
 And if sometimes she awoke in the night with a gasp of 
 indefinable dread, if her pillow was wet with tears in the 
 lonely dawn, at the first look of Jesse's quiet, compelling 
 eyes the shadows vanished.
 
 CHAPTER LII 
 
 NEAR the village of Capronville was a beautiful lake. 
 Jesse went out there with his friends soon after their re- 
 turn from Myra, and many people followed them. Often 
 during the summer and fall he was to go to that pine and 
 hemlock bordered lake, to bathe his soul in the silence. 
 The Spirit, that seems hardly able to make known its 
 presence in the noise and confusion of civilised communi- 
 ties, in the quiet ether-washed spaces can hold communion 
 with the consciousness of man. 
 
 On the evening of their first day at the lake, a strange 
 thing happened. Jesse had dismissed the crowd of people 
 who had followed him thither, and had also sent his 
 friends back to the village, keeping with him only Peter 
 and Andrew, James and John. The five were sitting on 
 the margin of the water as the night shadows came down. 
 During the afternoon he had told some of his illuminating 
 allegories, and had cured a child of a violent epileptic 
 seizure by one touch of his hand. He seemed rather weary 
 as they sat by the water. There was a slight chill in the 
 air, and the foliage of the trees behind them waved softly 
 in the rising wind. 
 
 " Peter," Jesse said, " there is a large boat moored on 
 the other side of that point of land to the right. The 
 owner is coming down there at this moment; and if you 
 go and ask him, he will lend it to you for a few hours. 
 I wish to go out on the water." 
 
 From where they sat neither boat nor man was visible. 
 
 " I will go, Master," Peter answered, rising to his feet. 
 " But when we passed that way a little while ago there 
 was no boat there." 
 
 "The boat is painted white," Jesse went on, his eyes 
 looking far off into the dark sky. " It is a large flat- 
 bottomed boat, and on the stern is the name ' Valiant ' in 
 black letters. 
 
 Peter was too much astonished by the announcement to 
 make reply. His eyes were wide, his step quick and de- 
 
 328
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 329 
 
 termined, as he turned from them and went out across the 
 wooded point of land. The sound of his footsteps died 
 gradually away into the silence. No one spoke. Jesse 
 still sat gazing out across the dark water. 
 
 "There's someone coming round the point in a boat," 
 John said presently, in a voice which seemed to start and 
 tremble at the shock of its own sound. 
 
 " It's Peter! " James rose suddenly to his feet. 
 
 " You seem surprised," said Jesse. 
 
 " It doesn't happen every day," James answered, " that 
 a man looks up into the sky and tells me what is taking 
 place out of his sight and mine. I am surprised, Master." 
 
 " No, it does not happen every day ; but it might happen 
 any hour. Must the messenger of the Spirit always 
 justify his claim by the testimony of the wonder-worker? 
 It may be so. Men who accept the marvel of the sunrise 
 without comment, exclaim at the sight of a double-yolked 
 egg. That I can see what is passing out of sight is far 
 less marvellous than the fact that I can see at all. But if 
 you care for the testimony of the wonder-worker, listen, 
 James: In the inside pocket of your coat, over your 
 heart, is a folded paper, a letter addressed to a friend 
 of yours in a far place. You have written to him before 
 about me, and in this letter you are trying to give him 
 some idea of my teaching. You have told him of the 
 presence of the indwelling Spirit, the power of faith, the 
 beauty of gentleness, and toward the end are advising him 
 as to the discipline for the weak and erring human self. 
 You say: 
 
 " ' As to control, begin with the tongue ; for he who 
 can control the tongue is master of the whole body. By 
 means of the tongue you can effect more good than with 
 a thousand loaves of bread, and you can do more harm 
 with the tongue than with a whip of scorpions. It is no 
 worse to do evil to a man than it is to speak evil of him. 
 A king by his word may seal the doom of a nation; by 
 his word an humble man may make himself an outcast. 
 A wise man guards his lips as a nation guards its treasure 
 vaults; a fool scatters words as a drunkard scatters coin, 
 and wakes to find himself impoverished. Falsehood and 
 truth may be lived, as well as spoken; but no one who lives
 
 330 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 a lie can long refrain from telling lies. Speak no harsh 
 word to any man; for he whose words are always gentle 
 will some day find that he has none but gentle feelings 
 in his heart. These things our Master has taught me.' 
 Thus the letter ends." 
 
 In bewildered silence James took from his pocket a 
 folded paper and handed it to Jesse. There was not light 
 enough to read by at that hour. 
 
 "And those words are written in the letter, James?" 
 The voice of John shook as he questioned his brother. 
 
 " Word for word, as I wrote the last page of the letter, 
 he has repeated it; and no eye but mine has seen the writ- 
 ing." 
 
 Jesse laid his arm lovingly around the shoulder of John's 
 elder brother, saying: 
 
 " A few days only have you been with me ; but already 
 you are giving to others the blessings you have received. 
 You have learned instinctively the great lesson I am always 
 striving to teach: That no man can really possess any- 
 thing until he has given it away; that a truth sharedjs a 
 truth verified." 
 
 ' Never again will I be surprised at anything the Mas- 
 ter does," James promised, " though he turn back the tides 
 of the ocean." 
 
 Jesse gave him a strange look across the gathering shad- 
 ows. " We shall see," he said. 
 
 They heard a grating sound upon the pebbles of the 
 shore. It was Peter with the boat. Jesse stepped in, and 
 the others followed, Andrew taking his place with Peter 
 at the oars. 
 
 " Row out into the middle of the lake," said Jesse, " and 
 rest there between the water and the sky until I tell you 
 to return. I am tired, and would sleep on the bosom of 
 the waves." He laid himself down in the prow of the 
 boat, and was fast asleep before they were ten rods from 
 shore. 
 
 " This must be the middle of the lake," said Andrew, 
 after a time, " though it's now so dark that no man could 
 tell." 
 
 " There's a storm coming," Peter muttered. " I won- 
 der how long he will sleep."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 331 
 
 "A strange thing happened while you were away," John 
 said to him. 
 
 "Was it any stranger than the errand he sent me on? 
 The boat was there, just as he said, and the name ' Valiant ' 
 is painted in black letters across the stern." 
 
 " It was equally strange," John answered, and told him 
 the story. They were not rowing any longer, and there 
 was no sound save the dual whisper of the wind and 
 the waves. John's voice rose clear and full as he repeated 
 from memory the more striking sentences from the letter 
 so miraculously revealed to them. 
 
 " That is even more extraordinary than his seeing the 
 boat," Peter assented. " I wonder how long he will 
 sleep." 
 
 There was a brief silence, broken by a little start and 
 a stifled cry from John. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 " Only a wave that wet my hand." 
 ' The wind is rising," James observed. 
 
 " He said we were to stay here until he told us to re- 
 turn." Peter's voice was higher-pitched than usual. 
 
 At that moment there was a rumble of thunder in the 
 distance. 
 
 " I wonder how long he will sleep." It was John who 
 said it this time. 
 
 The call of the thunder was answered across the black 
 sky; the wind shrieked suddenly, and Peter's hat was blown 
 from his head and whirled away into the night. 
 
 "Do sit still!" John pleaded. "You're rocking the 
 boat." 
 
 " I didn't move," declared Peter, " though the wind 
 blew my hat away." 
 
 " It's the waves that are rocking the boat," said James. 
 He seemed more at ease than the others, and his voice was 
 steadier. 
 
 Andrew, the silent one, now spoke: " Do you really 
 think he will sleep much longer?" 
 
 " God knows." Peter answered. 
 
 " Yes, God knows. We hadn't thought of that." It 
 was James again. 
 
 A rush of wind slapped their faces with foam; a wave
 
 332 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 went over the edge of the boat, partly filling it with water 
 and wetting them to the skin. 
 
 " Hadn't we better go ashore ? " John cried. 
 
 " The shore ? Where is the shore ? The wind has 
 tossed us about till we don't know north from south." 
 
 " How peacefully he sleeps!" said James, "like a little 
 child in its mother's arms." 
 
 " Suppose we should all drown ! " Peter's voice was 
 full of fear. " Would we ever be forgiven for letting 
 him drown ? " 
 
 " He told us to rest here between the water and the 
 sky," James reminded him. 
 
 Peter leaned forward. " Let us wake him." 
 
 "What for?" James asked. "Do you think he will 
 row you ashore ? " 
 
 " He can tell us where the shore is. He found the 
 boat, and read the name ' Valiant.' " 
 
 Another wave went over the edge. The thunder 
 rattled and roared in the hills. 
 
 ' If it would only lighten so we could see the shore! " 
 
 ' Are you afraid, John ? " his brother asked. 
 
 ' Yes, terribly afraid." 
 
 ' The name of the boat is ' Valiant,' little brother." 
 
 ' He loves me. He will forgive me for waking him." 
 And John leaned over and softly touched the face of 
 the sleeping man. 
 
 " Master, Jesse, wake! Please wake! The wind is 
 terrible; we shall drown. It is I, John, and we are all 
 afraid!" 
 
 Then occurred the strangest thing they had ever seen 
 or ever would see, a thing the recital of which was to be 
 listened to with wonder or denied with scoffing by genera- 
 tion after generation; a thing occurred that would ever 
 seem incredible to those who had not seen it, and that made 
 the men who saw it almost doubt the testimony of their 
 senses. 
 
 Jesse stood up in the boat, and the first flash of lightning 
 which rent the darkness at that moment lit his face with 
 unearthly radiance. So calm he seemed, and strong, as 
 if an angel had appeared to comfort and save him. In 
 another second the flash of light was gone, and his voice 
 came to them in the darkness.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 3 33 
 
 " Why are you afraid, my children ? Where is the 
 faith that makes the soul of the true disciple valiant as a 
 lion among dangers? Does the Spirit sleep when the 
 messenger of the Spirit takes his rest?" 
 
 There was silence, for no one dared to answer him 
 a silence in which even the wind seemed to listen for what 
 was coming next. Then over the troubled waters Jesse's 
 voice rose in a long, vibrant, bugle-clear command, such 
 a call as the Creator of the universe might have sounded 
 over the waters of chaos when the hour was come to 
 harmonise them, one ringing, potent tone, which rever- 
 berated in endless waves of sound through the startled air 
 and was lost among the surrounding hills. 
 
 Slowly the wind died away, the boat ceased rocking, 
 and over the waters of the lake there gradually settled a 
 great calm. Then without a word, as if what he had 
 done were a simple action of every day, Jesse returned to 
 his former place in the prow, and soon was sleeping peace- 
 fully as before. 
 
 The men breathed deep; they coughed and cleared their 
 throats from sheer nervousness. The night was still so 
 dark they could not see one another's faces. It seemed 
 impossible that he could really be asleep again so soon. 
 John whispered softly: 
 
 " Master." 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 " Don't wake him again," James said, " though there 
 are several inches of water in the bottom of the boat." 
 
 In moving his foot, Andrew hit something which gave 
 forth a flat, metallic sound; it was an old tin pail, and 
 w r ith it he began to bail the water they had shipped in the 
 storm. This commonplace labour relieved the tension of 
 their feelings, and gave them time to pull themselves to- 
 gether. John's teeth were chattering, but not with cold; 
 and Peter was rubbing his hands together, as one might 
 who went gloveless in midwinter. Finally he spoke: 
 
 " Now what sort of man is this, who can order a hur- 
 ricane to lie down, as a man might order a dog ! " 
 
 " Did you see his face at the moment of the lightning 
 flash?" 
 
 " I shall see it till I die." 
 
 Not another word was uttered during the hour that
 
 334 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Jesse slept. When he awoke, the sky was lighter, the 
 thunder-storm had passed round them, and a few stars 
 were out between the clouds. They rowed back to the 
 place where they had taken the boat, then walked from the 
 lake to Capronville, arriving at Peter's house a little before 
 midnight. There were* few words spoken on the way 
 home; but before they separated for the night, Jesse said 
 to them: 
 
 " Which is the greater marvel, think you, that a man 
 should quiet the waters of a small lake, or that he should 
 rouse the mighty waves of aspiration on the sea of human 
 consciousness? " 
 
 The next morning Jesse was invited to meet the clergy 
 of the town in consultation, at the house of the most 
 influential of them. He sent back word that they should 
 come to him, and after some delay they came, six men 
 in smooth black broadcloth. He received them surrounded 
 by his friends. Many poor people of the village were 
 also there, and Peter's youngest child sat upon Jesse's 
 knee during the whole interview. The mother would have 
 reproved the child and carried it away, but Jesse restrained 
 her. 
 
 " Children are nearest to the Spirit," he said ; " they 
 remember much that the wisest of men and women have 
 forgotten. He whose heart is open to the Spirit as a 
 little child's, shall dwell in the Spirit wherever he may 
 be." 
 
 " By the Spirit I suppose you mean the Almighty," said 
 the oldest of the ministers, a tall, spare, beardless man, 
 with a narrow mouth. 
 
 " The Spirit is almighty," replied Jesse. 
 
 "They tell me that you call yourself the mouthpiece 
 of the Spirit," said the youngest of them, a florid, amiable 
 man, who seemed to regard the whole matter as rather 
 amusing than otherwise. He was an up-to-date minister, 
 with a liberal following, and was noted for his skill in 
 oratory and out-door sports. 
 
 " It is a great responsibility," Jesse answered, " a grave 
 responsibility, to speak for God to the hearts of men." 
 
 " Yes, yes, to be sure."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 335 
 
 " I am told that you cure hypochondriacs by suggestion," 
 said another of the men, one who had formerly failed as 
 a physician but had succeeded in the church. " You must 
 have a very powerful will." 
 
 " The spiritual will is all-powerful," was Jesse's an- 
 swer. 
 
 " Pardon me," said the fourth minister, " but by whom 
 were you ordained ? " 
 
 " By the Holy Spirit, and I am the servant of Its will." 
 
 " And how is that will made known to you ? " 
 
 " It is the Power of which I am the expression." 
 
 " The possibilities of self-deception " began another ; 
 
 but Jesse interrupted him: 
 
 " He who has really sacrificed his life to the life of the 
 Spirit, has no longer a personal self which can be deceived." 
 
 The sixth man was a mild and gentle being, with eyes 
 as clear as those of the child in Jesse's arms. His was a 
 poor church, and his broadcloth was shiny at the seams. 
 
 " I see no harm in you," he said simply, shaking his 
 whitening head. 
 
 " Nor I in you," replied Jesse. " He who carries the 
 water of the Spirit to the poor and humble shall drink 
 himself from the immortal fountain." 
 
 The child in Jesse's arms had not moved before, but it 
 now put out a little rosy hand and touched the hand of 
 the shabby preacher, whose eyes' slowly filled with tears. 
 
 After a few more questions the ministers all rose to- 
 gether and went away; and the last sound they heard 
 as they passed through the outer door was Jesse's voice 
 in loving converse with the little child.
 
 CHAPTER LIII 
 
 IT was in a large field, lying outside the village of 
 Capronville, that Jesse gave his promised sermon on love 
 and pity, transcendent themes, which none may fully un- 
 derstand who has not burned the dross of separateness 
 from out his heart. The crowds that gathered round him 
 were larger every day; they came from all the near-by 
 towns, and even from greater distances, their souls answer- 
 ing the call of his soul. It was a cool and pleasant Sun- 
 day morning, and he spoke in the open field because there 
 was no church in the town large enough to hold a tenth- 
 part of the multitude that pressed to hear him. 
 
 " He who would read the Book of Immortal Life," he 
 began, " must learn its alphabet, and the first letter is 
 Love. 
 
 " I have said that man may become one with God ; but 
 until you love all other men as yourself, you shall not 
 become that God who dwells in the centre of all things. 
 
 " I not only say, love your enemies ; I say, understand 
 your enemies. He who shall truly understand another 
 shall love him as himself. 
 
 " Think of all unawakened men and women as being 
 little children, whom you can love and teach. 
 
 " It is by pitying and understanding the weaknesses of 
 others, that we transcend them. 
 
 " Does a criticism of yourself arouse your resentment ? 
 Resentment is a confession of weakness. An impregnable 
 tower needs no defence. 
 
 " Our enemies are often of more service to us than our 
 friends; for they point out the faults which we may 
 remedy. 
 
 " Do not complain because others misunderstand you, 
 but look back over your life. Would you dare that they 
 should fully understand you? Yes? Think again. 
 
 336
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 337 
 
 " If, when a man speaks evil of you, you look deep into 
 your own heart, you may find that you have been tempted 
 to do that very evil; so forgive the speaker. 
 
 " But never say of others what you would not wish them 
 to say of you. He who can follow this injunction is on 
 the road to mastery of self. 
 
 " If your love of God does not include all his creatures, 
 God will never be aware of your love. 
 
 " Until you think of the welfare of all beings as an 
 ambitious man thinks of his own welfare, know that you 
 have not made certain your own welfare. 
 
 " When you can think of your own misfortune and the 
 misfortune of your enemy as being of equal importance, 
 then shall you be beyond the reach of misfortune. 
 
 " It is not by thought, or even by sacrifice, that a man 
 shall find his way to the spiritual place; it is by love that 
 he shall find his way. 
 
 "Let us pray for that understanding sympathy which 
 shall make even the unfortunate acts of our fellow beings 
 seem to be our acts, to be given the same pardon we extend 
 to our own failures in living the perfect life. 
 
 " Would you know how to be sure whether an action 
 is right or wrong? There is a test: Is it inspired by 
 unselfish love? 
 
 " The greatest exaltation carries with it one supreme 
 privilege that of serving others. 
 
 " And do not be looking always for reward. Do good 
 because it should be done, leaving results to the Law. It 
 is just, and infinitely wiser than you are. But those who 
 do good merely for the sake of reward complain that the 
 Law is ungrateful. 
 
 " Not until the individual is adjusted to others is he 
 really adjusted to himself. 
 
 "Why are you so afraid of self-surrender? You can 
 never really possess your own soul until you give it away. 
 
 " Only when a man regards all beings as himself, has 
 he a right sometimes to disregard them. 
 
 " When the struggle of life confuses you, when the noise 
 of life distracts you, seek out a quiet spot and find your 
 quiet soul; then return to the noise and try to harmon- 
 ise it.
 
 338 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " The discord you hear is but the vibration of a few 
 tones in the great harmony you do not hear. 
 
 " Go teach the truth to others. Is it for yourself alone 
 that you sow the seed of discipleship ? The bird of truth 
 will pine and die if imprisoned in the cage of self. Only 
 by releasing it can you possess it, or enjoy its ravishing 
 music. 
 
 " Do not be discouraged when you realise the vileness 
 of the world. If the world were on a higher plane, the 
 ideal of the disciple would be higher still and more difficult 
 of attainment. 
 
 " Should I tell you now the highest interest possible to 
 the human soul, it would seem to you to be devoid of 
 human interest. 
 
 " When you intensely desire something for yourself, and 
 the whole world seems blank to you because you cannot 
 have it, try to realise that you are only one of the millions 
 of yearning human beings the earth bears upon her bosom; 
 that you are only one grain of sand on the shore-line of 
 eternity. 
 
 " Observe how mortals hover round the flame of ephem- 
 eral passion as moths around a night-lamp; then turn and 
 watch the quiet, immortal stars. 
 
 " It is not written that you should despise pleasure ; 
 only insist that in the cup you drink there shall be at 
 least one drop of the elixir of pure love. 
 
 " Do you grieve because the love of a friend has grown 
 cold? The only love that can sustain you is the love that 
 never grows cold, and you must find it in your own heart. 
 
 " When you no longer demand anything for yourself, 
 and yet give everything, the hearts of your fellow beings 
 will overflow with love for you. 
 
 " It is only in the soil of a bleeding heart that the_seed 
 of immortal love can find nourishment to grow. 
 
 "He who has an utterly hopeless love has the highest 
 gift of Heaven the possibility of an utterly unselfish love. 
 
 " He only can really trust who has been betrayed and 
 who expects betrayal. 
 
 " Not until you understand why others act as they do, 
 will you be wise and loving enough to show them a better 
 way.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 339 
 
 " Gentleness of speech is greater than eloquence, and 
 love is greater than worldly knowledge. 
 
 " He who shall treat all beings with loving-kindness, will 
 some day be thrilled with the consciousness of his unity 
 with all beings. 
 
 ".Neglect no duty; but remember always that duty is 
 only the imitation of love. 
 
 " He who shall wilfully injure another has placed a 
 mountain in the path of his own soul; he who shall care- 
 lessly injure another has digged a pitfall for his own feet. 
 
 " And in seeking to help your brother, do not force him 
 to lead your life. It was evidently the intention of God 
 that he should lead his own. 
 
 " Because toys no longer give you pleasure, do not for- 
 get that a child's day may be darkened by the breaking of 
 its doll. 
 
 " Only a wise man may venture to wound another for 
 his good, or to choose the way another's feet shall travel; 
 and a wise man will be slow in doing either. 
 
 " A man's contempt for the weaknesses of his neigh- 
 bour is the measure of his own lack of spiritual strength. 
 
 " Often when you think you doubt another's character, 
 what you really doubt is his admiration for you. 
 
 " Question your own motives always ; but only he whose 
 love for all beings is like that of a mother for her children 
 should dare to study too closely into the personal motives 
 of others. 
 
 " Love is the only defensive weapon the soul needs. 
 
 " If you wish to disarm the man who would injure you, 
 throw away your shield and remove the breastplate from 
 your heart. 
 
 " A man may defend himself so vigorously that the 
 whole world will unite in attacking him. 
 
 " Silence is the most effective refutation of slander ; 
 kindness is stronger than cruelty; love is the antidote of 
 hate, and peace is the inevitable end of war. 
 
 " But do not fancy that you shall attain the great peace 
 by merely removing yourself from the distractions of 
 human life; you will find no quiet in the solitude of the 
 primeval woods unless you carry it with you. Some there 
 are who shall open the door of peace by thought, others
 
 340 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 by sacrifice; but he who shall pass the threshold and dwell 
 inside for ever shall open the door by love. 
 
 " Do not grieve for the loss or absence of anything. 
 Does the earth mourn that you help yourself to her fruits 
 and rifle her hidden mines? She is inexhaustible, and so 
 is That which you are. 
 
 " Even though your brother has betrayed you, do not 
 lose faith in him. How often have you denied or forgotten 
 God! A serpent may suffer from hunger as keenly as a 
 dove, and even a treacherous man is a human being who 
 may need help far more than the righteous man. 
 
 " They need your pity most who suffer from their own 
 fault, for they have not the consciousness of virtue to sus- 
 tain them. 
 
 " Refuse no man who asks from you the hand of broth- 
 erhood. The erring soul whom you should turn away 
 would stand between you and the light you seek. 
 
 " Even your own virtue will not save you unless it lights 
 the way for others; and God will never open a place for 
 you in the heaven of his consciousness, until you would 
 gladly relinquish heaven for the sake of those who suffer 
 on the earth." 
 
 So Jesse ended his sermon on love and pity. Those who 
 listened were astonished at his teaching, and one asked 
 another: " How can a man so far forget himself as to 
 love others like that? It is not human nature! " 
 
 " When a man loves others like that," answered Mary 
 Magnus, who overheard the question, " when a man loves 
 the whole world like that, he is something more than 
 human."
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 IT was after this sermon that Peter came to Jesse in 
 great perplexity. " Master," he said, his honest face red 
 with embarrassment, " how is it that you, who make so 
 much of goodness, can say that bad people are as good 
 as good people? " 
 
 " I have never said that, Peter." 
 
 " Yet you said that those who suffered from their own 
 fault deserved or needed, rather our pity more than 
 others." 
 
 " Quite a different statement," replied Jesse. 
 
 " It seems to me about the same." 
 
 " To say that darkness is in need of light, is that to say 
 that black is white, or that night is day? You who are 
 nearest to me should not set the world an example of mis- 
 undersjanding." Jesse's manner was gentle, but Peter 
 realised that he had failed in discernment. It was not 
 the first time that one of Jesse's own had perverted his 
 teaching, nor would it be the last. 
 
 " Was there anything else in my talk to-day which 
 puzzled you, Peter ? " 
 
 "Yes, Master. You said, or it seemed to me you said, 
 that not one of us would dare to let other people really 
 understand him. Now I've been an honest man all my 
 life." 
 
 Jesse laid his arm around the shoulders of his friend 
 and looked down into his eyes. 
 
 " Do you remember," he said gently, " the little serving- 
 maid who left your house soon after I came here? " 
 
 Peter answered in a low, firm voice: " I was never 
 once in a room alone with her." 
 
 " That is true; but can you say that you never wished 
 to be, during the weeks she lived here?" 
 
 " I am humbled, Master, and reproved. I will never 
 again question the truth of your teaching. Is there noth- 
 ing hidden from your eyes? " 
 
 341
 
 342 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " There is nothing which needs to be hidden from my 
 eyes," was Jesse's answer. " Do men raise an umbrella 
 when the moon shines? The gaze of the understanding 
 love is gentler than the gaze of the new moon." 
 
 Many of Jesse's doings were as grievously misunder- 
 stood as were his words. Among the new followers who 
 joined him soon after his return to Capronville was the 
 keeper of the village livery-stable, a man who had lived a 
 wild and self-indulgent life; but who, from the hour when 
 he first listened to Jesse, renounced his reckless ways, and 
 tried to lead as many as possible of his former boon com- 
 panions to follow the pure life of the new teacher. Jesse 
 dined one day at this man's house, to the amazement of 
 the rich people of the village, who were fascinated by the 
 personality and teachings of the young master, and would 
 have joined his flock had he given up the common habit 
 of preaching in the streets and open fields and associating 
 with outcasts. 
 
 The women would have liked to ask him to their parties, 
 he was so handsome and so courteous in manner; but, 
 somehow, they were never quite sure how he would re- 
 ceive the invitation to leave the dusty open road for the 
 flowery but walled-in garden. It would have been quite 
 impossible to extend the invitation to his friends and dis- 
 ciples, and he might have objected to leaving them behind. 
 So reasoned the rich women of the town; but they went 
 in groups to hear him preach, they talked about him much 
 of the time and thought about him all the time. 
 
 It was at this period that he made one of his most re- 
 markable cures, snatching back the soul of a little girl of 
 twelve years from the very clutches of death. Though he 
 charged the father and mother of the child to tell no 
 one, the story spread with a growing multiplicity of de- 
 tails from house to house and from village to village, till 
 the name of Jesse Bethel was on the lips of every man 
 and woman and child in that part of the State. His 
 preaching alone would have surrounded him with crowds 
 of eager listeners; but the cures he performed thrilled 
 the imagination of the people to a fever of enthusiasm. 
 There were circulated about him even wild and improb-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 343 
 
 able stories, and a legend of his miraculous birth was ger- 
 minating already in those early days in Capronville. 
 
 At first he went about from village to village preach- 
 ing, with all his disciples and intimates together; but as 
 the summer advanced, and the popular interest in him 
 grew more and more intense, he told the men in whom 
 he had most confidence that the time was come for them 
 to go out ahead of him, themselves preaching the doctrine 
 of the indwelling Spirit, curing the sick by the power of 
 faith as he had done before them, and telling all who 
 would listen of the great things they had seen and heard. 
 The grief of the men at the thought of leaving him was 
 as deep as their desire to serve him. They had returned 
 to Capronville for a few days after a happy journey to- 
 gether round the neighbouring towns, and they were at 
 Peter's house when Jesse told the men that they must 
 go out, two by two, in different directions. John, 
 always emotional as a woman, wept when the announce- 
 ment came; though all of them had been prepared 
 for it. 
 
 " How can I leave you, Master ! " he cried, struggling 
 with the sorrow that choked his voice. 
 
 " He only is my true friend and my disciple who is 
 willing to leave me, and to carry my message to those who 
 need it. Is it for this little group alone that I harrow 
 the spiritual field? Out of the richness of your harvest 
 must come the seed of future harvests which other men 
 shall reap. He is nearest to me who is willing to go 
 farthest from me, that my mission may be fulfilled. The 
 foreign ambassador is nearer to the king than is the page 
 who carries the royal mantle." 
 
 " It is sad," said Andrew, " that those who love each 
 other should be separated." 
 
 " Such separation is of the body, not of the soul," Jesse 
 answered. " Our separate lives exist that we may come 
 through them to realise there is no separateness." 
 
 " You are the source of all our strength," said Philip. 
 " Without you we are nothing." 
 
 " He who desires to give, and still to give, will find at 
 his disposal all the riches of the Infinite."
 
 344 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I am a plain man," said Peter, " and I have no skill 
 in words." 
 
 "Are you afraid to testify of the faith that is in you? 
 Do you fear to stammer? to appear foolish in the eyes 
 of others? Then is your vanity stronger than your faith. 
 Because your voice is harsh and your language unpolished, 
 will you refuse to point the way to the fountain where 
 you have been refreshed? Does the buttercup refuse to 
 blossom because it is not a rose? The word you fear 
 to utter may be the rope which would keep some strug- 
 gling soul from drowning in the sea of doubt." 
 
 Andrew was even more troubled than Peter at the 
 thought of standing up and preaching before men. His 
 natural shyness rose like a high wall between him and 
 the duty he was about to face. His heart beat fast and 
 his hands trembled at the very thought of the ordeal be- 
 fore him. 
 
 " I am sure," he said, looking at Jesse with his great 
 dog-like eyes, " I am sure that I shall speak worse than 
 any of the others." 
 
 " What of that," Jesse answered, smiling, " if you do 
 the best you can? The desire to surpass your brother 
 in the race of eloquence is the treacherous briar whose 
 touch would make you lame." 
 
 "And how shall I know what to do, not having you 
 to tell me?" 
 
 " Before the pupil can really begin to learn, he has to 
 become his own schoolmaster, nor must he shrink from 
 the discipline he gives himself." 
 
 " And what if people will not listen to me ? " 
 
 " If men refuse to listen, still go on speaking. To him 
 who speaks the truth, even the rocks and the trees must 
 finally listen." 
 
 " We know, Master, that there is much evil in the 
 hearts of men," James said. " Before we go, will you not 
 tell us what we have most to avoid in our dealings with 
 other men ? " 
 
 " Look deep into your own heart, and whatever evil 
 you find there that evil avoid in others." 
 
 They thought he was mocking them, and their faces 
 grew sadder than before; but he went on:
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 345 
 
 " Why do you shrink from the knowledge that you are 
 like your fellow men? Are you not human, even as they 
 are? It is through overcoming evil in yourselves that 
 you learn to pity it in others. A vice is sometimes of 
 more value to the soul than a virtue, through the power 
 and pity which may be gained by conquering it." 
 
 " Master, will you not give us some charm to protect 
 us in danger? " It was the imaginative John who spoke. 
 
 " Yes," Jesse answered, " when any danger threatens 
 you, repeat this all-potent formula: ' God is the Power z and 
 I am the expression of the Power.' ' 
 
 " And when people criticise our doctrine and refuse to 
 listen to us? " 
 
 " Be not discouraged by criticism of your teaching. He 
 who shall try to refute every objection of his critics is like 
 a man who should leap hither and thither on the highway, 
 trying to dodge the shadows that fall across his path." 
 
 Though it was then about ten o'clock at night, he took 
 them with him to the top of the adjacent hill where he 
 was wont to commune with the Invisible in solitude, and 
 standing before them, with uplifted face, he called down 
 upon their coming labours the inspiration of that Power 
 whose instrument he felt himself to be. 
 
 " O Thou whose habitation is in every heart," he prayed, 
 " Thou who slumberest in the souls of men, awake in these 
 my children ! Descend upon them, arise within them, 
 ravish them with Thy glory. Touch their lips with the 
 fire of Thy word, their hands with the healing of Thy 
 love, their faith with the answer of Thy presence. Make 
 them to burn like candles upon the altar of mankind. Be 
 Thou the urge in their souls, the zeal in their devotion ; 
 drive them like leaves before the wind on Thy business 
 of inspiring the souls of men." 
 
 Listening in the darkness, their souls caught fire from 
 his, and their lips moved, following his prayer. He had 
 endued them with his own spirit. 
 
 Telling them to be ready to start in the morning, he 
 sent them back to the house. But he remained upon the 
 hill, praying hour after hour, throwing himself like a 
 fearless swimmer upon the waves of the spiritual ocean, 
 wrestling with them, conquering them, making his way
 
 346 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 to the goal by the power of his indomitable will. At 
 dawn he went back to where his disciples waited, knowing 
 that all the night he had been commanding their alert 
 and responsive spirits, while their bodies lay locked in 
 slumber. As they greeted him, he saw that every face 
 was alight with the fire of his long vigil. 
 
 Then, two by two, he sent them out in all directions; 
 and in choosing those who were to go together, he gave 
 each man as a travelling companion that one whom he 
 least loved and understood, that through the intimacies of 
 their journey and the unity of their purpose they might 
 draw nearer to each other. 
 
 These were his last words to them: 
 
 " Remember that my spirit dwells in each of you, and 
 that each of you is myself. Whatever I have done through 
 this body which you see before you, that can I also do 
 through yours. When you lay your hands upon a man 
 to heal him, my faith shall work the miracle of cure. When 
 you open your lips to declare my doctrine, I am the word 
 which proceeds out of your mouth. 
 
 " Fear nothing, and surrender yourselves to the Spirit. 
 For before you can conquer the world, the Spirit must 
 have conquered ' you. 
 
 " When you shall have learned obedience to the King 
 that is throned in the centre of your own being, then 
 shall the kings of the world come to you for instruction. 
 
 " Preach the doctrine of the Spirit ; not that yourselves 
 may be rewarded, but that all men may know the doc- 
 trine of the Spirit. 
 
 " Deliver your message in words which your listeners 
 can understand. He who shall use the German language 
 in speaking to Italians will seem to them a foreigner and 
 an alien. 
 
 " Do not give to any pupil a lesson beyond his power 
 to grasp. He who wishes to play with children must 
 choose games which they can understand. 
 
 " Follow the guidance of the Spirit in all things; and 
 when in doubt as to any direction, listen for my assenting 
 voice and it may be that you shall hear it. 
 
 "When men question you with sincerity, declare unto
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 347 
 
 them the truths of the Spirit; when men question you with 
 insincerity, declare unto them also the truths of the Spirit. 
 
 " If any shall scorn you as homeless wanderers, invite 
 them to enter with you the spiritual home. 
 
 " To those who greet you harshly, reply with gentle- 
 ness; to those who shall greet you gently, deliver the mes- 
 sage of my love. 
 
 " Remember that when the pupil is ready, the teacher 
 is ready; so fear not to answer any who shall ask of you 
 for knowledge of the Spirit and of me. 
 
 " From all public storms and hatreds, seek shelter in 
 secret devotion."
 
 CHAPTER LV 
 
 FROM THE JOURNAL OF MARY MAGNUS 
 
 HE has sent the men away to preach and to make con- 
 verts, but me he has not sent away. Yet of all his fol- 
 lowers it would seem that I am the one best fitted for 
 that labour. Why am I spared the pain of leaving him? 
 But no, it is not that. He would not spare me pain. 
 It is because he thinks it best for the work that I should 
 not go out with the others. Does he fear that the inten- 
 sity of my words in testimony of his teaching might be 
 interpreted as personal devotion to the teacher? Yet they 
 are all devoted. How wise you are, Jesse, for all your 
 purity! To be pure is to be unmixed, an old teacher of 
 mine once told me. Is the soul pure when it is unmixed 
 with the desires of the earth? The soul of my Master 
 seems to touch the earth only to raise and chasten it 
 never to mix with it. Yet he told our friends in Myra 
 that I was greater than any of them. They may have 
 misunderstood him. Which is better, I wonder, greatness 
 or purity? He is both great and pure. 
 
 Sometimes it seems that I am walking in a dream. Does 
 this strange life that I am living appear unreal by reason 
 of its very reality? It may be so. It is incredible that I 
 should dwell so near to him and not break my heart 
 either with happiness or pain. And I am his disciple! 
 I love and serve the cause he loves the revelation of the 
 spiritual consciousness to a matter-blinded world. I do 
 this, I who am often more blinded by matter than any of 
 those who deny the Spirit. Oh! where does the body leave 
 off and the soul begin? And is not the heart between the 
 two crucified between the two? 
 
 " Mary," he said to me one day, " the sun that makes 
 the fecund earth to blossom and bear fruit is the same 
 sun that smites to death the traveller in the desert." Then 
 he passed out into the garden, leaving me alone to wonder 
 at his words. 
 
 348
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 349 
 
 Surely the soil of my heart has blossomed and borne fruit, 
 for am I not serving the messenger of the Spirit? I daily 
 buy food for my fellow disciples, and often I cook it for 
 them. I am the comforter and friend of all who doubt 
 their worthiness to be among us. Who should understand 
 them as well as I ? " Sister Mary Magnus is so good 
 herself," he told a poor creature yesterday, " that she helps 
 everyone else to be good." How utterly he trusts me 
 my beautiful Master! 
 
 Yet I am not always good. One day in passing his 
 seat, when there was no one in the room but ourselves, 
 I bent and touched his hair with my hair, lightly as a rose 
 may touch another rose in the breeze. And when, passing 
 on, I turned and looked back at him, smiling his eyes 
 were full of tears! 
 
 Overpowered by the grandeur of his gentleness, I knelt 
 and pressed my forehead to his feet. By some miraculous 
 transformation in me, he was no more the man, but the 
 Master, in an instant. Peter came into the room at that 
 moment and asked what was the matter with me, and 
 Jesse said : " Our sister knows that humility is the path 
 that leads to the stars." 
 
 Peter told the others, and all that evening John and 
 Anna Martin sat on the floor at Jesse's feet in imitation 
 of my humility! 
 
 How strange it is that I never grow restless or discon- 
 tented among these people, so different from myself. Here 
 in the home of Peter and his family I am at home. The 
 children seem to love me almost as well as they do their 
 mother. " Beautiful Mary," they call me ; and when I 
 tell them stories about the strange little people of Japan 
 and India and China, their eyes remind me of Jesse's eyes, 
 twenty years ago, when he told us other children stories 
 from the Book of Wonder, back in the old schoolhouse 
 at Nashburgh. Twenty years ago! And since then I have 
 measured the world, and he has measured the universe. 
 
 Does he ever think of that evening in the garden at 
 Vergennes, I wonder . . or of the letter I sent 
 
 him from Los Angeles . . or of the time I saw 
 
 him in the theatre in New York and ran away because I 
 was afraid? He has never spoken of any of these things,
 
 350 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 and his thoughts no one can guess. Loving and gentle 
 and expansive as he always is, I feel that none of us can 
 yet follow him to that lonely, stupendous height where his 
 spirit holds communion with the unveiled Splendour. 
 Sometimes when we are all sitting together around him, 
 and he has been teaching us how to lighten our heavy 
 lives with the spiritual leaven, suddenly his face is all 
 aflame with a white glory; his eyes are raised in rapt 
 contemplation of some ecstatic vision which we cannot 
 see, and his whole being seems to quiver and melt with 
 beauty. At such times we gaze at him in wonder, and 
 dare not speak. 
 
 O beatific one, if I could only be uplifted for one mo- 
 ment on the fiery wings that carry you away, how gladly 
 would I leave the earth behind for ever and all the hopes 
 of earth! The vision that beckons to my Master is the 
 one Reality, of which all earthly beauty is but a shadow. 
 I know it, I realise it; and yet I only catch rare flashes 
 of the effulgence that lights his every hour. 
 
 " Love me, and follow in my footsteps," he tells our fellow 
 disciples, Peter and the others. And they answer him: 
 " We do love you, Master, and will follow you to the 
 end of the world." 
 
 But when he and John and I are alone together, as we 
 are sometimes, he never tells us to love him; but he says: 
 " Adore the Spirit. It is the Father, the Mother, the 
 Lover, the Friend. Reach to It with your souls. It is 
 ravished with the idea of giving Itself to one who can 
 receive it. It is the one inextinguishable Flame, and It 
 yearns for all humanity to light their candles from It. Its 
 power is never exhausted; It burns eternally, and Its sub- 
 stance is never consumed; It is the kindler of the su^ the 
 glamour of the moon, and the stars are the tapers of 
 Its chamber. There is no satisfaction like the love of It, 
 no glory like Its favour. Seek It unceasingly, and you 
 shall find. Some day the windows of the soul will open 
 of themselves, and the great Light will shine in on 
 you." 
 
 And John and I sit spellbound, for the Light he bids 
 us seek for Its own sake is reflected upon our souls from 
 the countenance of our teacher, until it seems to us that
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 351 
 
 he is himself the Light, the Father, the Mother, the Lover, 
 the Friend, and that the stars are the tapers of his chamber. 
 
 But sometimes late at night before I go to sleep, lying 
 very still, I feel a Presence, vast as the starry sky yet 
 nearer and more intimate than all the tender intimacies 
 of earth. And I know that I have touched for a moment the 
 fringe of the Spirit's veil of glory. Is this a hint, a 
 promise of the Vision that came to Jesse on the mountain 
 of illumination? And shall it come to me? I feel that 
 he lives every moment in the presence of this mystery that 
 merely brushes me in passing. Is that why you are so 
 beautiful, my Master? Is that why the sound of your 
 voice rouses a legion of slumbering memories that tap 
 and whisper at the doors of consciousness? Why the touch 
 of your hand is like the lifting of a veil before the eyes of 
 the soul? 
 
 One day at twilight when I was alone in the garden 
 behind Peter's house, leaning on the stone wall and looking 
 down at the river, Jesse came out and stood beside me. I 
 raised my eyes to his for a moment, then we remained 
 there together in silence, looking at the grey water. There 
 is a mystic unity between two human souls when they 
 gaze at the same beautiful thing, even though their minds 
 are filled with unrelated thoughts. I scarcely thought of 
 anything during those exquisite moments; the action of 
 the mind was stilled by the happiness of the soul. And 
 then I heard his voice, that seemed to bring me back from 
 a long distance. 
 
 " Mary, when I am no longer with you, when I am 
 dead, will the memory of these perfect days be enough 
 to fill your heart?" 
 
 The world swam round me, and I closed my eyes to 
 keep from falling. "When you are dead, Jesse?" 
 
 " It is written that I am to die." 
 
 " And shall I survive that, too ? " 
 
 " By many, many years, Mary. Will the memory of 
 these months be enough to fill your life? " 
 
 The idea that he might die had never before come to 
 me. That the happiness of being with him might end 
 that was always my fear; but that this living, radiant 
 entity that was Jesse could be cut off as well expect the
 
 352 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 sun to cease shining. I was so overwhelmed by his ques- 
 tion that I forgot to answer it. 
 
 " I shall be with you all in Spirit, even when my body 
 shall be no more." He felt the shiver that ran through 
 me at the suggestion of the grave for the beautiful being 
 that lived and breathed before me. 
 
 " The body which perishes is not the real I," he went 
 on ; " it is only a garment worn by the imperishable Spirit. 
 You will realise this when my body is only a memory. 
 For I shall be with you at all times, though you do not 
 see me; I shall be a living invisible presence, for ever 
 looking over the shoulders of those who have loved me. 
 Will the consciousness of me be enough to fill your 
 life?" 
 
 Thrice he had asked the question, each time in a differ- 
 ent form of words; but the substance of it was this: If 
 he were to die, and his breathing presence were removed 
 from me, would the consciousness of his immaterial pres- 
 ence be enough to fill my burning woman's heart through 
 all the years of my life? Did I love him well enough to 
 be only the disciple of a dead yet living master, from 
 youth even to old age? This was what he meant, and 
 I answered : 
 
 " Is there -any thing or anybody in the world that would 
 be large enough to hold my heart after you ? " 
 
 " I do not think so, Mary," he said. " That is why I 
 have chosen you as the confidant of this knowledge that 
 has come to me; none of the others may know it yet. Try 
 to become accustomed to the idea of me as an indwelling 
 presence. Hitherto I have told you to meditate upon the 
 Spirit; now think of me as a medium of communication 
 between the world and It." 
 
 " I do not know the two apart," I answered. 
 
 "When I am no longer with you in this body," he 
 continued, " my work will still go on, through you and 
 the others. Give your life to it, Mary, as I have given 
 mine. Though I do not want you to work for reward, 
 yet the reward is great. Give yourself so completely to 
 the cause of the spiritual awakening of the world, that 
 from my home in the centre of the Spirit I may be aware 
 of you as an extension of myself, a part of myself still
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 353 
 
 upon the earth. Then shall the bliss of the Spirit flow 
 through you as it flows through me." 
 
 He turned away and went up the path to the house. 
 When he was gone the night seemed cold, and the garden 
 lonely as the regions of dark space between the stars. I 
 could not follow him into the cheerful room where the 
 others, who had been waiting for him, raised their happy 
 voices to welcome his return. I stole quietly past the 
 open door and up the stairs to my own room, where I 
 threw myself upon the bed and lay without moving, until 
 the grey twilight passed into the black night. Mine was 
 a grief too vast for the comfort of tears, and during those 
 hours I laid upon the altar of sacrifice the last and only 
 thing I had not offered up before the privilege to weep.
 
 CHAPTER LVI 
 
 IT was about the time Jesse sent his disciples out to 
 preach that his two brothers, who had watched with grow- 
 ing anxiety the ever-increasing crowds that followed him, 
 and his incomprehensible exaltation, came to harbour the 
 suspicion that he was not in his right mind. They con- 
 fided their fears to each other and compared their obser- 
 vations of his strange ways. 
 
 " Did you see how his eyes glittered last night, Henry, 
 when he was talking about a coming revolution ? " 
 
 " Yes, Fred ; and did you notice how he turned away 
 that time and gazed up at the ceiling, as if he saw things? " 
 
 The elder brother nodded his head: "I'm afraid we 
 ought to consult a doctor." 
 
 " We could do it without his knowing." 
 
 " Mother mustn't know, either. He's made her as 
 crazy as himself. She actually believes that he's been sent 
 by God to transform the world." 
 
 "Yes, there's no doubt about our duty; we must call 
 in a doctor." 
 
 The medical man chosen by the two brothers was a 
 middle-aged country practitioner, who knew very little 
 about insanity, and therefore assumed with awesome gravity 
 the responsibility of judgment laid upon him. He was to 
 go to Jesse in the guise of a possible convert, having thus 
 an opportunity to question him about his strange beliefs. 
 The brothers arranged for a private interview, telling 
 Jesse, who smiled sadly at them, that the doctor was a 
 man of immense influence whose conversion would bring 
 glory to the cause. 
 
 Jesse received him in a little room on the ground floor 
 used by Peter Bond as an office. He sat in Peter's easy- 
 chair behind the flat-topped desk, and motioned his visitor 
 to the straight chair used by those who came to consult 
 with Peter as to the business of the mill. The simple 
 dignity and beauty of this preacher whose brothers thought 
 
 354
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 355 
 
 him mad, both charmed and perplexed the man of medi- 
 cine. But, faithful to his professional errand, he asked 
 to be enlightened as to the beauties of the new belief. 
 
 Jesse explained to him the meaning of the Spirit, the 
 indwelling Reality which is both God and the soul of man ; 
 he spoke of the love of fellow beings that is the joy of 
 him who realises the unity of all with the one Spirit; of 
 the faith that makes man's will the will of God; of the 
 blissful time to come when the whole world would be 
 united under the banner of love, and men should desire 
 the joys of the Spirit above the pleasures of the flesh. 
 
 " A beautiful belief," said the doctor, whose alert mind 
 had caught every idea in Jesse's words, " a very beautiful be- 
 lief that I should be glad to see realised. But will you 
 tell me," he added, irrelevantly, on the look-out for hal- 
 lucinations, " if you ever hold converse with spirits and 
 angels?" 
 
 " The quest of the Spirit," said Jesse, " is not a quest 
 of the supernatural. I have never seen an angel, nor do 
 I know of anyone who has; but I am rilled with rapture 
 every day by discovering some angelic quality in the soul 
 of a common man." 
 
 " And do voices ever speak to you out of the air? " 
 
 " The voice of the heart says that all men are brothers, 
 and sons of God." 
 
 "Yes, yes, just so," murmured the doctor. Evidently, 
 he told himself, there were no hallucinations. Then he 
 took another course, saying: 
 
 " This work of yours must be very exhausting the con- 
 stant preaching and healing, the urgent crowds that fol- 
 low you everywhere. Do you sleep well at night ? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you." 
 
 Jesse now leaned back in his chair and looked steadily 
 and sympathetically at his questioner, until the doctor 
 grew uneasy. He began to feel as if he were being 
 examined as to his sanity. But he went on bravely. 
 
 " With this incessant labour, do you not often have 
 pains and weariness in your head ? " 
 
 " No. I have never had a headache in my life, that I 
 remember. But there is a pain which I have much, an 
 almost constant pain."
 
 356 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "Yes?" The doctor brightened perceptibly. 
 
 " The pain," said Jesse, " is in my heart, which aches 
 with pity for the awful suffering of humanity." 
 
 " I feel that, too," responded the doctor, who was a 
 kind-hearted man, full of emotion. " In my Drofession I 
 see so much suffering." 
 
 " Shall I tell you a story, Doctor? " Jesse's smile was 
 like the smile of a mother for her child at the twilight 
 hour. He did not wait for an answer, but went on: 
 
 " There were two children who lived in a humble house 
 on the edge of a large green meadow. There was no 
 garden beside the house, and the only flowers they had 
 ever seen were simple daisies and buttercups and dande- 
 lions. 
 
 " One day the children found, growing upon an eleva- 
 tion, a strange white flower. The plant had been there a long 
 time, though it had not blossomed before. Now the chil- 
 dren had been warned from babyhood never to touch 
 an unfamiliar flower, for fear it might be poisonous; and 
 when they saw the great white blossom they distrusted 
 it. It was so much larger than the daisies and buttercups 
 and dandelions growing in the meadow. And when they 
 drew timidly a little nearer, and the sweet, strong scent 
 of the flower was borne to them on the air, they were still 
 more afraid. ' It must be poisonous,' they said to one 
 another, ' it is so large and smells so sweet.' 
 
 " Then the children saw a stranger passing along the 
 road, and they called him to examine the strange flower 
 and tell them whether they might safely touch and smell it. 
 
 " ' Why,' said the stranger, in surprise, ' this blossom 
 which you fear to touch is the lily, the purest and sweetest 
 flower that blows. I cannot say how it came to grow 
 here in this uncultivated meadow, where there are only 
 simple daisies and buttercups and dandelions; the seed 
 must have been borne on the wind from some far-off gar- 
 den. But enjoy the lily while you may, dear children, for 
 its life is brief. Do not destroy it, and from its seed may 
 possibly grow other lilies to make sweet the world.' " 
 
 Jesse leaned toward the doctor. " Do you like the 
 story? My brothers are the children, and I am the large
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 357 
 
 white lily. Though the plant has been growing near 
 them a long time, it has not blossomed until now." 
 
 " And the stranger ? " The doctor's eyes were large 
 and bright. 
 
 " I think, my friend, that you are the stranger," was 
 Jesse's quiet answer. " And whenever you pass this way, 
 stop and inhale the perfume of the lily. It may be that 
 you will find healing in its breath." 
 
 He arose, and the doctor passed out from the little room 
 and on to the verandah, where the two brothers were wait- 
 ing for him. 
 
 "Well?" whispered Henry. 
 
 "What do you think?" whispered Fred. 
 
 The doctor placed a kind hand on the shoulder of each 
 of the young men. 
 
 " I think," he said, " and this is a free opinion, for which 
 I want no fee, I think that your remarkable brother is 
 the sanest man in all this crazy world. If you and I 
 were as sane as he is, we might measure up about as high 
 as his knees; but as it is, my friends, we don't even come 
 to his shoe-tops." 
 
 " You've taken a load off our minds." declared Fred. 
 
 " And your brother has taken a load off my mind," the 
 doctor answered. "All my life I've wanted to see a 
 great man, and now I've seen him. There are twenty 
 sick folks on my hands just now, but the other doctors 
 will be glad to look after them. I'm going to drop every- 
 thing and follow this light wherever it leads me." 
 
 The next day Jesse left Capronville, going out to preach 
 in the villages round about, and the physician went with 
 him as a new disciple. He also took his mother and the 
 other women, and those among the men who had not 
 already been sent out alone; but he advised his two 
 brothers to return to their families in Myra. 
 
 " It is better," he told them in parting, " to tend well 
 one small square foot of ground, than to sow thistles in the 
 largest field."
 
 CHAPTER LVH 
 
 ON Jesse's return to Capronville, about a fortnight later, 
 the first friends to greet him at the station were Lawrence 
 Lane and his two sisters. Jesse had not found time to 
 write to Lawrence since the early spring; but ever since 
 that summer visit of the Lanes in Myra, five years before, 
 Mary Bethel had been in correspondence with the girls, 
 and during the last few months she had sent them full 
 accounts of Jesse's ministry. They knew all about his 
 preaching; they knew of the cures he had performed, of 
 the multitudes that followed and believed in him, of the 
 twelve men now travelling about as his disciples and 
 speaking in his name; and they treasured above all their 
 other possessions the fragmentary extracts from his ser- 
 mons which the mother had been able to write down for 
 them. 
 
 But, notwithstanding all they had read and all they 
 had imagined, they were unprepared for a meeting with 
 Jesse. He was the same man they had known but not 
 the same. The morning star had become the blazing sun. 
 They were glad that the crowd at the station, pressing 
 round him, demanded his attention for a time; glad that, 
 after the first greetings were over, they could look at 
 him and listen to him in conversation with others, while 
 they gradually adjusted themselves to the change which 
 had made of their simple friend an exalted prophet whose 
 followers could not be counted, and whose very presence 
 was like a breeze of invigorating mountain air in the heat 
 of a dusty valley. 
 
 " And only five years ago we used to talk with him, 
 and even differ from him, as if we were his equals! " ex- 
 claimed Martha in a whisper to her bewildered brother. 
 
 The eyes of Mary Lane were like blue fire with the 
 intensity of her feeling; but her face was pale and her 
 lips were still. The vague emotion of the girl, which 
 had found vent in lonely tears five years before, and had 
 
 358
 
 359 
 
 later pined and died for lack of nourishment, now arose 
 from the grave, transformed and spiritualised purer it 
 could not be, but more ethereal. What might have been 
 human love, in reawakening became divine devotion. 
 
 They saw him cure a cripple, who threw away his 
 crutch and walked like any other man at Jesse's word 
 that he should do so; they saw unemotional New Eng- 
 landers so carried away by emotion for this man that 
 they kissed his hands and even his garments, forgetting 
 their habitual reserve; they felt the atmosphere of other- 
 worldness, the vibration of spirituality which surrounded 
 him, and within whose radius the marvellous seemed nor- 
 mal and enthusiasm seemed inevitable. They, too, were 
 carried away by the Spirit that burned in Jesse, even as 
 hundreds of others had been before them and as thousands 
 would be after them. Even before they left the station 
 and started with Jesse for Peter's house, each of the three 
 had made a secret vow to live by the light of Jesse's faith. 
 Though they could hardly have defined it, yet were they 
 filled with it. 
 
 They arrived at the house about dinner-time, and Jesse 
 asked the two girls to sit on either side of him at the table, 
 Lawrence being seated next to his sister Mary on the left- 
 hand side, and Mary Bethel next to Martha on the right. 
 Peter and the other men were still away, and as it was 
 impossible for them to feed the crowds of people that fol- 
 lowed Jesse, there were no others present at the dinner 
 that day except the women who were always with him, 
 the recently converted doctor, the little group of sweet- 
 faced children, with Peter's wife and mother-in-law, and 
 the handsome middle-aged woman who was the mother of 
 James and John Dana. Mary Magnus was absent, for 
 the first time since she had joined the followers of Jesse 
 in the early summer. A matter of business had called her 
 to Vergennes that morning, nor did she return until after 
 Lawrence and his sisters had ended their three days' visit. 
 Thus it happened that they did not meet her until the 
 following year. 
 
 In his gladness at seeing these friends of other days, 
 Jesse seemed to his mother to have become more youthful; 
 while they, in turn, were exalted by his presence, so that
 
 3 6o THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 a balance was struck between them, and all were now 
 happy and at ease. 
 
 " New York is the place for a great teacher," Lawrence 
 said, accepting with a smile the bread which Jesse offered 
 him. " Do you not intend soon to come down to us? " 
 
 " I do," replied Jesse, with a quick glance at his mother, 
 which she understood as an appeal for silence regarding 
 her own dread of New York. " When I have balanced 
 my accounts with those whose needs I serve around these 
 farms and villages, then I will open a new ledger for the 
 more extensive business of the Spirit which I hope to carry 
 on with the great city." 
 
 " And will you not employ me as bookkeeper in the 
 business of the Spirit?" Lawrence asked, falling in with 
 Jesse's mood and with his metaphor. " I have had a long 
 experience in keeping the accounts of the Spirit's most 
 formidable rival Matter." 
 
 The pseudo-master never ventures to play with his 
 disciples, nor the very young teacher with his pupils; but 
 he whose mastership and authority are sure, delights in 
 such relaxation. It serves as an elastic spring-board from 
 which to leap to the serious heights of Truth. 
 
 "I cannot pay you wages," Jesse said; "but I can 
 promise you an interest in the business a gradually in- 
 creasing interest." 
 
 John's mother, from whom her son had not inherited 
 his imagination, was puzzled and half-shocked by this toying 
 with sacred things; but Jesse, seeing the trouble in her 
 eyes, gave her such a warm and reassuring smile that 
 she was comforted and smiled at him in return. 
 
 " It is through play," he said to her, " that all young 
 things develop strength and fit themselves for the labours 
 of maturity. These friends of mine are such young things 
 in the spiritual life, that I encourage them to frolic with 
 faith, that they may gather strength. The Spirit is not 
 resentful of familiarities. Does a mother reprove her 
 child for taking liberties with her? Many respect God 
 without loving Him; but they who love God are in no 
 danger of dishonouring Him." 
 
 So Jesse lessened, by subtle words and tender smiles, 
 the immeasurable distance which separated his conscious-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 361 
 
 ness from the consciousness of these dear ones who had 
 loved him before his days of Mastership. Then, by 
 gradual degrees, he led them with him up the steep height 
 of spiritual aspiration. 
 
 Jesse was to preach that evening at the twilight hour, 
 and during dinner Mary Bethel told the visitors about 
 the songs which had been composed for his meetings, and 
 expressed regret that Mary Magnus was not with them 
 now, so that the Lanes might hear her sing the songs. 
 
 From the letters of Jesse's mother, Mary Lane had con- 
 ceived a vivid interest in " the other Mary," as she called 
 her, an interest made up of diverse elements. She was 
 not conscious of being jealous of the brilliant and beautiful 
 woman who bore her name, but she was keenly disappointed 
 that she was not to see for herself why everyone de- 
 scribed her as so fascinating and so good. She was less 
 impressed w r ith the knowledge that the pale girl at the 
 end of the table had written the words of the songs which 
 Jesse seemed to value so highly than she was with the 
 knowledge that the absent one, " the other Mary," had 
 written the music. Mary Lane knew good music when 
 she heard it, and after dinner she got the songs from Anna 
 Martin and played them over on the piano. Their beauty 
 made her sad ; but as she listened to the harmonies that 
 flowed from beneath her fingers, she was conscious of a 
 strange new feeling a throbbing in her heart of sisterly 
 love for the one who had woven those harmonies. How 
 blest was she in being privileged to serve with her art 
 " the Master," as they called him ! The Master ! And 
 little Mary had wept in the long ago because he had never 
 seemed to love her any better than he loved Lawrence and 
 Martha! She was now appalled at the greatness of her 
 presumption. Sitting alone before the piano she let her 
 fingers lie motionless in her lap, while she repeated softly 
 to herself, " The Master, the Master." Her imagination 
 took fire. She, too, would be his disciple; and though 
 she could not make great music for his cause, she could 
 absorb, and give again to others, the spirit of his teachings. 
 
 She now rose from the piano and went into the next 
 room where Jesse sat surrounded by his friends, and asked 
 him timidly if he would explain to her more fully the
 
 362 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 faith she had accepted on the strength of her faith in 
 him. Lawrence and Martha listened also to Jesse's clear 
 exposition of the cardinal points of his belief; and when, 
 after an hour or more, he ceased speaking, all three de- 
 clared themselves his converts, Martha with strong, de- 
 cisive words, Lawrence more quietly, Mary almost inar- 
 ticulately because of her falling tears. 
 
 Three days they remained, the limit of the time Law- 
 rence could be spared from his duties in the city; for he 
 was not one of those whom Jesse advised to leave every- 
 thing and be with him constantly. He felt that these three 
 were with him, wherever they might be; and he knew 
 that in some way yet to be revealed these friends would 
 better serve the Spirit by preserving, for the time, their 
 relations with the complex life of the great materialistic 
 city. But though they questioned him, he did not tell 
 them when he would transfer his labours to the larger 
 field. 
 
 "Write to me constantly," he said to them in parting, 
 " and meditate and talk together constantly on all that 
 I have taught you. Though I cannot say when I shall 
 come, be ready for my coming at all times."
 
 CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 DAILY his fame increased, and daily the crowds that 
 flocked to see and hear him grew larger. Already his 
 name was well known from one end of the little State 
 to the other, and paragraphs about a strangely beautiful 
 young religious teacher who had arisen in Vermont, who 
 cured diseases by the touch of his hands and preached an 
 idealistic faith, began to appear in newspapers all over 
 the country. Letters from strangers, too numerous to 
 answer, poured in upon him from all sides. He continued 
 to preach and heal the sick in all the larger towns and 
 villages within forty miles of Capronville, but he did not 
 go again to the North. 
 
 The North came to him, in the persons of two followers 
 of the famous Hermit, who was still imprisoned on the 
 unproven charge of inciting a riot which ended in violence 
 and bloodshed. 
 
 It was the supper-hour at Peter's house, and Jesse sat 
 at one end of the long table, facing the door, when the 
 two grave men appeared. The happy home, the smiling 
 faces of the men and women, the plentiful fare, were sur- 
 prising to the unbidden guests who stood at the door of 
 the dining-room. They had come down to see a prophet 
 like their own stern master, and they found a smiling man 
 who was the centre of what seemed to them a scene of 
 revelry and feasting. Though Jesse's first disciples were 
 still absent, preaching in other towns, their places were 
 filled by his new followers and friends; and there were 
 many women among them, young as well as old. How 
 different was this scene from the one on which these pil- 
 grims had turned their backs but a few hours before! At 
 noon they were in a bare room in a northern jail, where 
 an emaciated, fiery-eyed prophet exhorted his fellow pris- 
 oners to repentance; at sunset they beheld the new teacher, 
 whose fame already eclipsed their master's, seated at the 
 head of a flower-strewn table, eating and drinking with 
 
 363
 
 364 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 his happy friends, like one for whose word no suffering 
 world was waiting. They watched him a few moments 
 from the shadow of the doorway; then, knocking on the 
 panel to make known their presence, they advanced into 
 the room. 
 
 " You are welcome," Jesse said to them, with his tender 
 smile. " Have you come to join the company of those who 
 love the Spirit better than the body? " 
 
 " We are come from the Hermit who languishes in 
 prison," was their answer. " He sent us to ask if you 
 are really the one whom he has sought." 
 
 The eyes of Jesse filled with tears. " How cruelly 
 your master must have suffered in his prison, if he has 
 come to doubt the truth of his own spiritual recognition 
 of me!" 
 
 Peter's wife, at a sign from Jesse, laid plates and cups 
 for the strangers; and her old mother, whom Jesse had 
 raised from a sick-bed on his return from the North, 
 brought food and drink for them. 
 
 " He did not bid us tell you that he doubted; only to 
 ask if indeed you are the one," the elder of the men de- 
 clared. 
 
 Jesse turned to an eager youth, one of his new friends, 
 who was standing behind his chair. " If there are any 
 waiting outside who wish to be cured, you may bring 
 them in here." 
 
 The youth returned, followed by a score of men and 
 women who crowded about the doorway. From this back- 
 ground three persons separated themselves and came toward 
 Jesse: a young mother holding in her arms a little child 
 wailing with some feverish disease, an old man bent with 
 years and weakness, and a wild-eyed girl whose family 
 thought her insane because she had not spoken a word^ to 
 anyone for more than a month. 
 
 Jesse arose from the table. He stood for a moment with 
 closed eyes, in silent invocation of the Spirit within, while 
 the two visitors watched him with breathless expectation. 
 Then he lifted the feverish, wailing child in his arms and 
 cooled and stilled it, as he had done with that other child 
 in the dooryard of his old home in Nashburgh. With a 
 sigh of comfort it fell asleep, and he gave it back to the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 365 
 
 mother, who kissed his hands and murmured tearful 
 thanks. He straightened up the bent old man, giving him 
 of his own vigour, until a look almost like that of youth 
 came into the dull eyes, and the shoulders squared them- 
 selves for another trial in the battle of life. He took the 
 hands of the wild-eyed girl who had not spoken a word 
 for several weeks, and looking deep into her troubled soul, 
 he soothed that, too, as he had soothed the wailing child. 
 And then he questioned her, charming away her dumb- 
 ness by the sweetness of his appeal. 
 
 " Will you not tell me your name?" 
 
 " Susie London." Her voice was clear and natural, af- 
 ter a month of silence, and the eyes which had been so wild 
 a little while before were now grown soft and wide, like 
 those of a child. 
 
 " Susie, I have a friend here, Rose Thomas," and Jesse 
 took the hand of Rose, who stood near, placing it in the 
 hand of the girl. " I knew her when I was a little child, 
 Susie; and sometimes, when she wished to make me very 
 happy, she would read to me beautiful things from the 
 Psalms of David : ' He that dwelleth in the secret place 
 of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Al- 
 mighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my 
 fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.' Would you not 
 like her to read those things to you ? " 
 
 " I should like it very much, if she would be so kind." 
 There was something pathetic in the tones of the girl's 
 voice and in her manner, half shy, half joyous. She seemed 
 like a child who has been ill, taken out for the first time 
 into the air and sunshine of a blossomy garden. 
 
 " She will read to you for a little while," Jesse con- 
 tinued, " and her voice is very sweet and comforting. Then, 
 when you are tired, she will put you to bed, and sit be- 
 side you until you fall asleep. In the morning you will 
 find her there when you awake, and after breakfast she 
 will take you home to your mother, and you will tell your 
 mother all about it." 
 
 The girl followed Rose Thomas from the room, smiling 
 back over her shoulder at Jesse. When she was gone, he 
 sent one of the young men into the village to tell her 
 mother, from whom she had evidently run away, that she
 
 366 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 would remain in Peter Bond's house that night. Then 
 he turned again to the two messengers of John the Her- 
 mit, who had been gravely looking on at all these things. 
 
 " When you return to your master," he said, " tell him 
 what you have just now seen. But if you are still doubt- 
 ful, you may see greater things. The very children in the 
 streets of Capronville and the neighbouring villages can 
 tell you what has been done in the name of the Spirit. 
 And he who shall truly understand these things shall be 
 happy for ever." 
 
 The two messengers then started on their return jour- 
 ney to the Hermit. 
 
 The rumour of their presence in Capronville had spread 
 through the village, and Jesse went down to the public 
 square that evening to speak to the people about John. 
 Great crowds now followed him wherever he went; and 
 whenever he walked abroad, men and women seemed to rise 
 out of the earth and join him. When he was at Peter's 
 house, whole families from the neighbouring towns camped 
 out on the hill beyond. The entire population of that re- 
 gion was stirred out of its routine of life by the fire and 
 enthusiasm of this one man. He was, one may truly say, 
 a visitor from another stratum of consciousness, and the 
 swift vibration of his presence electrified the slower lives 
 around him. 
 
 " He whom men call the Hermit is now indeed a soli- 
 tary," he told the people that night, with the play upon 
 words which was always a favourite way of his in forcing 
 home an idea. " He is in prison, but he is still John. 
 Did you expect to see him trembling before the judgment 
 of some petty magistrate? Did you expect to see him re- 
 clining on the sofas of the rich, or fawning in the council- 
 chamber of the Governor? John will never do any of these 
 things. But if you have thought to see an inspired man 
 looking fearlessly in the face of a hostile and uncompre- 
 hending world, then you have seen that man in John the 
 Hermit. 
 
 " He who dwells in the Spirit cannot be confined by 
 prison bars and doors. 
 
 " Nor is it necessary that a man's body be devoured by 
 the worms of the earth in order that he may dwell in the
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 367 
 
 Spirit. The way of the grave is not tht way of the Spirit. 
 He who has not pursued the indwelling Spirit during life 
 will not be pursued by the Spirit after death; and he who 
 has not attained the Spirit during life will not attain the 
 Spirit after death. Only he who beats upon the doors of 
 the spiritual home and will not be denied shall enter and 
 dwell therein. But from the day when John the Hermit 
 found the object of his quest until this hour, the spiritual 
 doors have been shaken by the onset of those who have 
 demanded to pass through them. 
 
 "Those who read by the letter of fact instead of by the 
 soul of truth may ask, ' How can a spiritual place have 
 doors?' But only by the use of material symbols can I 
 teach you spiritual truths. The language of the inner 
 spheres is understood only by those who dwell therein. 
 
 " John the Hermit is the greatest of all those who 
 have not forced the spiritual doors by Love which is the 
 only password. But do not think that in one short life in 
 human form a man may acquire the power that is in John. 
 Many times must the revolving periods of day and night 
 pass round the globe before an acorn can become an oak- 
 tree. But through the darkest night the sapling preserves 
 its identity, to reappear in the light of dawn a little larger 
 with the growth of the preceding day and night. 
 
 " John himself has declared that he is the messenger who 
 goes before the dawn. And this is not the first time he has 
 appeared before the dawn of a new era. He has been 
 known in other ages; and so have you and I, and all men. 
 
 " Nothing is ever exactly repeated, not even a blade of 
 grass. But that which has been before shall be again."
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 HOWEVER great the power of Jesse over the pure, the 
 simple-hearted and the young, in the villages where he 
 preached and healed the sick there were some who not only 
 did not believe in him nor his mission, but sought to dis- 
 credit both. Among these were most of the clergy of those 
 towns. 
 
 " Have we not the Bible for a guide ? " they asked. 
 " Must we sit at the feet of this young man for instruc- 
 tion in religion? Why, he has not even been ordained to 
 preach ! " 
 
 If anyone reminded them that none of the great prophets 
 had been so ordained, they shook their heads and declared 
 that the days of inspiration were over. Some, mistaking 
 the light of his countenance, affirmed that he was crazy; 
 others, seeing that he healed the sick without a doctor's 
 certificate, wanted to have him punished for the illegal prac- 
 tise of medicine; but, as he accepted no fee, and no per- 
 son died as the result of his ministrations, they could not 
 effect this purpose; others, again, seeing the great numbers 
 of women, young and old, that surrounded and adored 
 him, made veiled insinuations regarding what they called 
 the morality of his influence. It was even counted against 
 him in that region, as in Nashburgh, that men left their 
 homes to follow him. 
 
 In some places the ministers came together in a body to 
 question him, trying to entrap him into some admission 
 which could be used against him; but they always went 
 away baffled, like those six ministers who had come to 
 Peter's house in Capronville. A few of the clergy, a very 
 few, were moved by his sincerity and the beauty of his 
 teaching, and even offered him the hospitality of their 
 houses of worship (after discreet consultation with the 
 contributing church-members) ; but as no church could 
 hold a tithe of the multitudes that flocked to hear him, he 
 could not accept their offers, though he acknowledged 
 them with gentleness and courtesy. So great was his con- 
 
 368
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 369 
 
 sideration for these men, that his Sunday sermons were 
 now always given in the afternoon, instead of in the 
 morning. Otherwise the churches in whatever town he 
 was visiting would have been empty; for while many 
 might deny and even revile him, none who had once come 
 under the charm of his presence could keep away from him. 
 The minds of men might say no to his appeal, but the 
 souls of men he bound as by a spell. So the clergy were 
 more troubled over this one man who turned his face to 
 the Spirit than over the many sinners who turned their 
 backs upon repentance. 
 
 Jesse was again in Capronville when those whom he 
 had sent out to preach his doctrine returned and gave ac- 
 count of their labours. Though they came from different 
 directions, they all arrived on the same day. He had sent 
 no letters to summon them together; they came as if im- 
 pelled by that guidance he had told them to listen for in the 
 silence of their own hearts. 
 
 " We have preached your word and you, and we have 
 healed the sick, even as you bade us," Peter said; and the 
 stories of the others echoed his. 
 
 " Now you shall all be with me again for a little while, 
 face to face," he promised them. " And when you have 
 refilled your baskets from the storehouse of the Spirit, you 
 shall go out again among those who are starving for 
 spiritual bread. 
 
 He was preaching in a large village some miles east of 
 Capronville when the news reached him that John the Her- 
 mit had died in his northern prison. Grieved that the 
 world was now bereft of the speaking presence of that 
 strong and valiant soul, Jesse immediately left the town 
 and went eastward, seeking the comfort of the quiet moun- 
 tains, and taking with him only the twelve men who had 
 been chosen and sealed as his principal coworkers. But 
 the crowds that had gathered to hear him would not be 
 denied; when they learned the direction he had taken they 
 followed a long distance, and overtook him in a lonely 
 place in the shadow of the mountain. After many hours, 
 during which he taught them of the unseen spiritual world 
 surrounding and interpenetrating the visible world, he sent
 
 370 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 them back again to the places whence they came, filled 
 with the consciousness of the indwelling Presence. 
 
 When Jesse and the twelve sat together in the early 
 moonlight, after the crowd had been dismissed, John said: 
 
 " Master, you have fed to-day a hungry multitude with 
 spiritual bread." 
 
 "And yet we have plenty for ourselves," replied Jesse. 
 " As I have told you before, we can never really possess 
 anything until we have given it away. To-day we have 
 fed a great multitude with the bread of the Spirit, and yet," 
 glancing round the circle of twelve men, " there remain to 
 us twelve baskets full" 
 
 " We are, indeed, baskets filled to the rim and piled up 
 with the bread of heaven," James said, and the others an- 
 swered, " Yes." 
 
 Then they talked together of the Hermit who was dead; 
 and Andrew, who had spent some time with him before he 
 followed this gentler master, told them stories of the austere 
 life of him who no longer had a body to chasten by fast- 
 ing and vigils. 
 
 It was that same night when Peter, in answer to Jesse's 
 question as to w hat they believed him to be, made the po- 
 tent declaration that he was the very Spirit made flesh, 
 the incarnation of God. The other men, who had often 
 asked themselves the question without daring the supreme 
 answer made by Peter, were stirred to the depths by this 
 confirmation of their own thought. But why had he chosen 
 them, simple and ignorant men, for his intimate compan- 
 ions, when the wisest of the earth might have been sitting 
 at his feet, in their places? He answered their unspoken 
 question : 
 
 " Does not the mother reveal to the simple and un- 
 learned children at her knee wonders of love she could not 
 speak to the wisest of grown men and women? By the 
 very simplicity of your minds are you able to receive the 
 profoundest wisdom which is always simple. But the 
 time is not come when you can wisely reveal to others all 
 you know and feel about me." 
 
 Then he spoke to them again concerning the death of 
 the Hermit, and reminded them that all who wear the 
 garment of the flesh must lay it off.
 
 " Even I," he said, " shall become invisible some day. 
 But when you no longer see me, I shall be present with 
 you as a breath, an influence, leading you on in the minis- 
 try of revealing the Spirit to the men of earth. When I am 
 dead, the work the preaching of the faith must still con- 
 tinue." 
 
 " When you are dead ! " It was a hoarse cry from the 
 lips of all. 
 
 ' Yes, for the time is not far off when I must make 
 the final sacrifice of the flesh to the Spirit. The autumn 
 will soon be here. Through the winter I shall be with 
 you; but when the spring comes up from the South I must 
 go down to meet it, down to the great city where I must 
 lay the final stone in the temple of my faith the great 
 city where my bodily death will be the price of spiritual 
 victory. And I shall die by violence at the hands of those 
 who shall reject the Spirit." 
 
 Peter sprang to his feet. " Master, it must not be ! " 
 he cried. " It shall not be ! " And he took hold of Jesse, 
 as if to draw him back by force from the threatening fu- 
 ture. 
 
 Jesse's look was a reproof, before he spoke: 
 
 " Is it better, then, that you should enjoy the pleasure 
 of my presence, and my mission be unfulfilled? Would 
 you hold me back from the purpose for which I came into 
 the world? " 
 
 " But if you die," persisted Peter, " how can your pur- 
 pose be fulfilled ? Can a man work after he is dead ? " 
 
 The wind was rising in the mountains before them, and 
 its low murmur sounded like a warning from the vast 
 powers of Nature that watched and listened. John shivered, 
 and drew his coat closer about him. 
 
 " To die is a part of my work," the Master went on, 
 his voice rising with the voice of the wind. " Can I not 
 speak with your tongues when my own shall be silent? 
 Only he who can live without my bodily presence shall feel 
 my spirit constantly within him. When the self no longer 
 cries for anything, then the soul comes into its divine in- 
 heritance." 
 
 John's hand went out and sought the hand of Jesse. 
 The boy's face was wet with tears.
 
 372 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "There is always a price set," the thrilling voice went 
 on. " The price of the ecstasy of motherhood is the pain 
 of giving birth. The price of immortality is death." 
 
 " Master, is not your life too valuable to be sacrificed ? " 
 It was Andrew who spoke; and though he asked a question, 
 his tone had all the firmness of an affirmation. 
 
 Jesse answered : " When a man shall know his life to 
 be more valuable than the life of any other, then will he 
 be willing to sacrifice that life upon the altar of the world." 
 
 They were heavy-hearted. That very night they had de- 
 clared him to be the supreme Spirit in man's form, and even 
 then he was preparing to die the death of an ordinary man! 
 The twelve composed their limbs to rest; but for a long 
 time sleep would not come near them. 
 
 Judson, especially, was restless and miserable. Was 
 this pleasant life to last a few months only? When Jesse 
 had sent the men out to preach he had sent Judson and 
 Andrew together, and the ministry of these two had been 
 less brilliant than some of the others. And now unwel- 
 come doubts came whispering to this disciple. The Mas- 
 ter had spoken of death by violence, spoken of the rejection 
 of his teaching. Were they then to be dishonoured in the 
 eyes of the world? Judson had had enough of dishonour. 
 For hours he turned from side to side, listening to the 
 wind among the mountains; and in the morning he was 
 haggard and absent-minded. 
 
 They were in Rutland the following day, when a letter 
 was brought to Jesse from a man who wrote on behalf of 
 the Governor of the State, saying there were many promi- 
 nent persons in the North, including that high official him- 
 self, who were desirous to see and hear the young preacher 
 of whom such remarkable stories were told. 
 
 Peter read the letter aloud to the little band, as they sat 
 at dinner in the house of one of their new converts; and the 
 heart of the troubled Judson again beat high in his bosom. 
 
 " Now, surely, Master, that is an honour," he cried, 
 "when the Governor himself sends for you! If you can 
 win his support, and the support of the other prominent 
 persons spoken of in the letter, why, all the things you 
 dread may be avoided."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 373 
 
 Jesse looked at him some moments before answering. 
 
 " You mistake," he said, " I dread nothing. And how 
 high must be your respect for the indwelling and immortal 
 One, when you think It can be honoured by the Governor 
 and other prominent persons! " 
 
 " But surely " Judson began ; then wavered, for he 
 
 knew not what to say. 
 
 " My mission is not to appease the idle curiosity of 
 prominent persons," Jesse went on, " but to speak the word 
 of spiritual life to all who will hear it. These prominent 
 persons are too well satisfied with their own prominence 
 to exchange it for the humility of spiritual service. It is 
 not they through whom the world will be transformed. 
 Shall the denier of self be fed from the plate of the self- 
 satisfied? Will a ruler sign the warrant for his own exe- 
 cution? " 
 
 Then Jesse turned to Peter, giving him instructions 
 to write to the man who wrote for the Governor, saying 
 that the messenger of the coming spiritual era would con- 
 tinue to deliver his word to seekers after truth in the re- 
 gion where he then was; and that all who came to him, 
 rich and poor, were given to drink of the same cup, in 
 faith and brotherly love. 
 
 A few days later Jesse took the three who were now 
 nearest to him, Peter, James and John, and again sought 
 the solitude of a night upon the mountain. It was the 
 time of the full moon, and the surface of the little mountain 
 stream, the smooth bark of the birch-trees, and every leaf 
 swaying in the wind, seemed touched with silver. He led 
 them on and up, to the very top of the mountain; and be- 
 fore they fell asleep, wearied with much walking, the last 
 thing their eyes rested on was the form of their Master, 
 standing in prayer a little way from them, his palms ex- 
 tended, his face uplifted to the moon, and all his being 
 flooded and illumined with the unearthly radiance. 
 
 As they closed their eyes on the entrancing picture, their 
 souls passed out into that mystic mid-region between the 
 waking world and the ocean of sleep the region of visions 
 wherein seers behold those wonders which, recorded in wise 
 books, are mankind's most precious promises of another and
 
 374 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 purer existence, outside the present limitations of flesh 
 and time and space. And as the unveiled sun, the sun it- 
 self, must be far brighter than as we see it through the 
 mists of the earth-atmosphere, so the unveiled Reality of 
 their Master, as they saw him thus in spiritual vision, was 
 far more luminous and beautiful than the physical appear- 
 ance they had seen a moment before upon the moonlit 
 mountain. The souls of the three men beheld the same 
 vision at the same moment of time their Master trans- 
 figured and shining with such light as never may be seen 
 by open earthly eyes. And in the vision he was not alone, 
 for angelic forms were with him, and he seemed to hold 
 converse with them. 
 
 In that strange mid-region sound comes as well as sight, 
 though it comes more rarely. The inner ears of the three 
 men were opened for the mystic hearing, and a voice de- 
 clared to them transcendent things about their Master, 
 things they were afterward forbidden to repeat. And their 
 souls were overwhelmed with wonder and weak with hu- 
 man fear. 
 
 Awaking from the vision and opening their eyes, they 
 perceived that Jesse had touched them. Tall, calm and 
 beautiful, he stood alone in the moonlight; the ethereal be- 
 ings they had seen in converse with him were no longer 
 there. They knew they had not been dreaming, knew they 
 had been instructed by a Power beyond their comprehen- 
 sion; though the full meaning of its message was only to 
 be realised in after years.
 
 So the summer and autumn passed, each month crowded 
 with incidents too numerous to record. Among those who 
 absorbed the teachings of Jesse Bethel were many others, 
 besides the twelve, whom he sent out to preach as soon as 
 they were ready for the trust. Even beyond Burlington 
 in the North these new disciples went, and below Ben- 
 nington in the South; so that by the time the early snow 
 made outdoor preaching difficult, there was hardly a town 
 of any size throughout the little State which had not lis- 
 tened to the thrilling voice of one of Jesse's messengers; 
 hardly a man or woman who had not heard the prophecy 
 of a coming revolution, by which the powers of gold and 
 greed and selfishness should be laid low, and the gentle in- 
 fluences of love and faith should be triumphant a revolu- 
 tion that would exalt the universal possessions of the Spirit 
 above the personal vanities of the flesh. 
 
 There were many to whom these teachings were mere 
 empty words; but there were many others to whom they 
 came like the songs of their own beloved country to exiles 
 in a foreign land. For, as Jesse said, the children and 
 lovers of the Spirit are always exiles in a world where 
 Greed and Matter are sovereign and god. But not yet 
 had the time come for the prophet of the new era to at- 
 tack these monsters in their central stronghold the great 
 city where Greed and Matter are Church and State, 
 where the values of spiritual things are quoted in the mar- 
 ket, and Beauty and Poetry are always in pawn. 
 
 The winter is very cold in that part of New England, 
 and the snow is deep; but, on the other hand, it is the time 
 of greatest leisure with the farming population. Jesse 
 continued to send his disciples here and there through the 
 coldest months, though they were obliged to speak in public 
 halls, sometimes hired for the purpose, in those towns 
 
 375
 
 376 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 where the use of the churches was refused them. Jesse's 
 cousin, Jim Bethel, whose wife and brother had joined them 
 at Capronville after the autumn harvesting, was one of the 
 men whom Jesse sent out to preach during the winter; but 
 he did not send him to their native place. 
 
 The propaganda of the new faith was not hampered by 
 the lack of funds, for Mary Magnus was rich, and Peter 
 and Andrew and several of the new disciples were far 
 from being poor. But no large amount of money was 
 needed for this work, as the travelling disciples were in 
 nearly all cases welcomed with enthusiasm in the houses 
 of those who were eager to learn about Jesse Bethel. 
 
 Indeed, so great was the public curiosity regarding him, 
 that a few penniless and dishonest men with ready tongues, 
 who had merely heard him preach somewhere and had 
 picked up a few of his phrases, found shelter and food on 
 many a cold night by pretending to be his disciples, and 
 relating to their fascinated hosts, thus gained by fraud, true 
 stories of the lovely personality, the sermons and marvel- 
 lous cures of Jesse Bethel. So many an insincere and self- 
 appointed minister, in every age, has filled his stomach and 
 warmed his hands by repeating the immortal words of a 
 great teacher. 
 
 At one time, in the early autumn, many of Jesse's new 
 followers had left him, shocked by his fearless speech and 
 bewildered by the strange symbolical language in which 
 he often clothed the naked beauty of his thought. But 
 for every one who went away, two new ones came; and 
 even of those deserters who had believed they could live 
 without him, more than a few returned in shame to throw 
 themselves upon his pity and forgiveness. And he did not 
 turn them away. 
 
 " As the mother receives back a runaway child," he said 
 to them, " so I receive you back. As the doors of the heart 
 of God which never close, so are the doors of my 
 heart." 
 
 And they who thus returned in shame, and were received 
 with pity and love, were faithful to him thereafter even 
 unto death. 
 
 Peter and Judson were at first much troubled at this let-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 377 
 
 ting down of the bars of mercy to the runaway sheep that 
 came to bleat outside. 
 
 " Shall the faithless be even as the faithful ? " Peter 
 asked. " Must I receive in my house these men who turned 
 against my Master?" 
 
 " You need not receive them in your house," was Jesse's 
 gentle answer. " I can break with them the bread of for- 
 giveness under the open sky; and as it rains to-day, there 
 will be no need to explain the moisture in our eyes, which 
 may be the moisture of heaven. He who bars his door 
 against the angels of pity and forgiveness, will always find 
 his Master upon the outside." 
 
 "I am myself unworthy to be your disciple!" Peter 
 cried. "I see that I have denied the spirit of your teach- 
 ing even as they." 
 
 " Were you perfect," replied Jesse, " then would you 
 have no need to learn of me." 
 
 Though many of Jesse's disciples were constantly travel- 
 ling about, and sending their more earnest inquirers down 
 to Capronville to sit at the feet of the Master, he was him- 
 self very quiet during the latter part of the winter. It 
 seemed as if he were consciously working in harmony with 
 that true rhythm by which all things move; as if he were 
 purposely withdrawing himself, like the waters of the ocean 
 at ebb-tide, that when the hour of the flood-tide came he 
 might dash himself with renewed vigour and irresistible 
 power high up against the rocky strand of the world's 
 life. 
 
 For six months he had not known a day of rest, and few 
 had been his hours of solitude; but he now secluded him- 
 self as much as possible, though he could not turn away the 
 sufferers in spirit and in body who came, many of them 
 from distant places, to hear his voice and to receive his heal- 
 ing touch. Long hours he spent in meditation and prayer 
 in the room which was held sacred to him. 
 
 " The builder rests but a brief time," he told his friends, 
 " for he has yet to finish the building, and nail the flag 
 upon the very tower." 
 
 His mother, who heard the words, knew of what he 
 was thinking, and asked leave to follow him to his room.
 
 378 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "When are you going down there? " she asked, as soon 
 as the door was shut. She could not bring herself to name 
 the city of her dread. 
 
 "When the spring comes, then I am going." 
 
 " And who will go with you ? " 
 
 "You will all go with me, little Mother." 
 
 " Even I, and Mary, and Anna, and Rose, and John's 
 mother, too ? " 
 
 "Yes, for the faith of woman is a torch in the dark 
 night." 
 
 " Jesse, you frighten me! 
 
 "Does your torch, then, flicker in the wind of fear?" 
 In his eyes was a look of tenderness past understanding, 
 but his tone was steady and almost cold. 
 
 "What terrible battle are you going into, my son?" 
 
 " The battle of the Spirit and of truth, against material- 
 ism and falsehood. But if there is quiet in your soul, the 
 roar of the greatest battle will not have power to disturb 
 you." 
 
 " But you are my little child, the baby I nursed at my 
 breast. . . ." Her voice shook and broke, and her 
 eyes were wet with tears. 
 
 Jesse took the quivering form of the mother in his arms 
 and led her to a chair. 
 
 " Sit here beside me, Mother. You love me, do you not? 
 And you would gladly die to prove your love ? " 
 
 "To save you? Oh, gladly would I die to prove my 
 love and to save you ! " 
 
 " Then shall I not gladly die to prove my love to the 
 world, and to save it, if possible, from spiritual death ? " 
 
 " Can your death save the world ? " 
 
 " My death can show the world the way to save itself. 
 How? By the revelation of that love which sacrifices self. 
 Man can be saved only by sacrifice; because the soul of 
 man is sunk so deep in matter, that only by making of his 
 own life a rope whereby the souls of other men may climb, 
 can one help those blind and matter-laden souls to reach 
 upward to the light. My life will be that rope. Death 
 is the unanswerable argument, dear Mother; its logic sur- 
 passes that of the schools." 
 
 " And how shall you die? In what inconceivable way? "
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 379 
 
 "What matter? Death is one, though the doors of 
 death are many." 
 
 After a little silence he went on speaking, as if to him- 
 self, in a strange, rapt voice: 
 
 " To the souls of millions now unborn I shall become 
 the very symbol of sacrificial love, the hope and promise of 
 a passion beyond self; I shall be the dream of those who 
 give themselves for others, the comforter of all who suf- 
 fer for their love. Though I give my body unto death, 
 my spirit will endure in all men's minds for ever. I shall 
 be called the Lord of gentleness and pity, and in my name 
 will men forgive their enemies and do good in secret to 
 those who hate them. When a man would injure his 
 neighbour, my invisible hand shall hold him back; when a 
 woman opens her lips to voice an uncharitable thought, 
 my word shall persuade her to silence. They who would 
 desecrate the temple of their body, remembering me shall 
 dedicate that temple to the service of the Spirit. The lips 
 of little children will be taught to repeat my words, even 
 before their minds are ready for the meaning; and the 
 hearts of aged mothers who go down the slippery path to 
 death will lean on me in preference to their first-born. 
 The hungry will ask me for bread. The lonely will come 
 to me for love. They who are misunderstood will remem- 
 ber that I also was not understood by the world for which 
 I died. They who labour from morning until evening 
 that they may have mere bread, will know that the palms of 
 my hands were calloused by years of contact with the ham- 
 mer and the plane, and that my hours for reading and medi- 
 tation were only in the intervals of a laborious life. I am 
 the path whereby men's feet shall reach the higher levels of 
 true brotherhood. It is the voice of Death that shall pro- 
 claim me the immortal, immanent guardian of mankind. 
 And they who believe on the Spirit that is I, shall also be- 
 come immortal." 
 
 His mother gazed at him, at first in sadness; then, as 
 the full grandeur and scope of his idea burst on her vision, 
 her eyes widened, her breath was suspended, her heart al- 
 most ceased to beat. She forgot, in the rush of enlighten- 
 ment, that he was her son; she knew only that before her 
 was a colossal and god-like man, whose star would blaze
 
 38o THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 for ever in the firmament of human consciousness. In the 
 light of this new revelation the little spark of personal, 
 maternal fear was blotted out, and her pain seemed only 
 a great red flower which she was privileged to lay upon the 
 altar of his worship. 
 
 " O inconceivable one," she breathed, " inconceivable 
 one whom I by the grace of God conceived! May all 
 things be as you say yes, even to the death that shall pur- 
 chase your immortality in the consciousness of men for 
 ever!"
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE SACRIFICE
 
 CHAPTER LXI 
 
 ON the morning when Jesse left Capronville for the 
 last time, no words of comfort could still the crying of 
 Peter's children. They clung to his hands, they held his 
 garments, pleading with him not to go away from them. 
 
 " Oh, we shall never see you any more ! " they sobbed, 
 " we know that we shall never see you any more ! " 
 
 Strange intuition of the pure in heart! Never before 
 when he had left them to go on one of his many journeys 
 had the children tried to hold him back, never before had 
 they doubted that he would return. Notwithstanding his 
 declaration to Peter and the other men that his life had 
 now but a brief course to run, they did not really under- 
 stand; but the little ones, to whom no word of warning 
 had been spoken, knew even as Jesse knew that this was a 
 last parting. 
 
 " I shall be with you always, my precious ones," he 
 promised them, even as he had promised the men and 
 women to be ever with them in the spirit; but the unhappy 
 children only wept more hopelessly, still pleading: 
 
 " Do not go away! Oh, do not go away! " 
 
 He sat down in a large chair on the verandah and gath- 
 ered the five in his arms, from the eldest boy of eleven 
 years to the little girl of three who had nestled on his 
 breast that day in the preceding summer when the dele- 
 gation of ministers had come to question him. 
 
 " Now if you will not cry any more," he said, " I will 
 tell you a beautiful story, one you are always to remember." 
 
 With the tears still hanging on their eyelashes they 
 stopped their sobbing to listen. 
 
 " There was once a man who had five beautiful children 
 whom he loved even as I love you, my little ones, and who 
 loved him even as you love me. But one day the man was 
 obliged to leave his children and to go on a journey into a 
 far country, and the children wept and would not be com- 
 forted; their eyelashes were heavy with tears, like those I 
 
 383
 
 384 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 now wipe from the face of little Anna. And the man, who 
 was grieved at their grief, said to them in parting: 
 
 " ' If I do not return before the little moon, which you 
 saw lying low in the western sky last night like a curled 
 silver feather, shall grow to be a round golden ball, then I 
 will send to you in my place a being far more wonderful 
 than I, one bright like the sunshine, whose step will be 
 so light it will not bend the frailest grasses as he comes 
 along. He will also love you more than I, because he will 
 know you better; no thought of yours can be hidden from 
 him. When you wake alone in the night and are afraid, 
 he will be there to comfort you; the secret griefs that you 
 dare not tell even to your mother, he will understand and 
 pity. When you hear a bird sing in the early dawn, you 
 will think he is calling to you; when the rain beats against 
 the window-pane and the wind sighs round the house, you 
 will think of the tears he must have shed for you; and 
 whenever you smell the fragrance of a rose, it will remind 
 you of some wonderful secret thing which he is waiting 
 to tell you when you shall be good and wise enough to un- 
 derstand.' 
 
 " And as the father told the children about the wonder- 
 ful stranger who was coming, his heart was so full 
 of love for them that his tears fell on their faces, 
 even as my tears fall now. Do you not think, dear 
 little ones, that when the children knew how much the 
 father wished them to love the stranger, they would watch 
 for him?" 
 
 " I think," said the smallest boy, who was five, " I think 
 they would watch most for their father." 
 
 " And I think," said the eldest boy, " that the stranger 
 was their father; that he was going to be an angel, and 
 come back to them that way, for only an angel could have 
 a step so light it would not bend the grasses as he walked 
 along." 
 
 Jesse now rose from the chair and kissed the children 
 softly in farewell. 
 
 " The less you cry," he said, " the clearer your eyes 
 will be to see the wonderful stranger, in case he should 
 come to you also, as he came to the children in the 
 story,"
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 385 
 
 Then, while they were still wondering at his words, he 
 turned and passed quickly down the road, followed by the 
 men. 
 
 Several days before, Jesse had received a troubled letter 
 from Martha Lane, telling of the serious illness of her 
 brother Lawrence, and urging him to hasten, if possible, 
 in his promised journey to New York. " Lawrence con- 
 stantly asks when you are coming," Martha wrote. " If 
 you were here, I am sure he would get better." 
 
 But Jesse did not hasten. He left Capronville on the 
 day he had originally set, and then, instead of going by the 
 most direct route to New York, he chose a roundabout 
 way which would take him through the town in which his 
 old enemy, Thomas Taylor, was held in an asylum for the 
 insane. The twelve men were with him; but the women 
 had been told to remain in Capronville a few days longer, 
 then to go directly to New York, under the guardianship 
 of Mary Magnus, and await a message from Jesse in a 
 place agreed upon between them. 
 
 Early that afternoon they arrived in the town where 
 Taylor was, and went to the asylum which stood a little 
 way outside the village. Approaching the portal of that 
 house of woe through an avenue of calm and noble elm- 
 trees, they paused for a few minutes midway between the 
 wide gate and the entrance of the house. So restful was 
 the scene, it might have been the foreground of a palace of 
 art or of music; and save for a shrill, harsh cry which now 
 and then rang out from somewhere in the long west wing 
 extending from the main building to the road, one might 
 have envied the dwellers in that well-proportioned pile for 
 the quiet of their surroundings. An abode of peace it 
 seemed at the first view; but looking closer, one saw 
 strange faces behind the grated windows, some emaciated 
 and cadaverous, others distorted by incomprehensible wrath 
 and lighted by fiery eyeballs, others again of putty-like ap- 
 pearance, so void were they of any gleam of that spirit of 
 intelligence which we call human. Here and there a hand 
 was thrust forth from between the gratings of the win- 
 dows, a hand which waved aimlessly at nothing, or gestic- 
 ulated wildly at some imaginary enemy or friend.
 
 3 86 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "What a terrible place! " gasped John. " But, Master, 
 what really is insanity ? " 
 
 " The escape of the mind from the guidance of the soul. 
 Sometimes it comes about through a revolt of the mind 
 against that guidance; for the soul of a man should control 
 even his own wandering thoughts. Only that man whose 
 soul is master of the mind as well as of the body can be 
 said to be entirely sane. The mind of our ordinary con- 
 sciousness is the path between the Spirit and matter, and 
 that path should be kept clear and clean. It is of no avail 
 to drive the herd of passions from the pastures of the body, 
 if we give them leave to make a stable of the mind. Then, 
 again, much insanity is caused by the mind arrogating to 
 itself the use of psychic powers of which it has not taken 
 the trouble to gain knowledge; such a mind loses the power 
 to co-ordinate with the normal physical consciousness." 
 
 They passed on to the office of the institution. Jesse 
 went in, ahead of his companions, and announced his 
 name to the young physician in charge. The effect was 
 electrical. The young man sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Your name is well-known here," he said. " Not only 
 has your fame reached us; but one of my patients, Thomas 
 Taylor, of Nashburgh, speaks constantly of you." 
 
 " It is he whom I wish to see," Jesse replied. 
 
 The doctor hesitated. 
 
 "Taylor is rather low at present. He was extremely 
 violent for a long time. He has an iron constitution, or 
 he would have worn himself out long ago. Of late he has 
 been in a semi-stupor. I wonder how the sight of you 
 would affect him." 
 
 " You may have heard," said Jesse, simply, " that the 
 sight of me has proved beneficial to a great number of per- 
 sons." 
 
 The eyes of the young doctor were aflame with interest, 
 both personal and scientific. 
 
 " Of course you shall see Taylor," he said. " I will go 
 up with you myself." They went out into the wide hall, 
 where the other men were waiting. " Do you wish any of 
 your friends to accompany us ? " 
 
 Jesse motioned to Peter, James and John. 
 
 "Can I not go?" asked Marty White.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 387 
 
 "Do you know Taylor?" the doctor questioned. 
 " I have always known him." 
 " Then you had better remain here." 
 Taylor was lying in his bed, propped high with pillows, 
 in a little room which opened off a long corridor. The 
 man who had been so large and strong was now pathetically 
 shrunken, the formerly bronze-like face was the colour of 
 old ivory, and the knotted hands which lay on the cover- 
 let were limp and nerveless. 
 
 " Taylor," said the cheery voice of the doctor, who 
 stood behind Jesse in the doorway, " I have brought a 
 friend to see you." 
 
 " I have no friends." He did not even open his eyes. 
 Jesse passed into the room and stood beside the narrow 
 bed. Without speaking a word, he touched one of the 
 shrunken, nerveless hands of the invalid. Quickly Tay- 
 lor opened his eyes, as if a shock of electricity had passed 
 through his body. With suspended breath he gazed at the 
 vision before him. A ray of sunshine from the unshaded 
 window fell on the golden head of the visitor and gave to 
 his face a look of unearthly radiance. 
 
 " Are you the angel of death?" The voice was hoarse, 
 but there was a tone of surprise and gladness in it. 
 
 " I am the messenger of life and of love." Jesse clasped 
 the hand of his old enemy in both his own, and bent ten- 
 derly above him. " I have come to make you well and 
 happy. Do you not know me ? " 
 
 " You look like Jesse Bethel. How strange ! Why, I 
 used to hate you ! " 
 
 " That was because you did not really know me. To 
 know anyone really is to love him." 
 
 " I had a strange dream about you last night, Jesse." 
 The doctor stood listening in the doorway, his eyes wide 
 with astonishment. This was the first time Taylor had 
 spoken rationally in all the months he had been under 
 his care. But the sick man took no notice of the specta- 
 tors. 
 
 " Yes," he went on, " I dreamed that my old ugly dog 
 came tearing at my throat, and that you took him away. 
 And the dog licked your face, as he did that day in Nash- 
 burgh. Why did the dog lick your face, Jesse?"
 
 388 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Because I pitied him and loved him." 
 
 " Do you pity and love everything ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Even me?" 
 
 "You more than most." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " Because I feel that you need it most." 
 
 The eyes of Thomas Taylor filled with tears. It was 
 the first time anyone had ever seen those eyes suffused with 
 the moisture of emotion. 
 
 "Why did you come to see me to-day, Jesse? " 
 
 " Because I felt that you had need of me." 
 
 " Do you know that I am going to die? " 
 
 Jesse turned to the watching doctor and motioned to 
 him to close the door. 
 
 " Let me sit down beside you," he said to Taylor, when 
 they were alone; and Taylor moved his wasted form a 
 little further back upon the bed. 
 
 " Do you know that I am going to die, Jesse?" he re- 
 peated. 
 
 " Yes. And I also am going to die in a little while. 
 We who both stand so near to the wharf of death should 
 wish each other a calm passage." 
 
 "Do the dead rest well, I wonder?" Taylor's weary 
 eyes were fixed on Jesse's face. " I am so tired, I shall 
 be glad to rest. It seems to me that I have hardly slept 
 for months until last night, and then I dreamed of you. 
 Do you think the dead rest well ? " 
 
 " I think you will rest well. Do you want to go to 
 sleep now for a little while? " 
 
 "Oh, if I only could!" 
 
 "You shall, dear brother. Close your eyes, and when 
 you wake you shall see my face in another dream." 
 
 He laid his fingers on the fluttering eyelids, and they 
 were quiet. With a sigh of contentment the man who had 
 been mad so long passed into the peaceful sleep of perfect 
 sanity. Jesse sat looking at him for a few moments, then 
 arose and joined the doctor and the three other men in the 
 corridor. 
 
 " Well ? " The doctor gazed anxiously at Jesse. 
 
 " Your patient is asleep."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 389 
 
 " Why, this is extraordinary ! The man has slept only 
 under the influence of drugs since he has been here. What 
 have you done to him, if I may ask? " 
 
 " Given him peace." 
 
 " You are certainly a most unusual man ! Do you think 
 my patient will recover ? " 
 
 " No, he will die to-night." 
 
 "And even you cannot prevent it?" 
 
 " I would not if I could." 
 
 " Yet rumour says that you have brought men back from 
 the very clutch of death." 
 
 " Not one who had so great a need of death." 
 
 " Could you in the interest of science ? " The face 
 of the young physician was alight with enthusiasm. 
 
 " But I have no interest in science," Jesse answered, 
 with a gentle smile, " except where science can serve the 
 spirit of man." 
 
 Then he sent for his other companions who were wait- 
 ing below, and together they went over the great building, 
 through the halls of the men and the halls of the women. 
 To all those tortured souls the presence of Jesse brought 
 a sense of peace, and to many of them a word from him or 
 a touch of his hand marked the turning-point for their re- 
 covery. 
 
 That night Thomas Taylor died, as peacefully as he had 
 fallen asleep in the afternoon. His last words were, " Tell 
 Jesse that I shall be watching for him when I awake." 
 
 The nurse who sat beside the bed did not understand. 
 He thought the mind of the dying man was wandering.
 
 CHAPTER LXII 
 
 AFTER leaving the asylum Jesse and his companions went 
 to Albany, where they remained nearly two days. That 
 was the largest place in which he had preached, so far; and 
 one of his reasons for stopping there was that the men who 
 were with him, shy and awkward from a lifetime passed 
 among the little farms and villages of Vermont, might 
 gradually become accustomed to the ways of city life, be- 
 fore he plunged them into the great metropolis, where their 
 faith and courage would be tried so sorely, where they 
 would be as children set to accomplish tasks beyond their 
 power. John and Judson were the only ones among the 
 twelve who had ever spent more than a few days in New 
 York city, and most of them had never been outside their 
 native State. 
 
 Arriving in Albany that evening, Jesse sent announce- 
 ments to the newspapers that he would speak in a public 
 square at twelve o'clock the following day. The neces- 
 sary arrangements were made by Judson Carey, whose 
 wandering, unhappy life had included more than one so- 
 journ in this very city. In one of the newspaper offices 
 he met an old acquaintance. 
 
 "Why, what are you doing here?" the man asked, in 
 surprise. 
 
 Judson stated his business in Albany and in the office of 
 the newspaper. 
 
 " Do you mean that you are travelling about with a 
 religious prophet? Well, that's a good joke! Do you get 
 well paid?" 
 
 " I am his disciple. There are twelve of us." 
 
 "Humph ! " The man, who was rather sceptical in mat- 
 ters of religion, and whose own hard life had made him 
 doubtful of the purity of human motives, first stared at 
 Judson, then laughed outright. " Do you mean that you 
 are doing it for pleasure?" 
 
 " I believe in him," Judson answered, simply. " So
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 391 
 
 would you, if you had seen him do the things I've seen 
 him do." 
 
 "For example?" The man looked interested. 
 
 "Well, I've seen him cure almost every disease by one 
 touch of his hand, and even raise the dying. Four of my 
 friends once saw him still a hurricane, simply by calling to 
 it : I wasn't there myself. He can read the thought in 
 your mind and the writing in your pocket." 
 
 " Sounds like a fortune-teller," said the man. " That's 
 what they claim to do." 
 
 " Can a fortune-teller raise the dead ? " 
 
 " Some of the quack doctors pretend to." 
 
 " Suppose you come and hear him preach to-morrow, and 
 then tell me if you ever knew anyone who could speak as 
 this man speaks." 
 
 " Do you pass the hat at your open air meetings? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "But who pays for all this? Who's your cashier?" 
 
 " I carry the money, usually." 
 
 " But where does it come from ? " 
 
 " Our wants are simple." 
 
 " If I remember rightly, yours weren't so simple in the 
 days when we knew each other." 
 
 Judson winced, and his face flushed. " Those days are 
 over," he said. 
 
 " Then you are much changed," the man observed. 
 
 " The whole world will be changed," declared the dis- 
 ciple. " Our Master is the prophet of a spiritual revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 " Revolutions are either very dangerous or very profit- 
 able for those who bring them about. I've gone into 
 politics myself, in a small way, since last we met; and if 
 your master, as you call him, doesn't pass the hat, then he's 
 looking for something bigger. It's always the way. Bet- 
 ter feather your nest before the thing fails; for it's sure to 
 fail, if the man is even half-way honest. Honest reform- 
 ers always fail." And the man who had gone into politics 
 in a small way bade the disciple good-night. 
 
 Judson walked back to the obscure hotel where they had 
 obtained lodgings, much disturbed in mind by his chance
 
 392 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 encounter with an old acquaintance. The most faithful 
 of Jesse's friends was not so sensitive regarding the fame 
 and dignity of the Master as this man was. Great love 
 and faith are so sure of the loveliness of their object that 
 the praise or blame of others affects them little. Judson's 
 feelings were not of that simple order. Nor had he ever 
 pondered the saying of the sage Lao-tsze : " Those who 
 come up to the vulgar standard have existed for a long 
 time as small men." 
 
 The square was packed at the hour of Jesse's sermon the 
 following day. He had two ends in view in causing those 
 notices to be inserted in the newspapers, besides the obvious 
 one of gathering a crowd to listen to his words. In the 
 first place, he wished to test for himself how far his fame 
 had spread beyond the region of his early preaching; and 
 in the second place, he wished the news of his coming 
 journey to New York to reach that city before him. Sev- 
 eral times during the preceding fall and winter he had been 
 visited by representatives of the metropolitan press, and 
 more than one account of him, and of his cures and teach- 
 ings, had been published in the large newspapers. The 
 great prophet always adjusts himself in some degree to his 
 environment; otherwise he would perish as a small prophet, 
 and his life and labour make no material change in that 
 environment, for the benefit of those who come after 
 him. In the dawn of the twentieth century, no man could 
 move the world a fraction of an inch without the aid of 
 the newspapers. And Alexander, had he lived in our day, 
 would have gone to the conquest of Asia with machine 
 guns instead of spears and pikes. 
 
 The morning after his sermon in the square, every im- 
 portant paper in Albany had a long account of Jesse 
 Bthel. One printed a full stenographic report of his 
 words, and several gave much space to the extraordinary 
 cures he had performed, under the very eyes of the re- 
 porters. Scores of persons had come during the afternoon 
 and evening to the small hotel where they were staying, 
 and the next morning they came by hundreds, after reading 
 the newspapers. 
 
 But though he was besought to remain in Albany even 
 one day longer, he could not remain. Invisible threads
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 393 
 
 were drawing him to the little house beyond the Palisades, 
 where his friend Lawrence Lane was in danger of a fate 
 more dreadful than the inevitable end that comes to all 
 mankind. Jesse sent a telegram to Martha, stating the 
 hour when he would come ; and late in the afternoon he and 
 his companions took a train for New York City. It was 
 plain to the twelve men that their master was much trou- 
 bled ; never before had they seen him so restless and pre- 
 occupied. Many persons gathered around him on the 
 train; but though he answered all their questions, those 
 who loved him knew that his thoughts were elsewhere.
 
 CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 THEY left the train at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
 Street and went across-town to the Fort Lee Ferry. On 
 the New Jersey side they were met by Martha Lane. Her 
 face was pale, her eyes red as from long weeping. 
 
 "Oh, Master!" she cried, clinging to Jesse's hand. 
 " My brother is dead." 
 
 The twelve men knew how dearly Jesse had loved this 
 man, and their eyes were wet with sympathy. 
 
 " If you had been here," said the weeping Martha, " I 
 know he would not have died." 
 
 " No man is so fully alive," he said, " as the dead that 
 live again." 
 
 They did not understand him, for they thought he was 
 speaking of those who live in the Spirit. 
 
 They took the car which climbed the steep hill, and 
 Martha clung to Jesse's hand all of the short way home, 
 as if she still cherished in her heart some vague and name- 
 less hope; as if in the coming of this friend there lay some 
 possibility of comfort, beyond the bounds of reason. 
 
 To Jesse's companions that short, steep ride from the 
 ferry-house to the home of the Lanes was more wearisome 
 than the journey down from Albany. The feeling that de- 
 pressed them was something more than the natural sadness 
 of those about to enter a house of mourning, something 
 more than the feeling of nearness to a strange and unfriendly 
 city which may so affect the imagination of sensitive souls. 
 The death of Jesse's friend seemed like an evil omen. 
 When they had first seen Martha approaching they had 
 shrunk back, repelled by a sudden dread of some unname- 
 able menace that lay just behind her. Could there be any- 
 thing in Jesse's warning, more than once repeated, that the 
 shadow of death lay over this journey? 
 
 Arrived at the house, a wooden structure of medium size 
 some distance back from the Palisades, Martha left them 
 in the large sitting-room and went to call her sister. There 
 
 394
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 395 
 
 were present several persons, men and women, whom 
 Martha had made known to the strangers. 
 
 " The brother has been dead some days," said a white- 
 bearded old man to Jesse, when Martha had left the room; 
 " but neither of the girls would hear a word of his bur- 
 ial until you should come." 
 
 " All will be well," Jesse answered simply. Then after 
 a moment he added, as if to himself: 
 
 " To leave undone that which should be done, is no 
 less evil than to do that which should not be done." 
 
 They thought he was questioning the wisdom of leaving 
 the dead unburied, but such was not his meaning. In his 
 mind was the conviction that Lawrence had not bidden an 
 eternal nor a willing farewell to the sunlight, and he was 
 living over in memory that scene of seven years before, in 
 the little home near Washington Square, when his friend's 
 hold upon the world had seemed so near to slipping. He 
 was also thinking of that other scene, two days before, 
 when he had refused to detain the world-tired spirit of 
 Thomas Taylor even an hour from the rest it craved. 
 Surely his course was plain; but would the task be easy 
 as before? He buried his face in his hands, seeking in 
 spirit the spirit of his friend. 
 
 A sudden, half-stifled cry at the door of the room caused 
 him to look up. It was Mary, the younger sister. 
 
 " Oh, Master ! " she cried, sinking on her knees besides 
 his chair and clinging to his hands. " If you had been 
 here, I know he would not have died." 
 
 The very words which Martha had spoken! Surely 
 the faith of both would help him, if such help were needed. 
 Was this an opportunity made by the Spirit itself, to prove 
 the power of the Spirit? He knew that Lawrence was 
 well-known in the neighbourhood ; that he held a local of- 
 fice of some prominence ; that even the funeral rites had 
 been performed above him, though his sisters had forbidden 
 the burial. Here on the outskirts of the great sceptical 
 city could he perform a work which should challenge the 
 attention of every man? 
 
 "Would you not like to come and see him?" asked 
 Mary timidly, raising her bowed head and looking into 
 Jesse's face.
 
 396 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " In a little while," he answered, " not yet." 
 
 The work which he hoped to do must be well attested, 
 by witnesses of whose impartial judgment there could be 
 no question. He turned suddenly to Martha. 
 
 "Where is the physician who attended your brother?" 
 
 She pointed to a neighbouring house, whose roof was 
 visible through the trees. 
 
 " Please send for him," said Jesse. 
 
 After a few minutes a bespectacled, black-bearded young 
 man of some thirty years of age came into the room and 
 was presented to Jesse. 
 
 " I am glad I happened to be at home," he said, with 
 more briskness than is customary in a house of death. His 
 was the professional manner with which a doctor cheers a 
 living patient, rather than the more subdued demeanour be- 
 fitting the acknowledgement of professional defeat in the 
 presence of a dead one. 
 
 " I suppose you wish to know some details regarding 
 your friend's illness," the doctor went on. Though his 
 manner was an opaque glass behind which his soul was 
 hidden, it was plain that he was surprised, and even some- 
 what awed, by the tremendous personal power of the man 
 before him. 
 
 " No," was Jesse's quiet answer. " I wished your pres- 
 ence for another reason. Will you come with me to where 
 he lies?" 
 
 " Certainly. And now that you are here, there is no 
 reason for further delaying the burial. I have made almost 
 every test known to science to prove to these young ladies 
 the fact which needed no such proof. Perhaps you can 
 convince them." 
 
 " Let us go to him," said Jesse, and motioned the others 
 to follow. 
 
 Martha led the way into the darkened parlour across 
 the hall. Besides Jesse, there were twenty-one persons 
 standing in the room. In the centre of the floor was the 
 open coffin, half-covered with flowers whose heavy fragrance 
 made the atmosphere oppressive. 
 
 " Please open the blinds and the windows," Jesse said 
 in a low tone to John, and the full rush of oxygen and 
 sunlight seemed to fill the room with life.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 397 
 
 Against the white pillow in the coffin the face of Law- 
 rence seemed moulded out of wax, and he was fixed in 
 that unbending dignity by which the dead mutely com- 
 mand the reverence of the living. The fresh breeze blow- 
 ing through the open window lightly stirred the dark hair 
 above his temples, and those who saw it shivered at the 
 motion of those passive locks. The two sisters wept un- 
 restrained, and the sympathetic neighbours wiped their eyes. 
 
 Jesse was shaken with emotion. He had truly loved this 
 friend; but deeper than any personal grief that could ever 
 come to him was his overwhelming consciousness of the 
 universal, inexorable fact of human sorrow. At that very 
 moment, in ten thousand homes the wide world over, he 
 knew that mourners hung above their dead and dying, 
 helpless before the law which declares that all who live 
 must die, that every love must be baptised in grief, that 
 every tie must be some day severed. None could escape 
 the all-embracing horror. No home could be so closely 
 guarded but that the silently-gliding and unwelcome vis- 
 itor drew daily nearer, waiting the inevitable hour to enter 
 and claim his own. He saw Death standing at the elbow 
 of the tender mother, as she bent ecstatically above the 
 cradle of her child ; he saw Death watching beside the altar- 
 rail and following home the new-made bride; he saw Death 
 walking familiarly beside the aged, whose children clung 
 to them with questioning eyes and lips that dared not 
 speak the fear within ; he saw the same shadowy presence 
 threatening every unfinished labour of the brain, or hand, 
 or heart of man. The tears of all the world were burning 
 in his eyes, the sorrow of all mankind was a weight un- 
 bearable upon his breast. 
 
 But nearer nearer and darker was the real and in- 
 exorable grief that waited now behind the curtain of the 
 days for those who so loved him. And though his heart 
 was breaking with pity for all they would have to suffer, 
 he must not falter on the stony road which waiting Death 
 now pointed out for his own feet to travel. This was the 
 price he could not pay for them, the pain he could not 
 bear for them, however vast his love. 
 
 This was why Jesse wept as he stood beside the coffin 
 of his friend.
 
 398 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " How much he must have loved him ! " said the 
 sympathising neighbours to one another. 
 
 Then a change came over Jesse. His tears no longer 
 flowed, the shadow of grief passed from him, and the light 
 of a great purpose shone in his face. He touched the 
 bowed heads of the weeping sisters, and they were quiet, 
 looking up at him with wide and questioning eyes. Gently 
 he spoke to them. 
 
 " All that we receive from the Spirit we must yield to 
 the Spirit again even the gift of life." 
 
 Then he turned to the men who followed him. 
 
 " When you listen to the truth, listen with the inner 
 ears as well as with the outer. Truth is one, but the ways 
 of hearing truth are many." 
 
 They wondered what strange thing was about to happen, 
 which he wished them to interpret by the light of inner 
 knowledge. He turned again to the two young women. 
 
 " Would you be willing to endure this grief, would you 
 be willing to give your brother to Death, if you felt that 
 by this sacrifice of your own personal love the presence of 
 the Spirit might be quickened ever so little in the souls 
 of men?" 
 
 It was a question which would shake the heart of any 
 mourner, at which the devotee of any faith might tremble, 
 the question which every pledged soul must put to itself 
 over and over again, as one by one the dearest hopes of 
 self are relinquished, and the lonely pilgrim painfully 
 climbs toward mastership. 
 
 Would they be willing? After a pause of breathless 
 thought, Mary answered: 
 
 " We would give our brother to the Spirit and to you, 
 Master." And Martha bowed her head in sign of acquies- 
 cence. 
 
 " That is well," Jesse answered. " Not until you have 
 sacrificed a thing can you really possess it, for then only 
 can you learn the lesson it holds for you. 
 
 " But it may be," he went on, his voice rising on the 
 wings of feeling, " it may be that your brother's life will 
 serve the purpose of the Spirit better than his death could 
 serve it." 
 
 The eyes of the listening doctor opened wide. He had
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 399 
 
 heard strange stories from the members of the Lane family 
 relative to the doings of this young enthusiast from the 
 North, incredible stories which lessened his respect for the 
 intelligence of those who could repeat them as facts. Of 
 what folly was he now to be a witness? He heard Jesse 
 say to the two sisters of Lawrence: 
 
 " Do you not believe that the Spirit is all-powerful? 
 Do you not believe that I am the instrument and demon- 
 strator of that power ? " 
 
 "We believe." 
 
 " Of my own will I could not do this thing ; but if the 
 Spirit that is in me shall declare itself, even this work may 
 be accomplished." He then turned to one of the men who 
 stood near, and asked him to unscrew the lid of the coffin 
 which covered the lower part of Lawrence's body. 
 
 "What madness is this?" cried the doctor. 
 
 Jesse looked at him with calm eyes whose power might 
 have commanded a much stronger opponent to be silent. 
 He said: 
 
 " Even though my madness should prove as inefficient as 
 your science, no harm can now be done by me to him who 
 lies here." 
 
 The lid of the coffin was removed. The watchfcrs held 
 their breath. Jesse leaned over the motionless figure and 
 touched the cold brow at a point a little above and be- 
 tween the eyes. 
 
 " Lawrence ! " he cried, in a tone that was a command. 
 
 The cold sweat stood on the forehead of every person 
 in the room. Even the doctor felt the unreasoning dread 
 of the supernatural running like icy fingers up and down 
 his spine. 
 
 " Lawrence ! " 
 
 Was it the flickering of the sunlight over that ivory- 
 like face? or did the eyelids really quiver, the set lips 
 relax? In the room there was no sound, not even a breath 
 was drawn, and every palm was cut by the nails clenched 
 into them. 
 
 "Lawrence!" For the third time the bell-like voice 
 rang out. 
 
 " He lives! Oh, he lives! " cried Martha. 
 
 Two dark and preternaturally brilliant eyes were shining
 
 400 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 up at them from the white face in the coffin. The lips 
 were shaping themselves for speech. 
 
 "Jesse! Is it you?" 
 
 " It is I Jesse. You have had a long sleep, dear Law- 
 rence. Let me help you out of your bed." 
 
 No one dared to move, while Jesse gathered the slight 
 figure of Lawrence in his arms and lifted him to his feet. 
 Across the hall to the family sitting-room he led the dazed 
 and unresisting man, and placed him in a chair. 
 
 " Bring him warm food and drink," he said to Martha 
 in an undertone, as he motioned the others back. Then 
 he closed the door of the room, and he and Lawrence were 
 alone.
 
 CHAPTER LXIV 
 
 " A MOST extraordinary case of catalepsy ! A most ex- 
 traordinary case! " declared the doctor half an hour later, 
 when, after a private talk with Lawrence, Jesse opened 
 the door of the sitting-room to the neighbours and to his 
 own friends. 
 
 " I shall read a paper on the case before the Medical 
 Society," the doctor went on, " and afterward publish it." 
 
 " What matter by what name you designate his sleep ? " 
 was Jesse's answer. " What matter by what learned terms 
 you designate the power by which I awakened him? It is 
 enough that he whom you would have buried has been 
 raised to life by me. You can at least vouch for the facts." 
 
 " Which I shall do, giving you all honour." 
 
 " I desire no honours for myself. I am only the servant 
 and mouthpiece of the Spirit." 
 
 But the language of religious enthusiasm was unintelligi- 
 ble to the man of science. It was a pity, according to his 
 reasoning, that a man who indisputably possessed the rarest 
 natural gifts should disqualify himself before the bar of 
 science by talking about the Spirit. Now if Jesse had 
 spoken of God-given powers, the well-worn phrase, divested 
 of all meaning by centuries of repetition, would have fallen 
 inoffensively upon the doctor's ears; but this talk about the 
 Spirit was a challenge to his intellect. 
 
 " What do you mean by the Spirit ? " he asked. 
 
 " You may think of it as the eternal Flame, of which our 
 lives are sparks; you may think of it as the Father, 
 whose innumerable children are mankind; you may think 
 of it as the immaterial Reality, of which the material uni- 
 verse and men are shadows. However viewed, it is one 
 and the same, though its reflections are endless." 
 
 " Do you explain it thus to your devotees? " 
 
 " They feel it and love it. Love does not demand ex- 
 planations. Too much explaining but confuses love." 
 
 Jesse now left the room for a few minutes of tranquil 
 
 401
 
 402 THE SON OF MARY .BETHEL 
 
 thought. He had already requested the doctor and the 
 other neighbours not to worry Lawrence with futile ques- 
 tions. The strangely resurrected man sat quietly in the 
 midst of them, with a hand clasped between the palms of 
 each of his sisters, who sat on hassocks at his feet and 
 gazed at him with eyes which seemed insatiable with the 
 vision of his living face. 
 
 One by one the neighbours slipped away, to carry about 
 the town the incredible news that Lawrence Lane, whose 
 body had been given to the coffin and his soul to God, now 
 lived and breathed and spoke, now ate and drank, and 
 had even been heard to laugh! 
 
 Raised from the dead by Jesse Bethel, the young preacher 
 who called himself the mouthpiece of the Spirit so the 
 story flew from lip to lip. Who was Jesse Bethel? Why, 
 the man who had caused such a stir through New England, 
 curing all manner of diseases by the touch of his hands, 
 and preaching a new religion. What religion? Why, 
 the religion of spirit over matter. What did that mean? 
 Something about the invisible being more real than the 
 visible. What did he look like, this young prophet? Oh! 
 he was a man all gold and rose-colour and white, as gentle 
 as a woman and more powerful than a hundred men. And 
 he had raised Lawrence Lane from his coffin? Yes, just 
 called his name three times, in an indescribable voice, and 
 the dead man had opened his eyes and spoken. What else 
 was this remarkable man going to do, now that he was 
 here? Oh! destroy materialism, preach a spiritual democ- 
 racy, revolutionise the world. How was he going to do 
 it? Nobody knew; but the men who travelled with him, 
 twelve sturdy countrymen, thought that he was God him- 
 self or, rather, the incarnation of the Spirit he talked 
 about anyway, something more than merely human. Yet 
 he seemed to be even more human than ordinary people, 
 and a thousand times more loving. What did he preach 
 about? The Spirit, love, the power of faith, the un- 
 reality of wealth, the unreality of everything outside the 
 soul and mind of man. 
 
 The rumour of Jesse gathered force and detail as it 
 went on. It crossed the river to New York City; it found 
 the thousand ears of the great newspapers, that hurriedly
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 403 
 
 dispatched reporters to trace the thread of fact in the 
 maze of fable. Jesse Bethel? That was the name of the 
 man whose strange doings and sayings in Albany the day 
 before filled columns of the morning press in that city. 
 
 During the evening the house of the Lanes beyond the 
 Palisades was besieged by an army of young men with 
 note-books, who asked a thousand questions of everyone 
 of Jesse himself, the two girls, Lawrence who had been 
 so mysteriously restored to life, the twelve excited and 
 half-bewildered disciples, the black-bearded doctor, and the 
 neighbours who had been present when the wonder hap- 
 pened. Half a dozen illustrators made sketches of Jesse 
 and sketches of Lawrence; photographs of the two girls 
 mysteriously disappeared from the mantel; even the old 
 uncle of the three young people, who had returned from 
 his daily business to find his house full of strangers and 
 his supposedly dead nephew watching for him from the 
 window, was surreptitiously fixed in black and white for 
 the gaze of the reading world next morning. In the midst 
 of the confusion a sound like an explosion startled every- 
 one; it was only an enterprising young reporter taking a 
 flash-light picture of the parlour where the empty coffin 
 still stood in the centre of the room. 
 
 "An extraordinary case of catalepsy," the doctor re- 
 peated for the hundredth time. 
 
 " He has raised others from the dead before," Peter in- 
 sisted, over and over again. 
 
 The story of how Jesse stilled the storm on the lake 
 near Capronville was dramatically told by James Dana, 
 while a group of men made notes of what he said. 
 
 " We have seen him standing on the top of a mountain 
 at night, shining like the sun from head to feet," John 
 confided to a sympathetic young man of about his own age, 
 who proved to be the satirist of the most scurrilous paper 
 in New York. 
 
 The stories of miraculous healing given by the twelve 
 men were too numerous to record; they were lumped to- 
 gether by these note-book historians of the hour, as an 
 effective background for the immediate and more vital story 
 of the resurrection of Lawrence Lane. 
 
 A sworn statement by the doctor, of the supposed death
 
 404 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 of his patient, including a summary of the scientific tests 
 which he had made in an effort to persuade the sisters to 
 permit the burial, was seized upon with avidity. It was a 
 positive disproof of any possible collusion between the 
 prophet and his friends which might be claimed in future, 
 and was declared to be such by the doctor, who was a 
 graduate of the largest medical college in the country. 
 
 Lawrence himself, though he stood in the centre of in- 
 terest next to Jesse, had less to say than anyone else. From 
 a peaceful sleep he had awakened to find himself an object 
 of universal wonder. What could he say by way of ex- 
 planation? Obviously, nothing. 
 
 " Are you not filled with horror at the thought of how 
 near you came to being buried alive?" asked one sensa- 
 tional reporter of Lawrence, with his pencil poised in air. 
 
 " I am glad to be with Jesse again," was the simple 
 reply. " He could not have let it happen." 
 
 " But it surely would have happened, if your friend had 
 not arrived to prevent it," persisted the reporter, who was 
 not over-endowed with delicacy of consideration for the 
 feelings of others. 
 
 " My sister and I would not have permitted the burial 
 until Jesse came," said the fair-haired Mary. 
 
 " But supposing there had been no Jesse ; supposing you 
 had never met him?" 
 
 "As well suppose there were no sun in the sky," an- 
 swered Lawrence, with a loving glance at his friend. 
 
 This reporter wrote a story representing Lawrence Lane 
 as a young man of less than mediocre intellect, bewitched 
 by the personality of the man who had brought him back 
 to life. 
 
 So the interviewing went on for several hours, until 
 Lawrence was half asleep and even Jesse was weary. Then 
 rose the old uncle, the master of the house, and respectfully 
 but firmly told the uninvited guests that the hour was late, 
 and that he and the other members of his household re- 
 quested the privilege of rest.
 
 CHAPTER LXV 
 
 THE next morning a neighbouring newsdealer, who knew 
 Lawrence and had been much excited on learning of his 
 restoration to life, sent to the house a copy of every New 
 York paper which contained an account of the extraordinary 
 happening of the day before. Folded in the usual way, 
 they made a pile nearly a foot high, and Martha brought 
 them into the dining-room at breakfast-time and placed them 
 on a chair beside Jesse. The uncle had already left the 
 house for his place of business in the city; but all the Ver- 
 mont men were present, with Lawrence and his two sis- 
 ters. 
 
 " Though I spoke with the tongue of God himself, but 
 worked no wonders; though I revealed to all mankind the 
 one great underlying secret of the universe, but gave them 
 no sensational phenomena, they would not accord to me a 
 tenth-part of this attention," Jesse said, as he laid his hand 
 upon the pile of papers. 
 
 Here are a few of the headings and sub-headings which 
 
 met his eye: 
 
 
 
 A VERMONTER WHO RAISES THE DEAD. 
 THE RESURRECTION OF LAWRENCE LANE. 
 A PROPHET ON THE PALISADES. 
 A MODERN MIRACLE. 
 CALLED FROM His COFFIN. 
 JESSE BETHEL JEERS AT DEATH. 
 
 Glancing from one paper to another, Jesse read aloud 
 a few paragraphs, chosen at random from many columns: 
 
 " Jesse Bethel, a prophet and wonder-worker from Vermont, yes- 
 terday raised a man from the dead in a little house near the Fort 
 
 405
 
 406 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Lee Ferry. The physician who attended the patient and pro- 
 nounced him dead some days ago, declares it to be a case of cata- 
 lepsy; but the wild-eyed disciples of the prophet insist that a 
 veritable miracle has been performed. The sworn statement of 
 the physician, which follows, would seem to do away with any 
 possible question of fraud. Besides the family of the supposed dead 
 man and the twelve followers of Jesse Bethel, there were present 
 at this resurrection some half-dozen persons, including the physician 
 himself." 
 
 Here followed a minute account of the occurrence, given 
 with a multiplicity of lurid details. The three-column 
 article concluded with these words: 
 
 " If the stories of the man's disciples are to be credited, this new 
 prophet blends the wisdom of a Plato with the idealism of a 
 Buddha, and the magic of an Apollonius of Tyana. His paradoxical 
 sayings challenge the intellect, his personality charms everyone who 
 comes in contact with him, and the wonders he is said to perform 
 would stagger the credulity of the Middle Ages. He prophesies a 
 coming revolution, in which the spirit shall triumph over matter, 
 society shall become a universal brotherhood, faith shall conquer 
 material force, and love shall take the place of selfishness and com- 
 petition. He questions all accepted theories of value. He declares 
 that the Church has sold itself to mammon, and that he is himself 
 the path by which men shall climb to the higher life." 
 
 In the same paper was a half-column editorial which con- 
 tained these words: 
 
 " To the sober judgment of sensible persons Jesse Bethel seems 
 to be a sublime madman, sincere as the rule of three, but a man 
 who might possibly become dangerous to law and order, if his in- 
 fluence should grow among the people." 
 
 Another paper, commenting editorially on the raising of 
 Lawrence Lane, had this to say of Jesse and his mission: 
 
 "To proclaim himself the spokesman of the Divine; to break the 
 tablets of accepted law and substitute his own ideas of right and 
 wrong ; to weaken the superstition of mine and thine, in favour of the 
 more elastic and convenient law of need; to prove the worthlessness
 
 407 
 
 of material prosperity and comfort, and the value of improvidence 
 and visionary inactivity, seem to be the purpose of this youngest 
 and most fascinating of the enemies of Baal." 
 
 Still another editorial interpreter of the incident at Fort 
 Lee and the man who effected it, ended his column with 
 these remarks: 
 
 " Miracles do not happen in this day and generation. The need 
 for them is past. Science on the one hand, and accepted religion 
 on the other, give light enough for mankind. We cannot question 
 the truth of the statement of a reputable physician who says that 
 the man who came to life yesterday was to all appearances dead, 
 and had been so for some days; but catalepsy, while an unusual 
 disease, is not unique; nor should the fact that a man awoke from 
 a cataleptic sleep in the presence of twenty-two persons, one of 
 whom happened to be a religious agitator, prove sufficient basis for 
 a fit of popular hysteria. This journal is not given to prophecy, 
 but we shall be happily surprised if the perfectly natural awaken- 
 ing of Lawrence Lane is not made the groundwork of an elaborate 
 structure of fable. Of the character and honesty of this so-called 
 ' mouthpiece of the Spirit,' to quote our esteemed contemporary of 
 Albany, we have no knowledge on which to base an opinion. But 
 if his sermon in that city two days ago was accurately reported, 
 he is evidently a revolutionist, all the more dangerous because of 
 his refinement and the idealistic nature of his teachings." 
 
 Most of the papers printed large pictures of Jesse and 
 smaller ones of Lawrence; reproductions of the missing 
 photographs of the two girls appeared in the same sheet 
 which cast reflections upon the intelligence of their brother, 
 and sketches of pretty girls which bore no resemblance to 
 them were plentiful. Peter Bond and James and John 
 Dana were the only ones among Jesse's twelve companions 
 who were mentioned by name on this first day of their 
 metropolitan celebrity. 
 
 " Surely to be written about like this is to be great and 
 famous," declared Judson, as he eagerly scanned one page 
 after another. 
 
 Jesse smiled sadly at him, and said. 
 
 " If you should ever meet the greatest man in the world, 
 you would probably find him rather unconcerned with the
 
 408 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 idea of his own greatness. He might even be unconscious 
 of it if he were really great." 
 
 Though he was still besieged by representatives of the 
 press, this was the only peaceful day of Jesse's sojourn in 
 the region of the great city. On the morrow he must leave 
 this quiet home and attack the monster of materialism in 
 its stronghold across the river; after this day there would 
 be for him no more tranquil enjoyment of the company 
 of loving friends; after this day he would belong exclusively 
 to his great but terrible destiny. 
 
 In honour of Jesse, a large company had been invited to 
 supper at the home of the Lanes that night. While Mar- 
 tha busied herself with preparations for the feast, Mary 
 sat on a hassock at Jesse's feet, listening to his words and 
 asking him questions. She had a humble opinion of her 
 own worth, and her choosing that low seat instead of a 
 chair on a level with his own was symbolical of her mental 
 attitude. John Dana had been telling her about the wide 
 travels and accomplishments of Mary Magnus, whom she 
 was soon to know, and she now said to Jesse: 
 
 " I am afraid that she will find me very ignorant and 
 uninteresting. I have been nowhere, while she knows all 
 the far-away wonderful countries of the world." 
 
 " It is well to know the surface of the earth," he an- 
 swered ; " but it is better to know the deeps of the soul. 
 And the only plumb-line for those deeps is love." 
 
 " Does the other Mary know the deeps of the soul ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What is the test of that love which is the plumb-line 
 of the soul?" Mary asked, wistfully. 
 
 "When you can accept the fact that your friends are 
 selfish, vain, weak, and sometimes disloyal in thought and 
 word, and love them notwithstanding, you have learned the 
 meaning of love." 
 
 The girl drew a long sigh. 
 
 " Does the other Mary know that kind of love ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Jesse saw the tear which quivered on her long lashes, but 
 he made no reference to it. Oh, if he could only teach these
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 409 
 
 many beautiful souls to love and understand each other, what 
 a power they would be for the carrying on of his work when 
 he should be no longer with them! If he could make love 
 for one another a part of their religion, indissolubly asso- 
 ciated with the memory of him! He said to Mary Lane: 
 
 " He who cannot find God in the soul of his fellow being, 
 will not find Him in his own soul, nor in the infinite spaces 
 of the universe. 
 
 " You have heard much of the Holy Spirit," he continued. 
 : ' The Holy Spirit, in its highest aspect, is the sympathetic 
 relation of the innumerable atoms of the one God ourselves 
 and all others." 
 
 She gazed up into his face with yearning eyes. 
 
 " Oh, that I might do some great work! " she breathed. 
 " Compared with the men who can go out and preach of the 
 Spirit and of you, and compared with the other Mary who 
 has done so much, I seem to myself such a small and in- 
 significant being." 
 
 " Do not despise your own being, however humble. Does 
 the clover refuse to blossom, because it cannot produce a 
 lily? In the struggle to achieve what was foreign to its 
 nature, would it not pass blossomless under the scythe 
 of the mower? From the humble clover the bees drink 
 sweetest honey." 
 
 Once or twice during their long talk Martha had passed 
 through the room, and several times her voice was heard 
 outside in anxious consultation with butcher, baker or serv- 
 ing-maid. She now came and stood in the doorway, and 
 a troubled look was on her face. 
 
 " Master," she said, " is it right that Mary should sit 
 with you, while I do all this work alone? Will you not 
 tell her to help me ? " 
 
 " For many years, dear Martha," Jesse answered, 
 " you have been eating and drinking and making feasts for 
 your friends; but I was not with you. The labours of the 
 household are only for the day; but the labours of the 
 Spirit to make beautiful its invisible dwelling-place in the 
 heart are for all time. Mary has been preparing a feast 
 for herself and for you, a feast of love whose richness will 
 never be exhausted."
 
 410 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 But when Martha had left them, Jesse said to Mary: 
 " If you go now and help your sister with her work, it 
 may be that you will find the jewel of love of which we 
 have been speaking hidden somewhere in the kitchen." 
 
 The dining-room in the house of the Lanes was a large 
 one. For the supper that night long tables were placed 
 down the north and south sides of the room, and another 
 across the west end, forming a three-sided open square. As 
 Jesse paused for a second on the threshold, a chance ex- 
 tension of the white cloth at the foot of the left-hand table, 
 together with some dark object which covered the other, 
 end, gave to the whole arrangement the form of the 
 Hebrew mystical letter Tau. The vision fired his imagi- 
 nation, and as he passed on to his seat in the centre of the 
 farther table facing the room, on his face was the uplifted 
 look of one who has caught a sudden glimpse of the great 
 Mystery. 
 
 Near Jesse sat the twelve men who had come down 
 with him from Capronville, and opposite sat Lawrence, 
 so recently reclaimed from death. The atmosphere of the 
 room was tense with the repressed excitement of its oc- 
 cupants; for each of the two score guests and neighbours 
 of the Lanes had come to see the man of whom all New 
 York was talking, as well as to celebrate their friend's re- 
 turn to the world of living beings through his agency. 
 What strange doctrine would he expound to them? So 
 eagerly they listened for anything which he might say, 
 that there was little conversation at the lower end of the 
 tables. His first words made them open their eyes in 
 astonishment, so different was the idea expressed from any- 
 thing they had ever -before thought. It revealed to their 
 half-trained minds a new conception of the relations be- 
 tween themselves and the Divine. Someone had asked Jesse 
 a question about God, which brought out this reply: 
 
 "You seem to think that God is the centre of a circle, 
 and that you are somewhere on the circumference. On the 
 contrary, each man is the centre of the great circle of which 
 God is the circumference." 
 
 " How may I gain a clearer idea of the Great Spirit 
 which is God?" the same man further questioned.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 411 
 
 " Meditate upon the Spirit to gain knowledge of the 
 Spirit. Man does not learn astronomy by digging in the 
 soil." 
 
 " We shall all know when we are dead," a little woman 
 ventured; but Jesse shook his head, saying: 
 
 " Life is the great teacher. He who cannot learn of 
 Life will be a dull pupil in the school of Death." 
 
 Most of the men and women present believed themselves 
 to be religious, and a white-bearded man began to speak 
 of the rewards of a good life. Jesse's eyes enveloped him 
 with a look of inexpressible sweetness as he answered: 
 
 " He who desires reward for good actions may obtain 
 what seems to be a reward, but there is a higher mo- 
 tive." 
 
 The old man, who had been successful in a material way, 
 and attributed his bank-balance in old age to a life-long 
 diligence in church-going, declared that according to his 
 belief the man who was always ready to testify for the 
 Lord would be blessed with worldly prosperity. But Jesse 
 said: 
 
 " He who proclaims the truth that the world may re- 
 ward him, had better go till the soil and be sure of his 
 wages." 
 
 Then, after a moment, he added: 
 
 " He who shall perform all the duties of life without 
 attachment to results, or even the hope of reward, will find 
 his actions trebled in effectiveness." 
 
 "You say that the Spirit is one, and that the Spirit is 
 in each of us," a puzzled youth now said. " How can 
 that which is one, be also many? " 
 
 Jesse's reply was fully understood by no one at the table 
 save John Dana; though Mary Lane, who was sitting at 
 the far end of one of the side-tables, felt in her soul a 
 vaguely ecstatic response. He said: 
 
 " There is the One, and there are the many ; but every 
 truly self-conscious individual among the many is con- 
 sciously the One." 
 
 Another guest, a restless-eyed, expensively-dressed woman 
 of some prominence in local society, told Jesse that 
 she was very glad the newspapers had manifested so much 
 interest in him, and that she believed the excitement over
 
 4 i2 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the restoration of Lawrence to life would be of incalcu- 
 lable benefit to the success of his teaching. 
 
 He smiled indulgently at her banality, and said: 
 
 " Yes. The world is so fond of the bread of excitement, 
 it will not refuse to eat it even when it is light with the 
 leaven of the true philosophy." 
 
 Judson, who sat next to this woman and on the oppo- 
 site side of the table from Jesse, expressed his great satis- 
 faction that so much recognition and honour had been ac- 
 corded to the Master; but Jesse's response he could not un- 
 derstand : 
 
 " The true sage shuns the praises of men, that would 
 foster in him the delusion of separateness from those whom 
 the world praises not. To the really enlightened spirit, 
 both the praise and the blame of the world are soundless 
 as the voices of babes on the other side of the earth to 
 those that dwell on this side." 
 
 One of the guests, a young man interested in work 
 among the poor, asked Jesse what he believed to be God's 
 reason for allowing so much misery on earth. Jesse an- 
 swered : 
 
 " As the moon is reflected in a million pools and seems 
 a million moons, so is the one Reason (which is God's) 
 reflected as a myriad reasons in the pools of the human 
 mind." 
 
 Another man asked Jesse when he expected to enter 
 the city and begin his teaching there. 
 
 "To-morrow morning," was the answer. "The time is 
 now fully ripe." Then, looking from one to another of 
 his followers, he added: 
 
 " He who knows when to speak and when to be silent, 
 is more learned than he who shall utter untimely words in 
 a score of languages." 
 
 Lawrence spoke little during the meal, and only when 
 directly addressed by someone. He was still bewildered 
 by the strangeness of the experience through which he had 
 passed, and could not realise it. Though to his family 
 and friends he had been as one dead, and they had looked 
 upon his seemingly lifeless form and heard the words of 
 the consignation to the grave pronounced above him, _ he 
 had had no part in the solemnity or in the grief. As
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 413 
 
 into a quiet sleep he had passed from the consciousness of 
 his surroundings; as from a quiet sleep he had awakened 
 some days later to find himself a centre of universal in- 
 terest. And now his sisters were giving a large supper- 
 party to celebrate an event which seemed to him unreal. 
 Even the coffin from which he was lifted by Jesse had been 
 carried away without his having seen it. Yet these well- 
 meaning people kept on asking questions, which he could 
 only answer with " I do not know," or " I do not re- 
 member." 
 
 His love for Jesse had now become adoration. He was 
 afraid to think of what might have been his fate if this 
 friend had not come to save him, and he could only gaze 
 and gaze at the face of his friend with such rapt concentra- 
 tion that the physician who watched him feared that he 
 would again lapse into a state of unconsciousness. 
 
 The supper was near its end, and Jesse had told the lis- 
 tening guests more of his spiritual doctrine than they were 
 able to comprehend, when a movement near the door 
 drew his attention, and the fixedness of his look made 
 every other eye follow his. 
 
 There in the doorway stood a beautiful dark-haired 
 young woman robed in pale grey, a stranger to all present 
 save the men from Vermont. Half timidly she advanced 
 into the room, having greeted Martha in the hall beyond. 
 In her hands she held a fragile and exquisite vial of orien- 
 tal crystal, the gift of an Asiatic ruler on one of her world- 
 circling journeys. She passed down the right side of the 
 room next the wall, behind the seated guests, and around 
 to the place where Jesse sat at the end. 
 
 " Why, it is Mary, our sister ! " cried John, rising with 
 joy to greet her. 
 
 Jesse's face was alight with welcome for his faithful 
 helper, and her coming there alone meant that his mother 
 was safely housed on the other side of the river. Seeing 
 the precious vial in her hand, he said: 
 
 " Has my daughter brought an offering to the altar of 
 her faith? " 
 
 Every eye was fixed on Mary as she stood holding the 
 fragile crystal vessel above the head of the seated Jesse. 
 Then suddenly over the senses of all swept a rare, delicious
 
 4H THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 perfume, rich with the faith and mystery and beauty of 
 the East, bringing to every soul save only one joy and 
 the blessedness of love. Mary, in the enthusiasm of her 
 devotion, had broken the vial and poured the precious at- 
 tar upon the head of the Master. Hereafter for many 
 days, wherever he should go, his bodily presence would 
 carry to the perception of even the most obtuse a sense of 
 permeating sweetness. 
 
 For some moments there was utter silence in the room, 
 while every person breathed deep draughts of the pleasur- 
 able fragrance. Then the harsh voice of Judson Carey 
 broke the stillness. 
 
 " Oh, what a waste is this! The vial and the perfume 
 are both valuable. They might have been sold for much 
 money, which would have bought bread for the hungry." 
 
 Jesse turned his calm blue eyes upon the face of the 
 displeased man, whose eyes shifted uneasily before their 
 penetrating gaze. He said: 
 
 " May those who follow me devote their lives to feed- 
 ing the hungry with both material and spiritual bread 
 when I am no longer with them." 
 
 Then, seeing on one or two other faces a look which 
 seemed to question the propriety of Mary's action, and 
 seeing the veil of unshed tears through which her loving 
 eyes shone on him, he said: 
 
 " Do not trouble her with your questions or your doubts. 
 Hers is that perfect devotion which places no consider- 
 ation before the object of its faith. It is the sweetness of 
 her soul's fidelity which she has poured upon me. The 
 fidelity and the sweetness shall witness for me after I am 
 dead, the perfume envelop my body in the tomb." 
 
 John, who loved Mary as a sister, gave to her his own 
 chair at the left of Jesse, and seated himself on the broad 
 ledge of the window just behind them. All the reserve and 
 self-control of her worldly training dropped from her 
 like a veil at this reunion with the Master. The tears 
 were running down her face as she sat beside him. She 
 seemed unconscious of the presence of strangers, oblivious 
 to her surroundings to everything save he one blinding 
 fact that they were now at the doors of the great city 
 which he had told her was to be the scene of his death.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 415 
 
 When, where, how death would come to him, she did not 
 know; but that it would come, she was the only one among 
 his followers who realised. And she was half-distraught, 
 for during the three nights since he had left Capronville 
 she had hardly slept an hour. Now she bowed her head 
 upon the table and wept without control. Such tears are 
 Nature's kind restorative for the overwrought heart and 
 brain that can endure no more. 
 
 When Jesse felt that the unendurable tension of her 
 grief was loosened, he beckoned to Martha, who stood 
 troubled and uncertain in the nearest corner. 
 
 " Let her rest in your room for half an hour," he said ; 
 " then Andrew and Lawrence shall take her back to my 
 mother in the city. The night air and the change of 
 scene will work good to your brother, and my mother 
 would not sleep if Mary should not return." 
 
 When the two had left the room, Jesse said to the as- 
 sembled company: 
 
 " Among all the faithful ones who serve my cause, there 
 is none more faithful than this woman. And wherever 
 the truths of the Spirit and of my life shall be told in the 
 future, the things which she has done shall cause her to be 
 remembered."
 
 CHAPTER LXVI 
 
 FROM THE JOURNAL OF MARY MAGNUS 
 
 Sunday, at Dawn, 
 
 TO-DAY he will enter the city, the great, rich, cruel, and 
 indifferent city, where once I felt at home and among 
 friends, and where now I feel an alien. 
 
 How can his spiritual message reach these minds so 
 deeply sunk in selfishness? What medium of communica- 
 tion can there be between his purposes and theirs? I who 
 know this life so well can see the hopelessness of his sub- 
 lime attempt as no one else can see it. Why did I not 
 dissuade him from the sacrifice? But would I have dared? 
 Would I have had the right? And what word of any 
 creature so unworthy as I am could have deflected him by 
 a hair's breadth from the course which he had chosen? 
 
 Oh, his overwhelming kindness to me! It leaves my 
 soul defenceless before the charges of its own self-accusa- 
 tion. John told me the exalting things he said of me last 
 night after I had left the room. I know that he speaks no 
 word which he does not believe ; but ,how can he believe 
 such things of me he who can read the soul, and who 
 knows the history of my failures? 
 
 What can I do to help him here? Should I go to my 
 old friends and tell them of his greatness, they would not 
 understand. My faith in him would seem to them but 
 the latest of a long series of vagaries; even my testimony 
 as to the wonders I have witnessed would be interpreted 
 by them as evidence of the self-delusion of an enthusiastic 
 nature fascinated by the charm of a powerful personality. 
 And what right have I even to aspire to help him, save by 
 the humblest service, such as Anna and Rose and Eva 
 may also give ? 
 
 And he has said that he will die here, that his death is 
 necessary as the seal upon his work. Even in this trial 
 also have I failed, for I would save him if I could, would 
 
 416
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 417 
 
 give my life here and hereafter to avert but for one week 
 the pain of death for him. I am abashed before my own 
 presumption; yet would I dare to look God in the face 
 and bare my soul to the lightning of His anger, offering 
 my share in the ages of eternity in exchange for a few 
 days more in the sunshine for Jesse. How God must 
 laugh at such a prayer! Yes, in this also have I failed, 
 for I would retard his work to save him. And I may 
 not even follow my own wish to die when he does, for 
 he has given me a solemn charge to help in carrying on 
 the work when he is no more with us. In this one thing 
 I shall not fail. There is a limit to the longest life, and 
 from even those who look most longingly for death, the 
 stars cannot for ever withhold it. 
 
 Of all the millions of men and women' who daily pass 
 through the streets of this great city, why should I have 
 met last night the one being whom I least desired to see 
 the man whose lips were the last to touch mine, in the old 
 life when love to me meant bodily possession? If he had 
 seen and questioned me last night, what could I have told 
 him of my present life which he would have understood? 
 And no better proof could there be of the essential unreal- 
 ity of what we called our love! Though learned in the 
 lore of the schools, he would accept nothing as real which 
 he could not see or touch; and I have often heard him 
 say that the spirit was merely an attribute of matter. He 
 loved me, I believe, to the limit of his possibility; but 
 when I remember a definition he once gave of love, my 
 cheek grows hot. Yet one bitter night I saw him take 
 off his overcoat and wrap it round a shivering beggar 
 in the street ; and when I asked him why he did it, he said 
 that the sight of the freezing wretch hurt him far worse 
 than the cold. And he was often gentle to me as a mother. 
 Why do I shiver and draw back at the memory of his gen- 
 tleness? It is a part of that life I would forget that I 
 can never forget. 
 
 Has the Master forgotten? It cannot be, and yet it 
 often seems so. But one day I overheard a woman a 
 newcomer to our band who soon deserted it speak dis- 
 paragingly of me to Jesse as a woman who had loved men 
 without marriage. And from my place in the next room
 
 418 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 I heard his gentle voice : " Which is the worse, think 
 you, love without marriage, or marriage without love? " 
 So has he always defended me. And he knows that since 
 the day when I first heard him speaking to the people in the 
 little park in Vergennes, I have been as one set apart for 
 the service of a temple, a priestess whom no investiture 
 of snow-white robes could make more inviolably sacred to 
 the Spirit the chaste but ecstatic Spirit whose slave I am 
 for his sake. 
 
 Daily and nightly since our talk in the garden of Peter's 
 house, when we gazed out together over the grey-blue, twi- 
 light-veiled river, and he told me that he was to die in 
 the body but still remain a living, vital presence, unseen 
 but more intimately near and real to us than now, I 
 have thought of little else and dreamed of little else. Will 
 he reveal himself to me as an ethereal form which I can 
 see with the inner eyes he is teaching me to use? Can I 
 make his presence visible to others through the intensity 
 of my own sight and the intensity of my own faith? I 
 know that I have touched only the fringe of the floating 
 garment of spiritual love; but I feel that there is a power 
 in my soul which yet shall wrap the folds of that tenuous 
 veil about me, a power and fearlessness which shall enable 
 me to stand upon the lonely, ice-cold height where the 
 Invisible reveals itself, in the almost inaccessible pavilion 
 on the top of the frozen mountain with the heart of fire. 
 The child of sin and earth who reaches that place must 
 have suffered as I have suffered, must have relinquished the 
 last quivering and tear-stained hope of selfish happiness. 
 
 Is despair the magic key which opens the door of 
 power? It may be so. If the Intelligence which rules 
 our world has set that price upon that rare possession, then 
 surely I have paid it. 
 
 Yet the woman in me shrinks and trembles the woman 
 I can never altogether outgrow so long as I am I. Some- 
 times my soul seems to be standing alone on the top of a 
 high mountain, with the winds of the worlds blowing 
 round it, and far below, through the mists, the soul can 
 see the wistful, quivering-mouthed -woman who is Mary 
 Magnus reaching to it pleadingly with her weak, pathetic 
 hands. And the vision of the soul is blinded with tears 
 of pity for the woman, who seems to be its child.
 
 CHAPTER LXVII 
 
 IT was ten o'clock on Sunday morning when Jesse and the 
 twelve men, followed by Lawrence and his sisters and a 
 large company of men and women from the neighbourhood, 
 started for the city. The day was warm for a day in early 
 spring, and the sun looked down exultingly upon a world 
 already stirring with the urge of reawakening life. There 
 was no wind; the budding trees stood absolutely motion- 
 less. In telling the story of this day in after years, the 
 youngest of the Twelve declared that Nature, having hur- 
 ried her work to make ready for the Master's coming, 
 waited during these morning hours in utter stillness, as 
 if listening for the sound of his footsteps. The imagi- 
 nation of this most poetic follower of Jesse saw symbols 
 and strange meanings in many of the simple incidents of 
 the Master's life. But the day was really very warm and 
 still. 
 
 There was a look on Jesse's face as he passed out into 
 the sunshine which even those who knew him best had 
 never seen before. His face was not less sweet, but more 
 determined in expression; his eyes were wider and more 
 brilliant; the half-languorous loveliness which had been 
 his greatest charm during the months of his ministry 
 among the little villages and fields of his native State was 
 reinforced now by a sterner power for sterner uses. The 
 loveliness was there and the sweetness, but behind them 
 was the new force summoned for the new and greater 
 need. 
 
 They went along the winding road toward the ferry; 
 but when they came to the edge of the Palisades above the 
 river, where the full view of the city burst upon them 
 the miles on miles of towers and homes and many-win- 
 dowed buildings forming a ragged, endless line against the 
 blue-white morning sky Jesse stopped. He stood and 
 gazed at the city across the intervening water. Over 
 there were millions of men and women, striving, suffer- 
 
 419
 
 420 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ing, yearning, enjoying, tossed hither and thither on the 
 waves of passion, each isolate soul a centre of the univer- 
 sal consciousness, a focus for the sun-rays of the Divine. 
 Oh, to reach them all and lift them to the level of their 
 own indwelling angel! Oh, to be the way whereby those 
 faltering feet might walk to the sure heights of peace! 
 How small a sacrifice would his life be upon that altar! 
 
 The tears of a love too vast for the comprehension of 
 any lesser mortal overflowed his eyes. The men who 
 watched him saw the colour of his cheek turn gradually 
 from rose to white; they felt the influence of an emotion 
 they were not large enough to understand. Even the light- 
 est among the strangers who had come with him that 
 morning, more out of curiosity than for any deeper in- 
 terest, were moved from their usual commonplace indif- 
 ference to all serious things by the power of his presence 
 as he stood there yearning toward the city of his com- 
 ing martyrdom though this they did not know. 
 
 On the ferry-boat which carried them across the river 
 John turned his eyes from the long line of buildings to 
 his Master's face. 
 
 "Oh, the great, cruel city!" he murmured. But Jesse 
 answered him: 
 
 " The city is neither cruel nor kind ; it is merely self- 
 centred, engrossed in pursuing the desires of self. What 
 seems to be its cruelty is but unconsciousness of the larger 
 Self, of which the smaller is a distorted shadow." 
 
 "And what will you tell the people of the city on this 
 first day among them? " 
 
 " Can the telegraph-wire say what message will be 
 flashed over it an hour hence? No more can I say now 
 what message the Spirit will deliver through my mouth." 
 
 " And has it always been like that ? You never know 
 beforehand?" 
 
 " It has always been like that, and I never know before- 
 hand. Were I too eager to express some thought of the 
 man that is I, the message of the Spirit might go unde- 
 livered." 
 
 In the ferry-house on the New York side they were met 
 by Jim Bethel, the Capronville physician, and several of 
 the women members of their band: Jesse's mother, Mary
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 421 
 
 Magnus, Anna Martin, Rose Thomas, Eva Bethel, and 
 the mother of James and John Dana. 
 
 The meeting between Jesse and his mother was quiet. 
 A stranger would have thought they had parted the day 
 before, nor guessed that the mother's heart was breaking 
 with the grief which even her exalted spirit could not mas- 
 ter. In giving her son to his great mission she had re- 
 linquished all the privileges of motherhood save only that 
 of tears. As they went toward the train which was to 
 take them down to the centre of the city, she walked 
 quietly beside Mary Magnus, who was the only one among 
 all the followers of Jesse whose sympathy was deep enough 
 to see and comprehend her feelings. Though in after days 
 the mother of the Master was to be regarded by them all 
 with a reverence akin to worship, in this her time of 
 greatest trial she was upheld and strengthened by the de- 
 votion of one woman. 
 
 Andrew had seen Anna Martin for a. few minutes the 
 night before, when he and Lawrence went with Mary 
 Magnus to the women's lodgings in the city. Month 
 after month these two had waited and loved in silence, 
 trusting to the hour when he in whose hand they had laid 
 their destiny should give them to each other, purified by 
 denial in the service of the Spirit. To-day they walked 
 side by side without speaking, only by a deep look now and 
 then revealing their hearts to each other. 
 
 They left the train at Forty-second Street and walked 
 westward to Fifth Avenue, now thronged with well-dressed 
 men and women, some of them on their way to church, 
 others on pleasure bent, enjoying the spring sunshine. Ev- 
 ery eye was turned to follow Jesse as he passed. 
 
 "Who is he? " . . . " Can that be the new prophet 
 whose picture is in all the papers?" . . . "What a 
 wonderful face!" . . . "Yes, that's the one who 
 raised the dead man over at Fort Lee." . . . "What 
 a head for a painter!" . . . "Let us follow him." 
 . . . " They say he calls himself the mouthpiece of the 
 Spirit." ..." He says that God is the power, and 
 that he is the expression of the power." . . . 
 "Strange!" . . . "How majestically he walks!" 
 . . . "Where is he going?" . . . "The paper
 
 422 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 said he had been a carpenter." ..." He looks more 
 like a king." ..." One of the old gods come to life 
 again, maybe." ..." The prophet of a new relig- 
 ion." ..." What religion ? " . . . " Something 
 about the indwelling Spirit." ..." He prophesies a 
 coming revolution." ..." Political ?"..." No, 
 spiritual." ..." I'll never forget that face so long 
 as I live." . . . "What sadness and what power!" 
 . . . These are a few of the innumerable comments 
 that followed Jesse's passage up the avenue. 
 
 The crowd behind him had become large when he 
 turned into a side-street and went up the steps of a closed 
 house with shuttered windows. 
 
 " He is going to speak to us." ..." Listen ! " 
 . . . " He is going to speak to us." The people waited, 
 pressing closer and closer toward the steps, round the foot 
 of which stood the twelve men, that they might guard their 
 Master from the nearer approach of the crowd. 
 
 Jesse stood for a moment looking down at the uplifted 
 faces, his own face calm and sweet and full of power. 
 Then he began to speak. 
 
 " Have you come to listen to the word of a prophet, 
 that you may light your lamps at his flame? Or have you 
 followed him to pass an idle moment? Whatever the mo- 
 tive, you have followed him, though but a little way, and 
 on a sunshiny morning. They who follow the Light for 
 a long distance, through the darkness of the night and over 
 a hard road, in the end, if they do not falter, become them- 
 selves the effulgence of that Light. 
 
 " Would you know Truth itself, the whole of Truth ? 
 It is a blazing sun, and you may not behold it from a 
 distance of a million miles without blinding your weak 
 eyes; but by the light and heat of it you live, and may see 
 little truths. 
 
 " Do you desire power? Look upon a pine-tree and 
 learn the secret of its majesty. 
 
 " Do you desire peace ? Seek for the rhythm that con- 
 trols the restless ocean. 
 
 " Do you desire beauty? Study the scarred face of 
 humanity. 
 
 " Does your heart swell with pride when you view your
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 423 
 
 attainments and count them over? Then know that you 
 have not attained. 
 
 " Does your heart swell with pride when you view your 
 worldly possessions and count them over? The only pos- 
 sessions which shall not be taken from you are those which 
 can neither be viewed nor counted. 
 
 " If you are puffed up with the consciousness of knowl- 
 edge, know that you are still in the school of ignorance. 
 The man who is truly wise is aware that he knows little. 
 How many grains of sand are there around and under the 
 ocean? Where dwells memory after the dissolution of the 
 brain? What meanings underlie the seemingly simple ac- 
 tions of mankind ? 
 
 " Look within at your soul, at the one whom you know 
 to be yourself; then look out at the many who surround 
 you, in whom is also the soul. Do you seem to be differ- 
 ent from these others? What seem to be differences are 
 only the varying folds of the veil of matter that covers 
 you and them. 
 
 " My soul may dwell in you, even as my thought takes 
 up its abode within your brain. I reincarnate every time 
 I speak the Word of Life to another in such a way that 
 he comprehends my meaning. 
 
 " Separation is only an illusion. The Spirit is One, and 
 each of us is It. What seems to be many is in reality the 
 One, and what seems to be one is in reality many. 
 
 " Men speak of love, and know not what they mean. 
 Love is the heart-perception of this unity. You cannot 
 hate, or sin, or doubt, or be disloyal to another, without 
 hurting me; nor can I love, or labour for the Spirit, or be- 
 lieve, or comfort another, without helping you. Even so 
 closely are the many related through the One which each 
 man is,. 
 
 " He who does not perceive this light of true relation 
 gropes his way blindly through the maze of life; and 
 though he may pick up gold and honours by the way, he 
 never finds the centre where peace dwells. He who walks 
 by this light of true relation perceives always the direction 
 to the centre, and may lead others thither. 
 
 " A man never becomes powerfully self-conscious until 
 he is able to forget his own existence.
 
 424 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " He who shall harvest life's grain for himself alone, 
 and knead his flour with the water of selfishness, shall have 
 but bitter bread to eat. 
 
 " He who finds the balance between himself and others 
 is no longer mastered by others. There is no freedom save 
 under this law. 
 
 " There was once a king who ruled over a great nation, 
 and his storehouses were filled with wealth that he had 
 taken from the people by severe taxation; but so abundant 
 were their harvests that the people questioned not the 
 king's demands for many years. At last there came a 
 year of drought, a year when the land itself became ex- 
 hausted from too much bearing, and the people wanted 
 bread. Then they said to the king: ' Give us of the 
 abundance in your storehouses, the surplusage of our many 
 years of labour, that we and our children may not die.' 
 But the king would not, and answered the people : ' These 
 stores have you yourselves paid to me without complaint. 
 Why should I now surrender them to you? In years of 
 plenty you have acquired habits of luxury, and now must 
 learn to be content with less. Go work a little harder 
 than before, and bring me still my share of what your 
 labour yields. Am I not the king ? ' Then the people 
 murmured among themselves, 'Would he be king save by 
 our long consent? A king is only an idea, and our chil- 
 dren cry for bread.' So they declared the king was no 
 more king, and fed their children from the nation's ac- 
 cumulated wealth. For the king had failed to preserve the 
 balance between himself and others." 
 
 Among the many who listened to Jesse's words that 
 morning was a prominent clergyman, whom a powerful 
 curiosity had made to pause and stand in the crowded 
 street on the way to his own place of aristocratic worship; 
 several reporters, who had followed the new prophet in 
 search of " copy " ; and a young multimillionaire of wide 
 reputation, whose absorption in the speaker was noted by 
 the newspapers the following day. 
 
 Jesse had been conscious of the brilliant dark eyes of 
 the young man gazing at him, and when he came down 
 from the steps of the house, the eyes were near his own.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 425 
 
 " I am coming to see you at the cottage of the Lanes at 
 nine o'clock this evening," said the young man hurriedly, 
 and in a low tone. "Will you be there? " 
 
 " I shall probably be there," Jesse answered. 
 
 The tall form disappeared immediately through the 
 crowd. There was something in the presence of this ear- 
 nest listener, an atmosphere of conscious power, that marked 
 him out from others. A moment later two reporters were 
 asking Jesse: 
 
 "Did not young Needham speak with you?" 
 
 " A young man spoke with me." 
 
 " But do you not know who he is? " 
 
 " All men who would learn of the Spirit are of equal 
 importance to me." 
 
 But when they asked' what words had passed between 
 him and the multimillionaire, Jesse made no reply. 
 
 " Do the police permit street meetings in New York 
 on Sunday?" asked one young man of another in the 
 crowd. 
 
 " This preacher seems to have held one. But he spoke 
 briefly, and none of the police happened along. He is 
 going on now. Shall we follow him? What a handsome 
 woman that is, she who is walking with the older one! 
 A convert of the Spirit's, I suppose." 
 
 " Oh, you were always a cynic! Yes, let us follow 
 him. It's a rare sight, that of a genuine idealist, dashing 
 his dream-filled head against the stone walls of the world. 
 The man really means what he says." 
 
 " So do I, when I say that black-haired woman is very 
 handsome. I will follow her, and you may follow the 
 prophet." 
 
 And the two fashionably-dressed young dandies fell in 
 behind Jesse.
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII 
 
 , see the beautiful man ! I want to go with the 
 beautiful man ! " cried every child whom Jesse passed that 
 morning on the walks in Central Park. When he sat 
 down on a bench under a large budding tree at the edge 
 of the common, the little ones gathered round him; dain- 
 tily-dressed children escaped from their nurses and flew 
 to him; plainly-dressed children slipped their hands from 
 their mothers' clasp and tried to reach him. It was a 
 sight to fill the heart with love and the eyes with tears. 
 
 A portly park officer, himself the father of many little 
 ones, looked on and smiled indulgently. The common was 
 free ground. He had no orders to forbid the children to 
 gather round a man they seemed to love instinctively. The 
 officer read the newspapers, and he guessed at once who 
 the stranger was. Parting the mass of heads with his great 
 hands, he made his way to the bench and sat down be- 
 side Jesse, removing half a dozen children to make room. 
 The men and women who had followed the Master from 
 below stood on the outskirts of the crowd and watched. 
 
 "They seem to like you," said the officer; then he 
 added, with a flush of paternal pride, " I have six of my 
 own." 
 
 " Then remember and repeat to them this story, which 
 I now tell the children because they have asked for one: 
 
 " There was once a king's son, beautiful and young, and 
 heir to all the riches and the throne of his father. But 
 he was sad and wistful, and only half enjoyed the pleasures 
 of the palace, because of a dream he had had of a land 
 more wonderful than any the sun ever shone on. In the 
 land ruled over by his father, the king, there was unhap- 
 piness and strife and hunger and hatred; the faces of the 
 men and women were care-worn, and when they laughed, 
 the gaiety did not seem to come from their hearts. But 
 in the land he had seen in dream, the land of loveliness, 
 as he had named it, the people were as beautiful as the 
 
 426
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 427 
 
 landscape, and it was perfect happiness merely to look at 
 them. 
 
 " And when the boy was old enough to follow his own 
 will, he set out with a few chosen comrades on a journey 
 round the world, saying in his heart : ' I will find the 
 land of loveliness somewhere on the great curve of the 
 earth, the place where dwell the people with the smiling 
 eyes; and having found it I will nevermore return to the 
 land of my birth, where there is misery and strife and 
 hatred, and even laughter is mirthless.' 
 
 " But though he wandered the round world over, he 
 could not find the land of loveliness, nor could anyone tell 
 him where to look for it. And everywhere he went he 
 saw uneasy eyes and care-worn faces. At last he returned 
 to the land of his birth, a little older, a little wiser, but 
 still unsatisfied. 
 
 " One day he was sitting all alone in the garden of the 
 palace and thinking wistfully of what he could not find, 
 when he saw standing before him a tall, majestic figure. 
 It was that of an ancient wise man whom he had seen 
 three times before, in childhood. 
 
 " ' Why is the young prince so sad ? ' asked the wise 
 man. ' Did he find the world smaller than he expected, 
 or the oceans not so wide? It is the way of youth.' 
 
 "Then the prince told him about his dream of the land 
 of loveliness and his long search for it, adding, ' And I 
 shall never be happy until I have found my way there.' 
 
 " The wise man smiled. ' The land you dream of is my 
 home,' he said. 
 
 1 ' Oh, take me there! ' cried the young prince, leaping 
 to his feet. 
 
 " But the wise man shook his head. ' No man may take 
 another to the land of loveliness, but he may point the 
 way.' 
 
 "'Where is it found?' the prince asked eagerly. 'No 
 mountain is too high for me to climb to find it, no sea too 
 rough for me to swim.' 
 
 " ' The land you dream of is not found by scaling moun- 
 tains nor by swimming seas,' the wise man answered, in 
 a gentle tone. ' The land of loveliness is hidden in the 
 human heart, and he who finds it in his own, will find it
 
 428 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 also in the hearts of others. There dwell the people with 
 the smiling eyes, and it is perfect happiness to look at them.' 
 " The young prince wept with joy, and a great wave of 
 love rose in his heart; for he had found the way to the 
 land of loveliness, and he knew that he should dwell there 
 all his life." 
 
 Wide-eyed, entranced, the children listened to the story 
 told by the beautiful stranger. They did not really un- 
 derstand it; but they felt the loveliness of that land which 
 the young prince found at last, and they realised that he 
 had somehow found it in his heart. A score of little hands 
 went seeking the place where little hearts were beating 
 beating very fast now for the excitement of the stranger's 
 story and the pleasure of his presence. 
 
 And when he arose to leave them, they clung about him 
 so that the big good-natured officer was obliged to aid the 
 mothers and the nurses in disengaging their clinging little 
 hands. 
 
 It is one thing to cure by a word the sick and suffering 
 in remote rural districts of whose very names and places 
 on the map the great outer world has hardly heard; it is 
 quite another thing to make similar cures of well-known 
 persons before one of the largest churches of the Western 
 Hemisphere, and under the eyes of a group of reporters 
 from enterprising newspapers. The scene which Jesse 
 chose for the first public manifestation of his power in the 
 great city was the steps of the church presided over by the 
 very clergyman who had paused on his way that morning 
 to listen to the stranger's words. 
 
 This minister during his own sermon, which by the 
 seeming irony of chance was on the need of faith in mod- 
 ern times, had broken the thread of his carefuly prepared 
 discourse in order to warn his hearers against the disinte- 
 grating influence of new and revolutionary religious agi- 
 tators, who without authority proclaimed themselves the 
 instruments of God. 
 
 Passing out through the main doorway of the church 
 a few minutes after the services were over, the minister 
 was surprised to find the larger part of his congregation
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 429 
 
 still lingering on the steps and on the sidewalk below; 
 but when he saw the reason for this unusual spectacle, he 
 was astonished. 
 
 "What is the man doing here?" he demanded of one 
 of the church ushers, when he saw Jesse. 
 
 " Look," answered the young man, excitedly. " Do 
 you not see Mrs. Freeman without her crutch ? " 
 
 The clergyman passed his hand across his eyes. Was 
 he awake? Old Mrs. Freeman, lame for seven years, was 
 walking up the steps without her crutch! The tiny black- 
 robed figure of the famous politician's widow was moving 
 directly toward him. Her face was flushed with excite- 
 ment, and in her blue eyes was the half -humorous, half- 
 malicious twinkle he had seen so often. She was shaking 
 hands with him now. 
 
 " I think I have heard you say that the days of miracle 
 are over, Doctor Claflin. Behold a miracle ! " Her 
 voice was well-controlled, but there was a ring in it which 
 thrilled even him. 
 
 He opened his lips, but no sound came from them. 
 Again he passed his hand across his eyes. 
 
 " No, you are not dreaming, Doctor." The little old 
 lady laughed, and put out both her hands to free herself 
 from the crowd of friends who pressed around her, eager, 
 questioning, incredulous. " You are fully awake, and I 
 am fully cured. He did it." 
 
 " But I don't understand. . . ." 
 
 " No more do I. But this much is plain to anybody, 
 that I who have been carried, or have hobbled on a crutch, 
 for seven years, now walk as well as other people rather 
 better, maybe, considering my age." 
 
 " It is certainly remarkable." 
 
 " Your words are not exaggerated, Doctor Claflin," and 
 her old eyes twinkled again. " Will you come and speak 
 with the man who did this thing? " 
 
 " Another time, maybe not now. But " he hesi- 
 tated, compromising with his curiosity " if he would like 
 to come and speak with me, I will wait." 
 
 The old lady turned her head to hide a smile, ostensi- 
 bly to look at Jesse, who stood near the foot of the steps, 
 surrounded by a mass of people.
 
 430 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " He seems rather occupied just now," she said, turn- 
 ing back to her pastor when she had controlled the muscles 
 of her mouth. " I think I will go down again, and invite 
 him to come home with me to luncheon." 
 
 But Jesse did not go home to luncheon with Mrs. Free- 
 man. 
 
 " I thank you," he said, with his gentle and half-melan- 
 choly smile ; " but I am going with my friends to the poor 
 quarters of the city, where also dwell the children of the 
 Spirit." 
 
 " But where and when can I see you again? I want to 
 learn about the Spirit." 
 
 " I cannot say where I shall be, even at this hour to- 
 morrow. But you will find a way to see me." 
 
 " I shall certainly find a way," she answered. " What 
 you have done for me is beyond thanks. But what if the 
 lameness should return ? " 
 
 " You will never be free from any danger so long as 
 you fear it. Fear is a dog that will lick the hand of its 
 master." 
 
 She drew a deep breath, and her eyes flashed with 
 determination. He knew now that her lameness would 
 never return. 
 
 " Oh, the freedom of it," she exclaimed, " after the 
 slavery of the crutch!" 
 
 He said to her and to the others around him: 
 
 " No one is so free as the slave who has achieved free- 
 dom. No one is so weary as the man who does nothing. 
 No one is so strong as he who has conquered weakness." 
 
 The Reverend Doctor Claflin walked slowly up Fifth 
 Avenue. The dove of peace, a favourite metaphor of his, 
 was not spreading its whit^e wings above his soul. He 
 sincerely believed himself to be a good man, a faithful 
 if not an humble servant of the Lord; and he would have 
 been truly glad at the deliverance of his old friend Mrs. 
 Freeman from her long affliction had he not been obliged 
 to acknowledge the means of that deliverance. That an 
 " itinerant preacher," as he called him, a carpenter and the 
 son of a carpenter, should have stationed himself at the 
 entrance of his church, and by the power of personality and
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 431 
 
 notoriety (we would not call it fame) held the larger part 
 of his own cold and elegant congregation standing on the 
 steps, like a crowd of common people at a street meet- 
 ing; and, by some mysterious and possibly dangerous means, 
 performed what certainly looked like a miracle of healing 
 on one of the most important members of his flock (most 
 important from the standpoint of the newspapers because 
 of her dead husband's former popularity) was disconcert- 
 ing to the dove of peace which was wont to hover over the 
 soul of the Reverend Doctor Claflin. What attitude 
 would the public and his own congregation expect him to 
 take in the matter? What would the papers say in the 
 morning? Would they send reporters to interview him? 
 He shuddered at the thought.
 
 CHAPTER LXIX 
 
 IT was Sunday afternoon in Rag Alley. Not by any 
 appreciable degree of quiet would one have known it was 
 the first day; rather the reverse, for most of the dwellers 
 here worked somewhere else on week-days, when they could 
 find work to do, as the more preferable alternative to starv- 
 ing. Many did both, by turns, depending on their luck 
 or skill in securing and keeping remunerative jobs. Many 
 others made no pretence of working, finding the way of the 
 beggar or the thief the way of least resistance. 
 
 On week-day afternoons, when the weather was warm 
 enough for open windows or to lure the people out of 
 doors, Rag Alley resounded with the cries of innumerable 
 children, crying, playing or fighting, and the strident voices 
 of women, gossiping, scolding or fighting; but on pleasant 
 Sunday afternoons these sounds were mixed with the deeper 
 voices of men, swearing, arguing or fighting. And though 
 the neighbouring saloons were closed on Sunday, more or 
 less, the sobriety of a legally enforced abstinence did not 
 lie heavily upon the dwellers in Rag Alley. 
 
 On that warm afternoon in early spring the multitudes 
 that inhabited this one of the many dumping-grounds of 
 the great city's refuse this garbage-barrel of civic house- 
 keeping, if one prefers that figure were mostly sitting, 
 standing or sprawling on tumble-down door-steps and lit- 
 tered pavements. Even to Rag Alley spring comes once a 
 year, and though the people do not compose lyrics in its 
 praise, or look for early violets between the paving-stones, 
 yet they enjoy it after their fashion, and go out to meet it 
 not in festal array, but in their shirt-sleeves, mostly 
 coloured. Sometimes even a snatch of pure song will rise 
 above the din of the Alley's profane life, and hover like a 
 butterfly above a cesspool, telling the listening sky that 
 down there somewhere a soul is trying for a moment to 
 spread its wings. But most of the songs heard in Rag 
 Alley would never be mistaken, by even the most placid 
 sky, for the timid soarings of a soul. 
 
 432
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 433 
 
 The sun was midway between the zenith and the irregu- 
 lar western horizon of roofs and chimney-pots, when the 
 peculiar form of Sabbath calm that distinguished the Alley 
 was interrupted by the appearance of a large party of 
 respectable-looking strangers, many men and a few women. 
 At the head of the company walked a man such as the 
 dwellers in the Alley had never before seen. It was Jesse. 
 His head was bared to the golden sunshine, and the look of 
 pity on his face did not shame or humble those unfortunate 
 souls who faced it. His was the pity that exalts the object 
 through recognition of brotherhood. And though the 
 dwellers in the world's alleys are vaguely conscious of a 
 bitter grudge against the universe, they are not conscious 
 of how pitiable they are. 
 
 The comments of Rag Alley on the appearance of Jesse 
 varied somewhat from the comments of Fifth Avenue: 
 
 " Hi, see de bloke at de head o' de prussession ! " . . 
 
 "Gee! what a phiz!" . . . " What's he doin' here? " 
 
 . . , "Say, Mike, dat's de feller what's got his pictur 
 
 in de papers." ..." Sure." ..." Hully 
 
 smoke! See dat hair. Yer c'd pawn it fer eighteen carat 
 
 gold." ..." Shut up, Susie, or I'll pawn you." 
 
 . " Der man what raises de dead." ..." Git 
 
 out!" . . . "Fact. Don' ye read ther papers?" 
 
 " Lookut 'im." ..." Say, he's outa 
 
 sight!" . . . "Gwan! he's only another parson!" 
 
 ' 'Tain't no sech thing. He ain't no parson." 
 
 . . . "Den what is he?" . . . " Search me." 
 
 " T'row 'em out. We don't want no slummin' 
 
 parties." ..." Shut up! He ain't slummin'." 
 
 . " Look at 'im smile ! " . . . " Say, I never 
 
 seen nobody what looked like 'im." ..." Eyes like 
 
 a young mudder wid 'er first brat." ..." Ain't he 
 
 goin' ter preach?" . . . "Preach? What fer?" 
 
 " We don' want no preachin'." . . 
 " Shet up. We do." ..." Free show." . . . 
 "G'wan, Mister." . . . "Speak up." . . . 
 "We don' want no preachin." ..." Shet up, yous! 
 He shall preach." ..." Say, we're listenin'." 
 
 Jesse raised his hand for silence, and was answered by 
 what passed for silence in Rag Alley. Then he began to
 
 434 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 speak to them, a talk broken into many fragments by the 
 assenting, questioning or objecting comments of his listeners. 
 He spoke slowly, that the meaning of each word might have 
 time to penetrate the tough rind of their consciousness and 
 find the core within. 
 
 " From the eyes of every man and woman, God looks at 
 me. For God dwells in every man and woman. And 
 what is God? He is the Spirit. He is one, and he is 
 many. As you are His, so also is He yours. Your bodies 
 are His body, His soul is your soul, His goodness is your 
 goodness. You cannot hurt another without hurting Him. 
 You cannot love another without loving Him. He is the 
 child you tend and feed; He is the friend who helps you 
 in your time of trouble." 
 
 "Gee, Mary! So little Mikie's God, is he? That's 
 great!" . . . "I think he's guyin' us." . . ,; 
 " Shet up! Ho means jest what he says." 
 " Gee ! So you all is God ! " . . . " And me, too ? " 
 
 " On de level, now, he means it." 
 "G'wan, Mister.'; 
 
 " When you give a loaf of bread to one who needs it, 
 you give bread to Him. When you quarrel with your 
 neighbour, it is He with whom you quarrel." 
 
 " Now hear dat! So I give God a black eye yistiddy! " 
 . . . "Be still, thar!" . . . 
 
 "When you make His name a common oath, it is your- 
 self that you dishonour. When you befog your mind with 
 drink, you darken the way in which He must walk. Have 
 you thought evil of another? It is He whom you have 
 doubted. Have you trusted another? Then have you 
 trusted God." 
 
 " Say, will God pay me back that dollar I lent Flan- 
 igan?" . . . "Not on yer life!" . . . "Shet 
 up, an' listen! He's goin' on fine." 
 
 "^The God who is both yourself and your neighbour, 
 is richer than you know. His debts are always paid, some- 
 where, sometime. Eternity is not longer than His memory; 
 and while He lives, can you. who are Himself, cease to 
 be?" 
 
 " Say, we don't want no reward in heaven bizness." 
 . ... .. " We want somethin' here and now."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 435 
 
 " Rag Alley ain't no heaven." ..." What about 
 now?" 
 
 "The past was no less real than now, when you lived 
 in it; the future will be no less real than now. In you is 
 the God who shall answer your own prayer. When you 
 learn how to pray for something better than your Alley, 
 you will find the answer waiting. Prayer may be a help- 
 less wailing; prayer may be the conscious exercise of power. 
 The a-b-c of power is self-control, and to the prayer of 
 him who knows the letters of that alphabet, God cannot 
 answer no." 
 
 " What's He givun us? " . . . " Prayer and alpha- 
 bets! " . . . " Shet up, Mike, or I'll break yer face." 
 . " Listen to ther preacher." 
 
 " Would you control your own life ? Begin with your 
 own thoughts. Look for your own weakness. He who 
 knows a man's weakness is his master. Be master of your- 
 self." 
 
 "Say, how about the sweat-shop?" . . . "Whis- 
 key's my weakness, begob !"..." Hunger's mine." 
 " That's the man what can raise the dead." . . ; .: 
 " He knows what he's talkin' about." 
 
 " There is a sleeping man in every one of you. Awaken 
 him. Call your own sleeping souls to life. The power is 
 yours. The healthy man is he who never thinks of sickness. 
 The strong man is he who knows that he is strong." 
 
 "That's so! I can lick every man in dis Alley." . 
 " But yer can't keep from drinkin'." . . . " I can, 
 begob!" 
 
 " The world will not give you anything because it loves 
 you; but the God in you can give you anything which you 
 are wise enough to use." 
 
 "Say, Mister, will He gimme a job to-morrow? I 
 hain't worked fer a month. How'll I git a job ? " 
 
 " When you can listen to the God in your own breast, 
 you will no longer need a teacher." 
 
 " When I go to git a job, I'm always afraid I won't git 
 it." 
 
 " The general who fears to enter a battle will never 
 conquer the enemy. And even the mob in the street will 
 chase a man whom it sees running away."
 
 436 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 The crowd gathered closer and closer about him. From 
 every nook and cranny of the Alley they had come out, to 
 see and hear the man who was so different from them- 
 selves, yet who aroused no feeling of distrust. His tender, 
 pitying eyes passed round the sea of faces. Half-human 
 faces, they were, many of them some lean and ferocious- 
 looking as starved animals, others bloated and expression- 
 less as jelly-fish with drink and with disease, others again 
 whose narrow eyes were burning with the malice of devils, 
 or leering like sub-human, elemental things for which the 
 language of mankind has found no name. 
 
 " Help us! Oh, help us! " the strange eyes seemed to say. 
 " We are the lost, the strayed, the hopeless starvelings of 
 the House of. Life, for whom the Father's door is never 
 open, the Mother's table never spread. We are the ques- 
 tion which no sage can answer, the Devil's clenched fist 
 shaken in the face of God." 
 
 When they asked him what he was going to do for them, 
 he answered: 
 
 " I came to raise your spirits from the dead ; but I will 
 comfort any who are sick, and give them of my strength." 
 
 Many of their ailing, feverish children he left in a re- 
 freshing slumber, from which they would awaken with 
 new life. And the aroma of his own spirit he left with 
 them, a subtle but pervading influence that remained with 
 all for many days, and remained with some for ever. Most 
 of his words they had only vaguely understood; but he 
 had told them of the God within themselves, and though 
 they made a joke of it to one another, they pondered the 
 matter in secret. 
 
 That night the owner of Rag Alley came alone to Jesse. 
 He came on foot, having left his luxurious motor car at 
 the ferry-station below, and Jesse received him privately in 
 the room where Lawrence had lain in the coffin a few days 
 before. 
 
 " I want to do something for your cause," were the first 
 words of the rich young man. 
 
 " My cause is the cause of humanity," Jesse answered. 
 " The wise ones of the past have called it the Great Or- 
 phan."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 437 
 
 " But I know not where to begin." 
 
 "Then begin at the centre and work outward; begin 
 under your own roofs." 
 
 " Why, I have a thousand roofs ! I know not what to 
 do." 
 
 " Examine those roofs and the life that hives beneath 
 them; then examine your own heart, and find yourself the 
 way. Great is your opportunity." 
 
 " But I am less happy than many who have nothing." 
 
 " Can one man deserve all blessings? He who has power 
 and knows the way to use it can make that power itself 
 his happiness. I never ask myself if I am happy." 
 
 "You?" The young man gazed at him in wide-eyed 
 reverence. " Why," he said, " I believe no other man in 
 the world has power like yours. That is why I am here. 
 What victories you must have won what spiritual prizes!" 
 
 " The prize of every victory is the right to enter another 
 battle," Jesse answered. 
 
 Needham sat locking and unlocking his long fingers, as 
 if under the stress of strong emotion. 
 
 " There was one thing you said in your sermon this 
 morning that has rung in my ears all day : ' Does your 
 heart swell with pride as you view your worldly possessions 
 and count them over? The only possessions which shall 
 not be taken from you are those which can neither be 
 viewed nor counted.' Will you tell me of those possessions? 
 I want to obtain them." 
 
 Jesse reached out his hand and touched the clasped hands 
 of the young man beside him. 
 
 " My brother," he said, " the way for every soul is differ- 
 ent, yet are they all the same. For you, the way to acquire 
 spiritual possessions is to relinquish material possessions." 
 
 " Do you mean that I should relinquish everything I 
 have, or only a part? " 
 
 " That is for you alone to determine. But for every 
 material and personal right surrendered by the disciple, he 
 acquires a spiritual privilege." 
 
 The light of enthusiasm in the young man's eyes grew 
 clouded by anxiety. 
 
 " But I do not stand alone," he said; " I have so many 
 ties that link me with the world."
 
 438 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 The smile Jesse gave him was full of understanding and 
 of sympathy, as he answered: 
 
 "The world may be likened to a great shop of varied 
 merchandise, from which a man may choose whatever things 
 he is willing and able to pay for. And gold is not the only 
 medium of exchange." 
 
 " Then may I not give service in other ways, as well as 
 with my wealth ? " 
 
 " Have you any other power that is comparable with your 
 wealth ? " 
 
 " I have great influence." 
 
 "Is it the influence of your wealth, or of yourself?" 
 
 The young man sighed. 
 
 " I fear it is not of myself," he said. 
 
 "Then you have found the answer to your question." 
 
 " If I could only get away for a little while from the 
 distractions of the world," he went on, " perhaps I would 
 be strong enough to practise my own philosophy." 
 
 " The world is the place to practise philosophy," was 
 Jesse's answer ; " though solitude is sometimes necessary for 
 the assimilation of experience." 
 
 " But how can a man learn faith? I have studied many 
 religions, but I have not found the basic Law which under- 
 lies our life." 
 
 " Some men can learn the Law only by the study of 
 laws, and some can learn Faith only by the study of faiths; 
 others, again, learn the Law by studying Faith, and Faith 
 by studying the Law." 
 
 " And what is that Law? " 
 
 "It has many names," replied Jesse; "it has been given 
 many forms by those who have glimpsed it through the 
 ages; but there is no better symbol for it than the balances." 
 
 A puzzled look came into the eyes of the listener. 
 
 " I fear I do not fully understand," he said. " If the 
 law of balance is what I have sought, how shall I apoly 
 it to my life? " 
 
 "There are many ways; but first restore the balance 
 between yourself and the world. When you have given the 
 Spirit as much as the world has given you, then will you 
 be ready to study the other applications of the great Law. 
 That is your first lesson."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 439 
 
 "And if I fail?" 
 
 " Then you will forfeit the reward. But having invoked 
 the Spirit, you will find that what you refuse to yield will- 
 ingly, the Spirit itself will take." 
 
 " And may I come to you sometimes for guidance and 
 advice ? " 
 
 The young man did not understand the look of sadness 
 which clouded Jesse's eyes, nor did he understand his part- 
 ing words until some days later: 
 
 "When I am not here to advise you, listen to the voices 
 of the winds and the waters, and to the wise words of little 
 hungry children. It may be that they will teach you more 
 than I." 
 
 Sad and unsatisfied, he who had come to the young Mas- 
 ter alone and at night descended the hill on the way back 
 to his own world, the world which though he could not 
 bring himself to relinquish it had lost all beauty for him.
 
 CHAPTER LXX 
 
 ON Monday morning the newspapers made the most of 
 Jheir opportunity. Sensational news had been scarce of 
 iate; the nations of the world were in a state of peace that 
 was most irritating to the press ; murder, robbery and suicide 
 were at their minimum, and not even a scandal of respect- 
 able proportions had stirred the country for days. So the 
 moulders, or reflectors, of public opinion hailed the appear- 
 ance of Jesse Bethel and turned his unworldly mission to 
 their own worldly profit. The resurrection of Lawrence 
 Lane having been exploited to the full, they leaped at the 
 miraculous cure of Mrs. Freeman's lameness, on the steps 
 of the church of the famous Doctor Claflin. In the old 
 days when Mrs. Freeman's departed husband had been 
 running for office on the more conservative ticket, and the 
 less conservative party had been sifting the chaff of his past 
 career for kernels of disrepute even in the days of the 
 political prominence of Freeman, the name was not more 
 conspicuously placed in the newspapers than on that Mon- 
 day morning. Interviews with the witty old lady appeared 
 in every journal, and those who knew her recognised the 
 quoted words as being in her own characteristic style. Even 
 her enthusiasm for the new prophet was expressed in terms 
 of quaint, half-serious hyperbole. One saying of hers, 
 " His glance was so exalting, that my lame foot spurned 
 the earth and carried me with it up the steps of God's 
 house," was prominently placed in every paper. 
 
 Another interview, with the Reverend Doctor Claflin, who 
 had been an unwilling witness for the truth of the occur- 
 rence, was printed next to that of Mrs. Freeman, and by the 
 very darkness of its laboured impartiality made hers ap- 
 pear more highly-coloured and extravagant. It was as care- 
 fully worded as his famous printed sermon on the text 
 of Proberbs, XXVIII, 19: " He that tilleth his land shall 
 have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain 
 persons shall have poverty enough." When asked by a 
 persistent reporter to give an opinion as to the means by 
 
 440
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 441 
 
 which the wonder was accomplished, he answered with a 
 quotation, again from Proverbs: " It is the glory of God 
 to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search 
 out a matter." Doctor Claflin was noted among his fel- 
 low clergymen for having the Scriptures at his tongue's 
 end. "Then do you intend to search out this matter?" 
 the interviewer asked. And the interviewed was quoted as 
 replying, with an agitated manner which perhaps accounted 
 for the somewhat cloudy metaphor: "A clergyman is the 
 king of his flock, and must search out whatever threatens 
 it." 
 
 There were no editorials on this second incident; the 
 minds behind the presses were quietly awaiting develop- 
 ments before committing themselves further. 
 
 That afternoon the large Sunday-school room of Doctor 
 Claflin's church was brilliantly illuminated with artificial 
 light and filled with fashionably attired men and women 
 and many children. It was the occasion of the annual 
 spring fair, depended on to replenish the coffers of the Sun- 
 day-school and to help in carrying on the work of one or 
 two of the much-advertised charities of the church. Every- 
 where were booths and tables decorated with gay colours 
 and laden with wares for sale or raffle, each booth and 
 table in the care of one or more beautiful young women 
 whose duties were to extract every possible dollar from 
 every possible purse. 
 
 Twenty-five cent bunches of violets sold for a dollar; 
 photographs of popular actresses sold for the price of 
 orchestra chairs at their performances; boxes of confection- 
 ery went for figures that would soon have made the for- 
 tune of any secular dealer; at the Oriental booth the 
 charges would have brought a blush to the cheek of a bar- 
 gaining Turk of Stamboul ; and at the " refreshment tables " 
 hungry or thirsty visitors might regale themselves on vari- 
 coloured ice-creams and cakes and innocent drinks, for sums 
 of money that would keep the dark-skinned beneficiaries of 
 the church's favourite mission in rice and curry through a 
 protracted period of famine. 
 
 But the raffles offered real bargains provided the in- 
 vestor won the prize, and there was an equal chance for
 
 442 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 all. For a few dollars one might win a good red motor 
 car, if luck were with him, and " luck " is the watchword 
 of those who sell chances in raffles. For a single dollar 
 one might possibly become the owner of a Persian prayer- 
 rug to make comfortable the orisons of generations; and 
 also for that trifling sum a speculative woman had one 
 chance in fifty of wearing on her head a fanciful creation 
 of lace and feathers which hid within its crown a famous 
 Paris name, more magical in its effect on modern feminin- 
 ity than the potent abracadabra on the philosophers of olden 
 time. For those who had no need of motor cars, prayer- 
 rugs or bonnets, there were other and equally seductive op- 
 portunities for invoking the favour of the tutelary deity of 
 church fair patrons the fascinating god called Chance. 
 
 It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, when the open- 
 ing glories of the fair were at their height, and the walls of 
 the Sunday-school room were ringing with laughter and 
 chatter, that a sudden lessening of the noise, a silence round 
 the door, made those at a distance crane their necks to see 
 what person of distinction was entering to see who could 
 be so distinguished as to silence, even for a moment, the 
 babble and the laughter of the fair. In another breath, a 
 quick murmur ran round the room. 
 
 " Oh, look! " . . . " It's the new prophet, the man 
 who made Mrs. Freeman walk." . . . " He who 
 raised the dead man at Fort Lee." ..." And what a 
 band of followers !"..." What is he doing here ? " 
 . . . " There's Mrs. Freeman, over by the door." . . 
 " She's speaking to him." ..." What a gentle smile 
 he has!" . . . "But he could be stern, though."" 
 . . . " Let's make him buy our violets." ..." Oh, 
 no, no, you mustn't !" . . . " Why not, pray? " . . 
 " Because he's different I can't tell why." ..." Oh, 
 he's coming this way! " 
 
 Jesse paused before the flower-booth, where several young 
 ladies were standing, among them the one who had advised 
 the others not to sell him violets and none were offered 
 him. The girl waited, shyly, for him to speak, looking up 
 at his face with half-frightened eyes. 
 
 He touched one of the red roses on the table.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 443 
 
 " Are these beautiful flowers, which seem to exhale the 
 very sweetness of the Spirit, to be offered upon the altar? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " They are for sale," she answered. 
 
 " The perfume of the Spirit should not be made mer- 
 chandise and in the Spirit's house." 
 
 His tone was gentle, almost caressing in its sj 7 mpathy; 
 but the rebuke within the words sought out and found the 
 sensitive spot in her young heart; her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "They asked me to sell them," she answered softly. 
 
 "And if I ask you not to sell them? " 
 
 She hesitated, trembling with the unexpected responsibility 
 of choice between the favour of her pastor and the wish of 
 this strange man whose eyes seemed to unveil the. hidden 
 places of her soul. Silently he waited, full of tenderness 
 and pity for her fluttering will ; but there was no wavering 
 in the purpose which shone in his eyes. Looking up at him 
 with a child-like and pathetic smile, she said: 
 
 " I will not sell them, if you say that flowers should not 
 be sold in the church." 
 
 " May the Spirit open your soul to the beauty of Itself, 
 my sister." And he passed on. 
 
 " Surely you are not going to leave the booth ! " one of 
 her companions expostulated with her. " You will not 
 break your promise to us ? " 
 
 " I will not break my promise to him." 
 
 The third young lady in the booth came forward to her 
 friend's defence. " Of course she need not serve here, if 
 she would rather not. We can manage very well with- 
 out her. ... I don't blame you, child," she added; 
 " I understand, and I like you for it." 
 
 With a whispered " Thank you," the girl quietly left the 
 stall and joined a group of friends, on the other side of the 
 room. From there she could watch Jesse as he made the 
 circuit of the fair, followed by the men and women who 
 were helping him in his work. Oh, that she were free to 
 join them! But though she was a petted child, and could 
 leave a flower-booth, she had no real liberty. " May the 
 Spirit open your soul to the beauty of Itself, my sister." 
 The words gave her that strange feeling of ecstasy which 
 she had sometimes known when listening to the music of
 
 444 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 great masters, only this new feeling was more intense, and 
 there was another element in it which mere music had never 
 given her a consciousness of " the everlasting arms " be- 
 neath her. Was it thus the Spirit opened the soul to the 
 beauty of Itself? she wondered. 
 
 Jesse stood at the table behind which the Persian rug 
 was exhibited on the wall and chances on it were offered 
 for the raffle. The young woman who had charge of this 
 department was not of the same sensitive type as the girl at 
 the flower-booth; she had a bright and rather hard face, 
 and when Jesse paused and seemed to examine the rug, she 
 offered to sell him a chance on it, mentioning the devout 
 purpose for which it was originally intended. 
 
 " A prayer-rug," he repeated. " But those whose prayers 
 reach highest bruise their knees upon the rocks of supplica- 
 tion." 
 
 " It will not be thus with the one who wins this rug," 
 she answered, with a twinkle of amusement in her bright 
 black eyes. She knew who he was, and it was out of sheer 
 bravado that she had asked him to take a chance in the 
 raffle. Looking beyond him at that moment, she encoun- 
 tered the steady gaze of Peter Bond, who read her as an 
 artless man may sometimes read an artificial woman. When 
 she turned her eyes back to Jesse's face their expression was 
 less self-confident, but her chin went up ever so little. 
 
 " I truly believe," he answered, " that he who wins this 
 prayer-rug will not bruise his knees upon the stones of sup- 
 plication, nor will he mar the beauty of the fabric by peni- 
 tential beatings of his head upon the ground." 
 
 The young woman laughed from sheer nervousness, but 
 made no reply. She was beginning to wish herself well out 
 of the encounter. 
 
 " And the profits of this sacred enterprise ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh ! They are divided between the Sunday-school and 
 foreign missions, I believe ; though I really don't know much 
 about it." 
 
 " And this gambling is done in the name of God and of 
 religion ? " 
 
 "Why er " she stammered, not knowing what to 
 
 answer. 
 
 " This morning I was in the stock exchange," he went on.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 445 
 
 " I did not reprove the gamblers there, because those wolves 
 yelp like the wolves they are. But you I do reprove, though 
 you are only a decoy, and bleat so prettily to lure the ; ass- 
 ing sheep. They who turn the house of faith into a j am- 
 bling-hall and a market-place are worse, because less honest, 
 than they who frankly seek their prey in the open, with no 
 pious pretence or pretty lamb-like bleatings." 
 
 The face of the young woman was scarlet; but under her 
 anger burned a fiery admiration for the splendid courage of 
 the man. And he was right her quick brain told her that. 
 But she came of a race of fighters, and she faced him with 
 clear eyes and quivering lips. 
 
 " How dare you! " she half-whispered. 
 
 " How dare you desecrate the house of God? " 
 
 For the space of ten heart-beats they stood eye to eye, 
 spirit challenging and defying spirit. Then, in a tone of 
 womanly submission, she said : 
 
 "They must find someone else to carry on their raffle; I 
 shall do it no more." 
 
 " I thank you." He put out his hand and she laid hers in 
 it, in token of compact. Then he turned to Mary Magnus, 
 who was among those who followed him. 
 
 " Our new friend would like to know more of me and of 
 my work. Will you instruct her?" Then he passed on, 
 leaving the two women together. 
 
 Among those who witnessed the occurrence was the Rev- 
 erend Doctor Claflin. He had seen the entrance of Jesse 
 and his friends, and had quietly made his way to a point 
 which the strangers would have to pass in going around 
 the room. He would have asked him to leave the church 
 if he had dared; but the fair was open to the public, and 
 he could find no plausible excuse immediately to get rid 
 of one whom he felt to be an intruder. He had just been 
 told of the incident of the flower-booth when he witnessed 
 the incident before the Persian rug, and he felt the moment 
 had come to interpose an objection. Surely this was a duty 
 which could be delegated to no person lesser than himself. 
 Walking up to Jesse, he stated his name and position in the 
 church, adding: 
 
 " I am forced to request that you do not further inter- 
 fere with the business of our fair."
 
 446 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 In the same gentle voice he had used with the two women, 
 Jesse answered: 
 
 " I did not know that faith had become a commercial 
 business. If that is so, then has the world need of a new 
 and purer faith." 
 
 " Of which you hope to be the prophet, I suppose." 
 
 " He who proclaims the truth for its own sake, asks no 
 reward of men." 
 
 " But even you will possibly admit that in the world as 
 constituted at the present day, faith needs must be sustained 
 with bread and meat," the minister protested. 
 
 " You cannot buy the bread of Jupiter with the coin of 
 Mars," was Jesse's answer. 
 
 " I feel that a minister of God cannot ask any orderly 
 person to leave his church," Doctor Claflin said, with rising 
 colour; " but I also feel that you are out of place here." 
 
 " My place," replied Jesse quietly, " is in any public as- 
 sembly where men and women are willing to listen to the 
 message which I came into the world to deliver." 
 
 At that moment a crowd of children who had been 
 gathering about Jesse and restraining their desire to touch 
 him, suddenly rushed forward with little hands outstretched 
 and faces tremulous with eagerness. One of them had seen 
 him in the Park the day before, and had told the others that 
 he was " the beautiful man who told us stories and made 
 the policeman's eyes all shiny." 
 
 " Oh ! don't you remember me, beautiful man ? " the 
 girl-child cried, with little gasps of joy. " I sat on your 
 knee Sunday morning, when you told us about the king's 
 son who found the land of loveliness right down in his own 
 heart" 
 
 "Yes, I remember you, dear child." 
 
 "And, Oh! beautiful man, these are my friends we go 
 to Sunday-school together and won't you tell them the 
 story of the land of loveliness? You can sit right here in 
 this big chair . . . that's only a price-card in the seat, 
 and we'll put it on the floor underneath just for now. . . 
 Oh, do! And I'll sit on your knee again, like I did yester- 
 day, and Bobbie can sit on the other knee. Bobbie's my 
 cousin, you know, and I've told him all about you. ' There 
 was once a king's son ' . . . you see I remember how it
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 447 
 
 begins. . . . ' There was once a king's son ' . . . 
 Go on, beautiful man," and the child settled herself on his 
 knee, gazing into his face with rapt, adoring eyes, while 
 all the other children gathered round in quivering expect- 
 ancy. 
 
 So Jesse told the story all over again. And when it was 
 ended he told them another, about a little girl who loved 
 the moon so much that she wanted to fly away and live 
 there, and was not contented in her earthly home ; but when 
 one night she saw the moon reflected in her mother's eyes 
 two beautiful golden moons instead of one she was happy 
 to stay at home, and desired no more to fly away through 
 the air, because there was twice as much moon-beauty on 
 the earth as in the sky, if one only knew just how to look 
 for it in a pair of loving eyes. 
 
 " Who are you, beautiful man ? " the little girl demanded. 
 " Oh ! tell us who you are and where you came from." 
 
 " I am the messenger of the Spirit, and I came from the 
 home of the Spirit, to which I shall soon return." 
 
 " Oh! I know what a messenger is," she cried. " A mes- 
 senger is one that brings us something. What do you 
 bring us, beautiful man ? " 
 
 " I bring the spirit of Love, and the love of the Spirit." 
 
 Jesse now rose from the chair, but no one thought to re- 
 place the price-mark which had been removed by the chil- 
 dren to provide a place for him. 
 
 " Don't go away, messenger of the Spirit," a score of 
 little ones pleaded. " We want you to stay with us al- 
 ways, messenger of the Spirit." 
 
 Jesse turned now to the bewildered clergyman, who had 
 watched and listened to this demonstration of instinctive 
 trust and love on the part of those beings whom he was 
 wont to call the lambs of his own flock. 
 
 " When you are in doubt as to the purpose of my com- 
 ing," he said, "ask the little children, for they will never 
 forget." 
 
 Then, followed by his friends, and by many others, he 
 passed out of the church.
 
 CHAPTER LXXI 
 
 RARE were the hours when Andrew and Anna found 
 themselves alone together. Their common love for their 
 Master, which drew them closer together in spirit than any 
 mere earthly tie could have drawn them, served, by the 
 very nature of the communal life they shared with all his 
 followers, to hold them always a little asunder in person. 
 They were together almost always, alone together almost 
 never. So there had grown up between them a wordless, 
 immaterial communion that was very beautiful and filled 
 their souls with ecstasy; the wings of their love were al- 
 ways quivering in expectancy of the flight they were never 
 allowed to take. For nearly a year now they had looked 
 into each other's 'eyes across the barrier of the Master's 
 denial; and though the prolonged period of trial had paled 
 their faces and made thin their forms, yet had their love 
 grown stronger with every passing day. Long months be- 
 fore, Jesse had said to them : " Only they who can live 
 without love are worthy of the perfection of love." And 
 they had bowed their heads in acquiescence, and had gone 
 on serving him. 
 
 But now, though by no word or look had he given them 
 to understand that there was any change in his intention 
 regarding them, yet instinctively they knew it, and their 
 hearts were afraid. Was the Master's death to give them 
 to each other? Though he had warned them long before 
 that he would die, they had not really believed until now 
 that they could lose him. And because they loved him with 
 a vaster love than that of man and woman, they were now 
 almost afraid to look in each other's eyes. 
 
 After leaving the church fair Jesse turned his steps east- 
 ward, and as they passed the house in the city where his 
 mother and the other women lodged, he said to Andrew: 
 
 " You may remain behind with Anna, while the others 
 go with me as far as the ferry. When they return, you will 
 follow me to the house beyond the river. I have need of 
 
 448
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 449 
 
 you this night, so do not fail to come when my mother 
 and the other women return." 
 
 Jesse turned away, and Andrew, too surprised to respond, 
 went up the steps of the house with Anna. Neither spoke 
 a word until they passed the threshold of the sitting-room 
 which the women shared together. 
 
 " Anna," he said, as the door closed between them and 
 the outside world, " the Master means to answer my long 
 prayer." His voice was low and unsteady. 
 
 Anna had walked to the window and was looking out at 
 the faces of the passers-by, touched by the last rays of the 
 setting sun. When she turned to him, he saw that her 
 eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "Anna! Why are you sad? The Master is good to us 
 this day." 
 
 He put out his hand timidly, and she laid hers in it. 
 
 "Are you not happy, Anna, dear Anna? " 
 
 Her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. 
 
 " The Master is going to die. That is why he is so 
 kind to us. He has told us so before, but we would not 
 believe." 
 
 They sat down side by side on a little sofa in the corner 
 of the room. Her words had dazed the slower mind of the 
 man; he looked at her in a kind of pathetic wonderment. 
 It was so rare and marvellous a thing to be alone with her, 
 and yet . . . she said the Master was going to die! . . 
 
 Strange dominance of the personality of Jesse! After 
 months of keeping these lovers apart by the presence of oth- 
 ers, when at last he gave them an hour alone together the 
 consciousness of some vague danger threatening him stood 
 like a wall between them and the joy which they had earned 
 the right to have. 
 
 " Anna, the Master wants us to be happy for this one 
 little hour." 
 
 The sweetness of his presence was beginning to steal 
 over her ; though a happiness which has been too long delayed 
 is always slow in making itself realised. It is as if the soul, 
 resigned at last to gazing into vacancy, is incredulous that 
 the angel visitor is really there. So it was with Anna. And 
 only after several minutes of utter silence, in which her 
 hand rested passively in the hand of her lover, did her sur-
 
 450 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 prised soul gradually grow aware of the fulness of its pres- 
 ent hour. Wistfully, tremulously, she looked into his eyes 
 and smiled. 
 
 " It seems too wonderful to be true that he should leave 
 us here together," she said. 
 
 He laid his hand softly on her hair. He was not a cul- 
 tured man, as the world measures culture; though a year 
 of constant association with the rarest and most beautiful 
 of human beings, Jesse, had intensified his naturally delicate 
 perceptions. His love for Anna had been refined by denial 
 until it had become a psychic passion, an emotion of the 
 soul, an ecstasy for contemplation side by side with the 
 Spirit of his Master's adoration. Andrew often, in trying 
 to realise the Spirit which Jesse had taught him to pray 
 to the pervading Spirit which is God could only attain 
 a consciousness of its beauty by thinking of it as that hid- 
 den, mysterious and lovely presence dwelling in the soul of 
 Anna Martin. The man who finds his love in his religion, 
 and his religion in his love, will never wander far from 
 either. 
 
 Having more to say to one another than could be ex- 
 pressed in words, they said almost nothing during their 
 golden hour. Out of the thousand images of love with 
 which their souls were full, which one should they select 
 to speak about now? So they looked into each other's eyes, 
 and smiled, and felt the inadequacy of human language. 
 Little love words, whose simple meaning ages of use have 
 made infinitely expressive, were all the words they needed. 
 
 When at last their lips met in the perfect confidence of 
 love, they forgot that their Master had told them he was 
 going to die, forgot the long months of their face-to-face 
 separation, for the past was lost in the fulness of the pres- 
 ent, which seemed eternal. 
 
 " Do you know, dear Love, that this is ours through all 
 our lives ? " 
 
 " Through all our lives, dear Love." 
 
 " And that nothing shall part us again ever more? " 
 
 " Nothing ever more." 
 
 "The Master told me once that it would be better for 
 us to love each other only in the Spirit." 
 
 " It seems to me this is the Spirit."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 451 
 
 "Whenever I think of the Spirit, I always think of you." 
 
 "And I of you, dear heart." 
 
 " Anna, you have heard the Master speak of the self 
 within and the world without?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " One day I heard him say that if any two join together 
 so that they really become as one, they are both the self 
 within and the world without." 
 
 " So that they really become as one. ... It seems 
 like that with us. Yet he would have kept us apart." 
 
 " He will not keep us apart any more, Anna." 
 
 " Andrew, what is this danger which is threatening the 
 Master? " 
 
 " I do not know, dear Love ; but I think he believes that 
 his enemies will kill him." 
 
 " Why should they kill him ? He is so gentle, so harm- 
 less, and his teachings are beautiful enough to change the 
 world." 
 
 "That is why he is dangerous to those who would keep 
 the world as it is." 
 
 " But how could anyone want the world to remain as 
 it is, when it might be so much more beautiful ? " 
 
 " There are those who prefer their own selfish power to 
 the welfare of the world. It is they who are the enemies 
 of Jesse." 
 
 "And what are the Master's teachings going to do?" 
 
 " They are going to revolutionise the whole earth ; they 
 are going to bring about the reign of love and brotherhood, 
 in the place of selfishness, and greed, and cruelty, and op- 
 pression." 
 
 The eyes of the young man blazed with the fire of Jesse's 
 own enthusiasm. After a year of contact with the flame 
 which he knew as the Master, Andrew believed, as did 
 most of his fellow disciples, that the love and faith of one 
 man could change the consciousness of a world. Oh, sub- 
 lime illusion, tenuous and seemingly impossible dream, 
 which was destined to survive every solid and material 
 structure of its time! At long intervals in the history of 
 the world there arises such a being, born to rekindle the 
 dead flame of faith in the souls of men. And though they 
 pay the price of their lives for the spiritual grandeur of
 
 452 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the dream they dare to dream and strive to make a reality, 
 yet the dream survives; for neither gold nor granite is so 
 enduring as such a dream. The memory of the bow in the 
 cloud, believed to be God's covenant with Noah, will sur- 
 vive the very rocks of Mount Ararat. And in the words 
 of Jesse : " It is worth while to endure many storms for 
 the sake of seeing one rainbow."
 
 CHAPTER LXXII 
 
 JESSE was sitting quietly after supper in the little house 
 beyond the Palisades. On her favourite low stool at his 
 feet was Mary Lane Mary the dreamer, while her sis- 
 ter Martha and the men were here and there about the 
 room. The girl could never hear enough of Jesse's words. 
 With wide eyes and bated breath she drank in his teaching, 
 her young, imaginative soul aquiver with the vision of 
 beauty he invoked for her. He could speak to her even 
 as he spoke to John, using images which would have been 
 unintelligible to many of the others. He said of her, as 
 he had said of John : " Only the born mystic knows what 
 mysticism is: to others it is only a vague word." 
 
 " Master," she said to him this evening, " you have 
 opened for me the gate of the spiritual gardens; but I am 
 so slow in learning my way about. The beauty which I see 
 half blinds my eyes; I can only grope, where I would walk 
 upright." 
 
 He smiled down at her. 
 
 " Be not impatient for the flower of the Spirit to open. 
 Have you not said that you are immortal? What have 
 the immortal to do with time?" 
 
 " My soul is not impatient. It is my brain, which 
 thinks more nobly than I can live." 
 
 " Dear child, the brain is not the Thinker. The brain 
 is but the tool the Thinker uses to carve his message on 
 the eternal rocks." 
 
 " But, Master, I am so sad sometimes! I dwell a little 
 while with the beauty you reveal to me; then I return to 
 the every-day world, where all seems grey." 
 
 He answered, " A thing is what it is, only in relation to 
 something else: there could be no mountain without the 
 contrast with the valley." 
 
 "But why is the every-day world so grey, Master?" 
 
 " The greyness is in the eye which beholds. He who 
 sees no marvel in the crawling of the earthworm, will 
 vainly question the marvel of the rushing planets. To him 
 
 453
 
 454 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 who finds no beauty in the wayside weed, the rose will 
 never reveal the secret of her loveliness." 
 
 " But can I help being saddened when I see the shams 
 and falsehoods of the world ? " 
 
 " The shams and falsehoods which sadden you are only 
 the broken reflections of some fragment of the great Truth." 
 
 " I have often wondered," she said, gazing as though 
 afar off into space, " if I have the true perception of the 
 Spirit; wondered if I see the same God that you see." 
 
 " The God in you is your God, and the God in me is 
 my God; but your God and my God are one the One." 
 
 " And what am I, Master? " 
 
 " You are the thread whereon are strung the jewels of 
 your deeds and thoughts and feelings. God is the thread 
 whereon are strung the jewels of the generations of men 
 and of the stars." 
 
 At that moment Martha, who had gone to answer a 
 ring at the door-bell, returned to Jesse's side. 
 
 " Master, there is a stranger in the hall who asks to see 
 you. He does not wish to give his name." 
 
 " Please tell him to come in." 
 
 The man who entered was about thirty years old, slen- 
 der and well-dressed, with curling light hair and moustache, 
 and restless grey eyes. He bowed before Jesse with elabo- 
 rate respect. 
 
 "May I be granted a private interview?" he asked, 
 with the slight accent betraying the foreigner. 
 
 " I have no secrets from these friends," Jesse answered. 
 
 The man bowed again. " But what I have to say can 
 be said only to you." 
 
 " I am at the call of all men who seek the knowledge 
 of the Spirit; and though it is hidden, it is not secret. But 
 you may come with me." 
 
 He led the way to the room across the hall, where he 
 had received the multimillionaire the night before, and 
 placed his visitor in the same chair where young Needham 
 had sat. 
 
 " I have seen all that has been written about you in the 
 papers," the stranger began, " and I am profoundly inter- 
 ested in your magical powers. I have come to-night to 
 ask you to teach them to me."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 455 
 
 "Are you offering yourself as my disciple?" 
 
 " I would learn the secret of your powers." 
 
 " But they are not secret. I have proclaimed them from 
 the housetops for a long time." 
 
 " Yes, but that is only for the multitude. I would know 
 the inner, magical secrets, the secrets of miraculous healing 
 and of power over the wills of men." 
 
 " Is then your love so great for all mankind that you 
 would ease them of their afflictions? Love is the potent 
 drug I use, administered by the hand of faith." 
 
 " I, too, would be a miraculous healer. I aspire to super- 
 human powers." 
 
 The calm blue eyes of Jesse enveloped and subdued the 
 restless eyes of the other. 
 
 ;< The power you seek comes only by sacrifice," he said. 
 
 "But I am willing to sacrifice," the young man cried, 
 " I am willing to pay. Here ! I have brought five hun- 
 dred dollars with me. Take them they are yours. But 
 I expect for them the secret of your powers." 
 
 Jesse looked from the young man's face to the money 
 he held out, and though his lips smiled strangely, yet his 
 eyes were sad. 
 
 " The price of the powers of the Spirit," he said, slowly, 
 " five hundred dollars the price of the powers of the 
 Spirit!" 
 
 "Is it not enough? For two hundred I learned how 
 to create illusions which have puzzled all the scientists. I 
 see it is not enough. You must be very great! But I will 
 bring you more seven hundred yes, a thousand for I see 
 that you are a very great magician. I will give you a 
 thousand, though it is a large amount of money, and I 
 shall expect for it the secret of all your powers." 
 
 The smile had now passed from Jesse's face, and only 
 the sadness remained in the eyes which held the other's. 
 
 "Poor man!" he murmured, "poor deluded man! You 
 are offering me the money you love above all things, offer- 
 ing it to me in exchange for that which I give freely 
 freely, without price to all mankind." 
 
 " But I do not want to be healed; I want to learn hew 
 to heal." 
 
 Jesse had risen from his chair.
 
 456 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Though I should tell you everything I know," he said, 
 "you would be no wiser than you are now. They who 
 use spiritual powers for selfish purposes dig with their 
 own nails the grave wherein they shall be buried. I send 
 you from me, and forbid you ever to return, because, for 
 such as you, the diamond gates of the City of God would 
 be only so many carats' weight, to be bartered in the mar- 
 ket." 
 
 Defeated, but apparently unresentful, the strange man 
 bowed again, more profoundly than on his entrance; but 
 his shifting eyes no longer met those of Jesse. 
 
 " I perceive," he said, " that you are one of those whom 
 I am forced to respect against my will. Good-night." 
 
 The outer door closed behind him, and Jesse returned 
 to the room where his friends were awaiting his return. 
 
 "Who was it, Master?" Peter inquired. 
 
 " A swordsman," Jesse answered, " who offered a large 
 sum of money to buy a blade he had not the skill to 
 wield." 
 
 A few minutes later Jesse was seated with the twelve 
 men around the bare table in the dining-room, and the 
 door was closed. There were things he had to say to them, 
 and this was the appointed hour; instructions he had to 
 give them, which on this quiet night would sink deeper 
 into their minds than if delivered amid the confusion of 
 the ensuing days. He sat at one end of the table, between 
 Peter and John, while at the farther end sat Judson, 
 Carey, and the other men were ranged on both sides. For a 
 little time they sat in silence, Jesse with his eyes closed, in 
 voiceless, passionate prayer. The perfume which the 
 woman disciple had poured upon his head some days be- 
 fore made sweet the air around him. His face was paler 
 than usual, and when he opened his eyes and looked at 
 them they were held by the intensity of his gaze. 
 
 " Heretofore," he began, " you have refused to believe 
 that the hour is approaching when I shall be with you no 
 longer in the flesh. But listen to me now, and when my 
 prophecy is verified, remember all that I shall have said to 
 you this night. 
 
 " Though the eyes of men no longer gaze upon me, yet
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 457 
 
 you and I are one; and you must carry on the work I have 
 laid down. The spiritual future of mankind is in your 
 hands; and though the task I leave with you is harder than 
 any ever yet performed by the minds and bodies of men, 
 you must not fail. Not only must you know what to do, 
 but you must dare to do it, and at the very moment when 
 it should be done. You must be master, not only of inclina- 
 tion, but of disinclination. Remember that if the sun 
 should pause to ask itself whether it felt like rising, the 
 work of the world would be sadly disarranged." 
 
 " We who have sacrificed so much already, will not fail 
 you now," said Nathan Evans, from the other end of the 
 table. 
 
 " You talk of sacrifice," Jesse answered gravely. " But 
 what have you really sacrificed ? A narrow life for a wider 
 and more complete life one which will write your names 
 on the register of immortality. When the time comes for 
 you really to make the Great Sacrifice, you will not speak 
 of it to anyone." 
 
 " Oh, Master! Is there not some way of setting back 
 the hour of our trial? " It was John who spoke, referring 
 to the prophecy of death; but Jesse answered him: 
 
 " He who would postpone any lesson, however difficult, 
 is not fully possessed by the desire for growth." 
 
 The austerity of all that was implied in these words 
 was like a rock beneath their feet. Jesse went on: 
 
 " To know the Law even to know there is a Law 
 involves great responsibilities of obedience: ignorance can 
 no longer be claimed as an excuse for failure. 
 
 " He who refuses to follow the hard discipline that is 
 the price of wisdom, shall pay more dearly yet for the 
 undisciplined folly that seems to be easy and free of charge." 
 
 The twelve men looked at one another, each measuring 
 his own strength by the firmness in the eye of his neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 " The scattered divine fragments that are humanity have 
 little knowledge of the power of men united," declared 
 Jesse, his voice rising with the force of his feeling. " If 
 you who seem to be twelve could in effect become one, 
 one in purpose and in will, there is no conceivable limit 
 to the deeds you might accomplish. They are one who
 
 458 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 love each other, who live for each other and for one idea. 
 As heart and brain and hand and foot all work together 
 for the welfare of the individual man, whose parts they 
 are, so must you work all together for the unity which 
 is the one apostle of the Spirit. For such a work there 
 must be absolute detachment from the world, with absolute 
 devotion to the world.' You can never be really an im- 
 portant part of human life until you are outside of and be- 
 yond mere human life. You will be persecuted by that 
 world you serve; but you will exist only for me and the 
 fulfilment of my mission. You will live in the Eternal, 
 not in the things of time. Immeasurable is your responsi- 
 bility, for on your shoulders rests the burden of my future. 
 Can you work thus as one body and one mind, which my 
 untrammelled spirit can use? " 
 
 " We can," they promised. 
 
 "Then has my power no limits; then shall the desert 
 places of life blossom with the roses of faith, and the Spirit 
 be redeemed from its long bondage." 
 
 " Master," they cried, speaking rapidly one after another, 
 and sometimes two or three together, their love and admira- 
 tion for him breaking through all bonds of restraint, 
 " Master, we give ourselves utterly to the work." 
 " We are willing to renounce the world." ..." You 
 are our world." ..." There is no task too hard for 
 us." ..." We are indeed one, in your service." . . . 
 " We ask no greater blessing than to die to ourselves 
 that we may live for you." ..." Make us your hands 
 and feet." . . : . "Use us or break us in the service 
 of the Spirit." . : . . "Only let us feel your living 
 presence." . . . " We have the faith, we have the 
 will." >- . . "We will never waver, and we cannot 
 fail." ..." We are not afraid of persecution." . 
 . . " We suffer all for you with gladness." . . . "We 
 will make the whole earth to ring with your name." . . . 
 " You are the sun that warms the planet." ..." The 
 moon that draws the tides of faith." . . . "You are 
 the beloved of the Spirit." . . . " The messenger of 
 God." . . . "We will proclaim you until all men 
 believe." 
 
 In this chorus of enthusiasm one voice was heard less
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 459 
 
 often than the others, though in the abandon of the moment 
 no one noticed this save Jesse, and he made no reference 
 to it. But when he spoke again it was to address directly 
 the disciple at the farther end of the table, in tones of 
 melting tenderness. 
 
 " Do you not feel, Judson, that he who loves and serves 
 the Spirit has no need of any earthly thing? " 
 
 " You have told us so, Master." 
 
 " Do you not feel that he who is persecuted for his 
 faith's sake is blessed among men ? " 
 
 "Of course, and yet I think we might preach the 
 truth in such a way as to avoid persecution." 
 
 " Some things," answered Jesse, " are passively to be 
 avoided, and some things are powerfully to be overcome; 
 he who knows the one from the other is fit to guide the 
 policies of a nation or to be a disciple." 
 
 " But is there not a way of compromise ? " 
 
 Jesse's voice was still gentle, but there was a strange 
 look in his eyes, and he gazed fixedly at Judson, as he 
 said: 
 
 "Did you ever watch a great tree in a storm? The 
 trunk moves not from its deep place in the ground, but the 
 branches bend a little, and the leaves quiver violently. In 
 the storm of discipleship, it is well for a man to know 
 \vhether he is the steady trunk, the bending branch or the 
 quivering leaf." 
 
 The face of Judson flushed a deep crimson. He knew 
 the full meaning of Jesse's quiet words; but he made no 
 answer, and the others were too much absorbed in their 
 own feelings to consider the significance of this brief 
 dialogue, though later they remembered it. Nor did they 
 understand Jesse's next words, which were spoken in a low 
 tone, as if to himself: 
 
 "If the teacher learns more from the pupil than the 
 pupil can learn from the teacher, then is the teacher a wise 
 man. A foolish man may teach a wise man more than 
 the foolish one himself could compass in ten lives." 
 
 Then drawing a deep breath, and throwing back his 
 head as if to rid his mind of some unbearable weight, Jesse 
 continued : 
 
 " The Spirit has given me to know that there is another
 
 460 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 who will join you in the future, a powerful one, a giant 
 in spirit and in labour. He will make himself known to 
 you, and when he comes you are to receive him in my 
 name." 
 
 "How shall we know him, Master?" 
 
 " You will know him by the power of his presence. Ask 
 me no more now, for I am weary and would rest. 
 But not under a roof built by man's hand would I sleep 
 this night. You who are to carry the burden of my mis- 
 sion must be indifferent to comfort and discomfort. While 
 I am here to shield you from the imaginary dangers of 
 changed habits, you will come with me to sleep under the 
 open sky, with a rock for your pillow. The soldier of 
 the Spirit must learn to take his rest upon Nature's hard 
 bed. I know a spot, on the edge of the Palisades yonder, 
 where I would sleep under the eyes of the stars the wise, 
 implacable stars, that do not waver in their courses though 
 the heart of man may break." 
 
 "Sleep out of doors? So early in the spring!" ex- 
 claimed the domestic Peter, who, until his sojourn with 
 the Master on the mountain during the preceding sum- 
 mer, had always slept in a comfortable bed. 
 
 " The day has been warm," said Jesse, " and the night 
 is also warm; but should you wake in the chill of the dawn 
 and feel the need of covering, wrap yourself in the double 
 garment of love and faith, and remember that I am near 
 you."
 
 CHAPTER LXXIII 
 
 ON Tuesday morning the newspapers were again full 
 of Jesse, and it was everywhere announced that on that 
 evening he would speak at a great public meeting in Madi- 
 son Square Garden. This meeting had been planned the 
 day before, and all the necessary arrangements had been 
 made when they left the city the preceding afternoon. 
 
 " He who would write his teachings upon the hearts of 
 his own time and country, must use the alphabet of his 
 own time and country; the prophet of the twentieth cen- 
 tury in America cannot address his hearers from the door 
 of a bamboo hut brought from the shores of the Ganges," 
 Jesse said. 
 
 Such a crowd had never before been seen at a religious 
 meeting in New York. Not only was the immense hall 
 filled to the doors and .packed in every inch of standing- 
 room allowed by the police; but the streets on all sides 
 were a mass of moving people, unable even to get near 
 the entrance of the Garden. So great was the attendance 
 outside that Jesse sent Peter, Andrew, James and John, 
 to speak to the multitudes in the streets about the man who 
 was himself addressing other multitudes within the build- 
 ing. The four disciples were aflame with enthusiasm, and 
 the declarations they made about their Master astonished 
 and electrified their listeners. They spoke as devotees 
 might speak of a demi-god, an Avatar, a being beyond 
 humanity, the very incarnation of the Spirit whom he 
 sought to reveal to men. What he had never said of him- 
 self, they said of him. Rising to heights of prophecy, they 
 declared that all the religions of the world would be de- 
 stroyed to make room for this new faith the faith in the 
 power of the Spirit and in the power of him who preached 
 the Spirit. They told of his marvellous cures, how on more 
 than one occasion he had snatched a soul from the very grip 
 of Death; they told about the stilling of the storm on the 
 lake near Capronville. As there were reporters from the 
 
 461
 
 462 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 newspapers outside the hall as well as inside, the more 
 striking of these statements were carefully recorded, espe- 
 cially the claim of divinity made for the prophet by those 
 who spoke presumably with his authority. 
 
 Inside the hall, the appearance of Jesse upon the stage 
 was greeted with a thunder of applause that surprised him. 
 For a moment he was thrilled with hope and joy; then 
 came the realisation that it was more the wonder-worker 
 than the messenger of spiritual truth whom the multitudes 
 had come to see and hear. But surely among these thou- 
 sands were many who thirsted for the faith he had to give; 
 he could feel their spirits yearning to him from all sides. 
 He had never spoken in so immense a building; but he 
 whose theatre had been the open air, roofed by the bound- 
 less sky, could will that his words should carry their mean- 
 ing to the remotest corner even of this place. He seated 
 himself in the centre of the stage, and around him was a 
 great number of his friends and sympathisers. 
 
 Then, for the first and only time during his ministry in 
 the great city, the choir which Mary had trained so care- 
 fully arose and sang. It was a new song, composed by 
 the two women a little while before they left Capronville, 
 and the music was the best Mary had ever written. Indeed, 
 it seemed to her that she had not composed it, but merely 
 written it down; that she had listened while angelic beings 
 sang to her. There was a piano on the stage of the Gar- 
 den, and Mary Lane played the accompaniment. 
 
 " We have heard wild fountains falling, 
 
 Heard the thrush's evening trills, 
 We have heard the thunder calling 
 
 To its mate among the hills; 
 But the day we heard our Master 
 
 Whisper softly, "Follow me," 
 Then we heard a music vaster 
 
 Than the organ of the sea. 
 
 " We have seen the rainbow leaning 
 On the cloud's recumbent breast; 
 We have seen the sun-bird preening 
 His red feathers in the west;
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 463 
 
 We have seen the dawn, but fairer 
 
 Is the love that leads us on 
 Love for him, the message-bearer 
 
 Of the Spirit's golden dawn. 
 
 "We have felt the breezes blowing 
 
 Over gardens full of flowers, 
 Felt the sands of pleasure flowing 
 
 Through the fingers of the hours; 
 But we stormed the doors of feeling 
 
 When our Master's voice we heard, 
 And our pilgrim souls were kneeling 
 
 Round the altar of his word. 
 
 "Evermore will spring remind us 
 
 We have seeds of faith to sow, 
 Evermore shall winter find us 
 
 Warming hearts beneath the snow; 
 And the world will follow after, 
 
 As we call men's dreams afar 
 With the wise and mystic laughter 
 
 Of the souls that love the Star." 
 
 The singing surprised and delighted the listeners. Had 
 there been a brass band playing religious pieces, they would 
 have taken it as a matter of course, and waited patiently 
 for the music to stop and the speaker to begin; but this 
 fresh and nai've expression in song of a real religious en- 
 thusiasm, springing spontaneously from the child-heart of 
 the choir, found the child-heart of the audience. The 
 singers were called back, and gave the first song they had 
 made the year before in Vergennes, 
 
 " When our mild-eyed Master came 
 From the mountains of the soul." 
 
 Then Jesse arose, and the great audience was utterly 
 still. To those who were near him he did not seem to 
 be speaking in a loud voice, yet his words were audible 
 in every part of the house. 
 
 " I have been asked to explain what I mean by the 
 power of the Spirit," he began. " Can you explain the
 
 464 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 perfume of a rose, the ecstasy of young motherhood, the 
 glamour of the moonlight? The power of the Spirit is 
 a state of consciousness; when we have reached that state 
 of consciousness, we are the power of the Spirit. 
 
 " It cannot be explained to those who know it not ; yet 
 one may be led to its dwelling-place, as a child may be led 
 by the hand of an elder brother. The road is precipitous, 
 and many things must be left behind on the way. He who 
 would climb the steep mountain of spiritual power can 
 carry with him very little baggage from the valley. 
 
 " It has been said by men of little understanding that 
 this faith is unfitted for those who dwell in the world of 
 practical things; but the ideal and the material are like the 
 two sides of one gold coin. Fully to possess one side is 
 to possess the possibilities of both. He who considers only 
 the material side of life is the least practical of men. A 
 rose is not a rose without the perfume, a man is not a man 
 without the perfume of the soul. 
 
 " The whole world is a slave to the tyranny of petty 
 facts, the facts of the purse, the facts of the cruel warfare 
 of every man against every other man: In the light of 
 the One Truth these are obliterated as stars in the light 
 of the sun. 
 
 " Learn to see the poverty of apparent riches, the riches 
 of apparent poverty. 
 
 " There are many teachers, but Truth is one ; it is like 
 the moon which is reflected in a myriad lakes. 
 
 "If you know how to look for Truth, you will find the 
 symbols of it everywhere, in the simple, homely things of 
 the household, the garden and the street, as well as in the 
 complicated measures of the dancing constellations. He 
 who has the eye for beauty, which is the soul of truth, will 
 find it in the coals upon his hearth, and even in the bread 
 and meat which nourish him. 
 
 " Last night they brought me for my supper a bowl of 
 chicken broth, and swimming on the surface were in- 
 numerable bubbles of golden oil. It was after dark, and 
 the swinging lamp above my head was lighted. I looked 
 . . . and lo! In every bubble in my bowl the flame 
 of the lamp was reflected, like the one flame of the Spirit 
 shining in the hearts of the innumerable children of men. I
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 465 
 
 asked myself, ' Are the stars in the sky above more wonder- 
 ful than this? ' For size is only relative, and the scale of 
 measurement is based on the physical bulk of him who does 
 the measuring. In the eyes of the Infinite, which, being in- 
 finite, can have no such standard of measurement, the light 
 reflected in the bubbles of my bowl is no less wonderful 
 than the light of the sun reflected in the planets which 
 swim in the bowl of space." 
 
 Not everyone in that mixed audience could grasp the 
 fulness of his meaning; but the spell of his presence and 
 the sweetness of his voice held even those who wished no 
 good to him. In the Garden that night were many clergy- 
 men, as well as representatives of the various modern re- 
 ligious cults, who, though they dreaded his influence, were 
 yet sensitively alive to the power of it. Could they them- 
 selves, or any combination of them, fill Madison Square 
 Garden and all the adjacent streets? They gazed at him, 
 and listened. 
 
 "It is the power of the Spirit which heals; it is the 
 power of the Spirit which creates. All love that is un- 
 selfish, and therefore real, is an expression of that power; 
 all labour performed as a willing service is also an ex- 
 pression of that power. And the feeling of pity, that 
 identifies the heart of the compassionate one with the heart 
 of the sufferer, is the very fragrance of the Spirit. 
 
 " But there is a power for evil, as well as a power for 
 good. Men call it the devil, but what is it, really? Only 
 selfishness the sense of separateness become aggressive. 
 The devil is only the shadow cast by your self in the sun- 
 light of God. You say, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' 
 whenever you turn your face to the Light, which is Love. 
 
 " When you raise your voice in self-defence or anger, 
 which is a declaration of separateness, you silence the inner 
 whisper of the soul, which knows no separateness. 
 
 " There are two selves in every man, the separate self 
 and the non-separate. The lower self has free will to 
 work in harmony with the higher, or it may struggle against 
 it. The pain of that struggle is called by many names, 
 anger, avarice, anxiety, jealousy, despair, resentment. 
 
 " Alms-giving is great, but forgiveness of injury is 
 greater.
 
 466 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Anger and resentment are disintegrating forces, which 
 can destroy even the link with the soul; and love is the 
 constructing Spirit, which builds all souls into one temple 
 for the worship of the One God. 
 
 " Do you fear the bite of a cobra, and fear not the anger 
 in your own heart? As a frail boat tossed on the bosom of 
 the raging ocean, so is the soul of man on the waves of 
 anger. 
 
 " Only he who is free from anxiety, anger and fear, 
 can command the powers of the Spirit for good. 
 
 " And he who dares to pray when there is anger or 
 resentment in his heart, calls down all the powers of the 
 universe to his own destruction. 
 
 " I was not sent by the Spirit merely to sing of the 
 beauty of the Spirit; I was also sent to accuse the world. 
 Few, indeed, are there among you who would not barter 
 your souls for little or much money, and congratulate your- 
 selves upon the opportunity; and these sums of money 
 would not vary with the varying values you set upon your 
 souls, but rather with the difference in your standards of 
 comfort or display. Many of you, not honest even with 
 yourselves, would call upon God to attest the bargain, 
 salving the moral sore with oily phrases, pledging tithes 
 to church or charity of the wages of your soul's prostitu- 
 tion. A candid thief is often nearer to the Spirit than a 
 hypocritical professor of spiritual doctrines. 
 
 " Hypocrisy is to the soul what gangrene is to the flesh. 
 Cut it out, before it shall corrupt you in every part. 
 
 " You talk about God and the Holy Ghost, and know 
 not what you mean; but when you talk about dollars and 
 cents, you know well what you mean. 
 
 "You are afraid to face the royal lion of the Spirit; 
 but you dwell without fear in the nest of the poisonous 
 serpent of hypocrisy. 
 
 " If I gave you the very Holy Ghost, which is the poetry 
 of the Spirit, you would make of it a form of merchandise. 
 
 "The reason why the spiritual teaching is so unintelligi- 
 ble to you is because your minds cannot grasp any purpose 
 which has not for its end some selfish gain. 
 
 " You who hate me, and would gladly destroy me be- 
 cause I point out your hypocrisy, would praise me to-mor- 
 row should I turn hypocrite.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 467 
 
 " Having found truth, I come and offer it to you, with- 
 out charge; and you call it dangerous asking by what 
 authority I heal the sick and raise men from the grave. 
 Should I withdraw myself, announcing that I had found 
 the secret of acquiring fabulous wealth, and should charge 
 you a thousand dollars a lesson for imparting it, the ante- 
 room of my office would be overcrowded by respectable 
 persons who would call me Master. 
 
 " You talk much of your religion ; but I say that if the 
 founder of your religion himself should return to you, 
 walking on two feet and clothed in garments like your 
 own, and should give you the kernel the very seed and 
 substance of the doctrine you repeat mechanically, you 
 would reject him with maledictions, and in the end would 
 kill him. 
 
 "When I speak of the beauty of the Spirit, it means 
 little to you; but when I speak of the ugliness of your 
 insincerity, it means much to you. 
 
 " As a man may busy himself from dawn to midnight 
 and accomplish nothing, so may a man repeat old texts 
 for a lifetime and touch no heart thereby. 
 
 " The worldly man scorns aspiration as a fish scorns 
 walking and has no more idea of it. 
 
 " The less knowledge a man has, the less he desires 
 knowledge; but the more money a man has, the more he 
 desires money. 
 
 "Would you know what a man really is in his soul? 
 Then ask him what he would most like to be. Will seven 
 out of a million have any purer dream than worldly wealth 
 or glory at the expense of others? 
 
 " He who prefers his own welfare to the welfare of 
 a nation has erred in putting on the human form; he be- 
 longs lower in the scale of being. Aye, there are beasts 
 that walk upon two feet, and sit in the chairs of authority 
 and honour." 
 
 Some men and women in the audience twisted in their 
 seats as Jesse went on to point out specific instances of 
 dishonour, hypocrisy and betrayal of public and private 
 trust. He used no names, but the force of his thought 
 was such that he could convey an idea of personality with- 
 out giving a name. Sentence by sentence his arraignment 
 bit into the consciousness of those who listened. He had
 
 468 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 declared that he was sent to accuse the world ; but there 
 was no bitterness, no malice in his words. Calm and im- 
 partial as the god directing the combat on the pediment of 
 the temple of Zeus at Olympia, he stood there. The 
 motives behind many acts of ostensible public charity he 
 stripped of their veil of plausibility; the hidden purposes 
 of leaders of political parties he revealed in all their immoral 
 nakedness; the misuse of the powers of the public press for 
 private ends, the corruptions of domestic life, the false- 
 hoods promulgated in the name of education, the subserv- 
 iency of religion to money, the dark ways they often walk 
 who accumulate vast fortunes upon all these matters he 
 let in the startling light of truth. 
 
 Those who had regarded him as a mere dreamer, with 
 little or no knowledge of the world, were astonished by 
 the breadth and accuracy of his information; for he quoted 
 figures in support of many of his statements, and few men 
 of the world could have shown a clearer knowledge of some 
 of the most complicated questions of domestic and inter- 
 national politics. Several persons who had come to the 
 Garden to hear an idealist spin webs of verbal moonbeams, 
 invisible in the light of day, now knit their brows in 
 troubled thought. Had the man himself a political pur- 
 pose, some worldly ambition to serve? If so, he would 
 prove really dangerous, they reasoned, not knowing how 
 much more potent for revolution is an idea than an army. 
 But his next words left them even more perplexed, for there 
 is nothing so hard for the world to understand as a man 
 who passionately proclaims the truth for its own sake and 
 not for his. 
 
 "You are asking yourselves what political remedy I offer 
 for these evils besetting the path of humanity. I offer no 
 political remedy that is for you to find. But I would 
 direct mankind to another path, lying beyond all recorded 
 human experience, a path which winds up-hill, among the 
 mountains of the soul. By it shall man escape cruelty, 
 deceit and hatred, and all the grosser forms of earthly suf- 
 fering. Travelling on that path the poor shall find suf- 
 ficiency of nourishment through faith, and the rich shall 
 find that faith itself is the eternal sufficiency. 
 
 "And what is that path? It is the path of the love of
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 469 
 
 the Spirit, the Spirit that is God and is present in the souls 
 of all mankind. It is not to be sought in any definite place, 
 for it is everywhere; but the way to it is through the heart 
 of man. They who travel on that path breathe the pure 
 air of spiritual consciousness, which is the consciousness of 
 the Spirit in themselves and in all others. And peace is 
 there for all ; because no man can struggle against or injure 
 another when he is conscious that in both of them is the one 
 Spirit, whose breath is love. And no man can tread that 
 path alone; for feeling in his heart the oppressive fulness 
 of spiritual love, he needs must pour it out upon others; 
 and the more he gives to others of that love, the greater is 
 the ecstasy of his own fulness. To such a man it mat- 
 ters little whether he has two coats or only one, so long as 
 no one else is cold and shivering; to such a man the 
 possession of two coats would give unhappiness, while there 
 was any who had none. He who thinks that he has found 
 the love of God the Spirit, and does not feel his soul 
 go out in love to every living thing, knows not the 
 power of the great Name he takes upon his lips; he 
 is like a man who should declare that he had found the 
 ocean in a cistern which he kept covered and fastened with 
 a lock. And as the water in a cistern becomes impure 
 when it is long covered from the air, so does God-conscious- 
 ness in the heart of man when covered and kept away from 
 others. 
 
 "What has the world to offer, the world whose folly 
 and hypocrisy and moral ugliness I have pointed out to 
 you, what has the world to offer that a man should choose 
 it in preference to this God-consciousness, the Spirit-con- 
 sciousness which makes the soul so blessed that it cannot 
 contain the fulness of its joy? The path of wordly ambi- 
 tion for self is through a miasmatic valley where every 
 breath is full of fever; the flowers growing along that path 
 are poisonous flowers, and deadly serpents writhe among 
 the grasses. 
 
 " But the path of spiritual attainment, whereon a man 
 forgets himself in love for God and all those other crea- 
 tures who together are his larger self, leads upward where 
 the air is pure, and sweet with the aroma of the love-breath- 
 ing Spirit the Pervader of the universe of souls.
 
 470 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " May you all walk that path with me and with one 
 another. 
 
 " For the present order of things shall pass away. There 
 will not be left one stone upon another of all the structures 
 of material power you are building for the aggrandise- 
 ment of self. I am here to proclaim the revolution of the 
 Spirit. It will come like a fiery whirlwind from the upper 
 regions of God-consciousness, and will reduce to nothing all 
 your proudest monuments. This is a revolution that no 
 power can stay; no alien laws can bar in its face the gate- 
 ways of the continent, and no earthly ruler can banish the 
 Spirit from any human heart where it has once found wel- 
 come. Even persecution shall not prevail against it, for 
 faith is stronger than persecution. The citadels of preju- 
 dice shall one by one give way before it, for the fire of 
 love and faith will melt the hardest walls, reaching the 
 hearts of those that would defend themselves against the 
 irresistible onrush. Though you hide yourself in the caverns 
 of the earth, the eye of faith shall find you ; though you flee 
 to the regions of polar ice, the fire of love shall melt you. 
 
 " You may slay the prophet of the Spirit, but you can- 
 not slay the Spirit. The hour is come when it would 
 manifest itself in the hearts of men, and no hand is strong 
 enough to set back the clock. Its enemies shall fly before 
 it as leaves before the hurricane, as dead leaves which re- 
 turn to dust. It is like a plant which scatters a million 
 seeds upon the wind; though you mow down one field, an- 
 other will spring up. It is like a trickling mountain stream 
 which will soon become a mighty river, sweeping every- 
 thing before it in its onward rush to the ocean. 
 
 " The power of the Spirit is supreme, and the hour of 
 the Spirit is at hand. May the Spirit awaken in your 
 hearts to a consciousness of itself! " 
 
 
 
 He turned and left the platform, and the audience of 
 thousands, astonished at his words, filed slowly out of the 
 building in utter silence.
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV 
 
 AT eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning there was a 
 council of prominent clergymen and their supporters in the 
 study of the Reverend Doctor Claflin. These men had all 
 been present at Jesse's meeting in Madison Square Garden 
 the night before, and they had come together by appoint- 
 ment to consider how serious was the question of his in- 
 fluence with the people. Other prophets had arisen in 
 other years who predicted the destruction of an order of 
 society grown old in sin; but their power of person and of 
 word had not been deemed sufficiently important to war- 
 rant anxiety on the part of those whose long verbal war- 
 fare with sin had given them a respectable and even dis- 
 tinguished monopoly of that business. In what was this 
 man, Jesse Bethel, different from those who had come and 
 gone before him? They could not say, but they realised 
 that he was different. That point conceded by all at the 
 outset of the conference, they were ready to proceed with 
 the discussion of questions of expediency. 
 
 " I cannot say too emphatically," declared Doctor Claflin, 
 "that I consider this man extremely dangerous." 
 
 " But he is so illogical ! " cried one of the younger minis- 
 ters. " Surely in our day the world will not be carried 
 away by the glamour of a personality and by a few allur- 
 ing promises of the millennium." 
 
 " You mistake the world," said a smiling, strong-faced 
 member of the conference, who was not himself a wearer of 
 the cloth but was a generous supporter of the church, 
 had not gone far in the study of religious history before I 
 discovered that no great religion has been founded upon 
 logic; but that all of them, without exception, have been 
 founded upon the glamour of a personality and a few 
 alluring promises of a millennium." 
 
 " But," persisted the young man, " he talks of a spiritual 
 revolution. Somebody I forget who, or in what con- 
 
 47i
 
 472 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 nection has declared that revolutions are not made with 
 rose-water." 
 
 "Just so," assented the strong-faced layman; "but 
 revolutions are made with an idea, and this man has an 
 idea. He evidently has no personal ambition, an unusual 
 lack in one who seeks to lead a revolution. Whether that 
 makes him stronger or weaker I cannot say, there being a 
 dearth of precedents by which to judge him." 
 
 " He may have the ambition of martyrdom." 
 
 " If so, his power will prove irresistible." 
 
 Several of the counsellors moved restlessly in their seats. 
 Had they acted wisely in asking this cold-brained, iron- 
 grey man of money to take part in their deliberations? They 
 glanced at Doctor Claflin, of whose church he was an 
 influential member. 
 
 " I think," said Doctor Claflin, " that Mr. Needham's 
 opinions may be of great help to us. We clergymen, who 
 have given our lives upon the altar of our faith, may not 
 be able to judge these matters so dispassionately as Mr. 
 Needham can judge them." 
 
 " There is a rumour," said a suave minister who had not 
 spoken heretofore " there is a rumour that Mr. Need- 
 ham's son is interested in this young carpenter-prophet." 
 
 The rich man smiled, and with a slight motion of his 
 hand seemed to wave the matter aside as of no consequence. 
 He said: 
 
 " My secretary showed me a newspaper containing a 
 snap-shot photograph purporting to be of my son in con- 
 versation with this man at the foot of a flight of steps. As 
 you may imagine, I and my family have been for so many 
 years pursued by camera-fiends, that these attentions on the 
 part of the press have lost the interest of novelty. My 
 son, who is my partner, and will be my successor in the 
 ownership of all the Needham interests, can be trusted to 
 converse with a street preacher, if the fancy takes him, 
 without being called to account by me." 
 
 " Undoubtedly, undoubtedly," replied the suave minister. 
 
 " I regret exceedingly," continued Doctor Claflin, " that 
 it was a member of my own church who was instrumental 
 in starting this excitement. I refer, of course, to Mrs. 
 Freeman."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 473 
 
 " We can hardly blame her," smiled the youngest man 
 present, who had not lost his sense of humour through the 
 accumulation of learned letters after his name. " The 
 temptation to walk without crutches must have been very 
 great to Mrs. Freeman. And then, you forget that the 
 agitation began with the cataleptic, or the dead man, 
 whichever he was, on the other side of the river." 
 
 The man who had pronounced Jesse's teachings illogical 
 now proved, logically, to the last speaker that the sleep 
 of Lawrence Lane must have been of a cataleptic character. 
 " To admit any other possibility," he declared, " is to un- 
 dermine the very foundations of faith." 
 
 " Yet he says it was by faith he did it." 
 
 " My dear brethren," came in the persuading voice of 
 the Reverend Doctor Claflin, "we have met together to 
 consider questions of profound seriousness. Let us give 
 a few moments to silent prayer." 
 
 And the clergymen all closed their eyes and prayed, 
 silently and sincerely, that God would give them light; 
 while, from his chair at one end of the long council table, 
 John Needham watched them, his steel-blue eyes impene- 
 trable as those of the Sphinx. When he saw by the flut- 
 tering eyelids of his nearest neighbour that the season of 
 prayer was nearing its end, he closed his own eyes respect- 
 fully for a few moments. Did he also pray? He believed 
 that he did. And being a man of indomitable will, whose 
 imagination called railways, steamship lines, towns and cities 
 into existence, even his prayers were not supplications but 
 commands. He told the invisible Power to aid him in 
 the matter in hand, as he would have told his attorney to 
 prosecute a certain case against a rival railroad. 
 
 John Needham admired Jesse Bethel more than he had 
 admired any man for years; but it was not in consonance 
 with the famous " Needham interests " that any religious 
 or social agitation should gain headway just at this time, 
 when many important bills were pending in the state and 
 national legislatures. He was himself one of the men 
 whom Jesse had not named the night before, but whose 
 picture he had sketched upon the minds of his listeners by 
 a few telling strokes of verbal image-making. Yet the 
 great financier bore no malice to the prophet. He was so
 
 474 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 accustomed to falsetto imprecations and impotent attacks, 
 that he respected the man who pierced his armour with 
 telling thrusts of irony. Here was an adversary worthy 
 of his attention. But it was a matter requiring delicate 
 manipulation, and the aid of men who felt the resentment 
 and the prejudice which he himself had long ago 
 left behind somewhere along the iron road of power 
 that he had chosen for the private-car of his soul to 
 travel on. 
 
 " This man who calls himself the mouthpiece of the 
 Spirit seemed to me last night to be attacking the clergy," 
 Mr. Needham said. " Did you not so understand his 
 words?" 
 
 " There was no other possible interpretation," answered 
 Doctor Claflin. " And yesterday forenoon, when we ques- 
 tioned him about many things, he answered us in stories, 
 or parables, the evident intent of which was an attack upon 
 the sincerity of our faith." 
 
 " Oh, I did not know about that ! " Mr. Needham's 
 eyes opened wider. " Where was this conversation ? " 
 
 " In the very vestibule of my church. I heard that he 
 was there, and went with several of my friends, fellow 
 clergymen and others, to question him." 
 
 " Can you recall these stories, or parables?" 
 
 " Not in so many words, perhaps ; but the meaning of 
 them was obvious: that we, in rejecting him, brought down 
 upon ourselves the condemnation of the future. The 
 man's self-confidence, to call it by the mildest term, is cer- 
 tainly colossal. And if we may believe the reports of the 
 newspapers, some of the claims made for him by his fol- 
 lowers who spoke in the streets outside the Garden last 
 night were nothing less than sacrilegious." 
 
 " Unfortunately, in these days," said Mr. Needham, " we 
 cannot legally punish a man for sacrilege." 
 
 " But a man may be punished for inciting disorderly 
 demonstrations," came the sharp voice of another layman 
 from the other end of the room. 
 
 The young man who had previously excused old Mrs. 
 Freeman for permitting the stranger to restore the use 
 of her limbs, now spoke again: 
 
 " May this not be one of those cases in which, by attack-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 475 
 
 ing a movement too vigorously, you lend it additional 
 force?" 
 
 "Are you in sympathy with this man?" asked Doctor 
 Claflin, and there was a challenge in his voice. 
 
 " I agree with you that he is dangerous to the church," 
 was the other's guarded reply. 
 
 The elder man breathed a sigh of relief. " I feared that 
 you might have fallen under the spell of his personality," 
 he said. 
 
 At that moment there was ushered into the room an 
 old man of commanding presence, Doctor Henderson, the 
 father-in-law of their host. In former years he had held 
 the position in the church now occupied by Doctor Claflin; 
 but though advancing years had caused him to lay down 
 the active duties of his calling, he still retained high au- 
 thority in all the councils of his denomination. The men 
 assembled rose respectfully as he entered the study and took 
 his place in the chair of honour reserved for him at one 
 end of the long table. He had the white patriarchal beard 
 of a high priest of the olden time, and for all his seventy- 
 five years his glance was still piercing and his voice reso- 
 nant. 
 
 " I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of this 
 young agitator," he began ; " but he seems to have formed 
 a snow-ball which, if it goes on rolling about, may attain 
 a considerable size. Now we, who bear on our shoulders 
 the responsibility of the church and of society, must try to 
 prevent the growth of the snow-ball." 
 
 " Have you any suggestion as to the method we should 
 pursue?" The voice of Doctor Claflin was anxious and 
 uncertain. 
 
 " I know but little regarding the man's character," the 
 patriarch replied ; " though I went to hear him speak last 
 night, and it took two officers to make a way for me from 
 my carriage door to the entrance of the building. What 
 a mob it was! " 
 
 " But, withal, a very orderly mob," quietly observed the 
 youngest of the counsellors. 
 
 " I paused a moment before going in," Doctor Hender- 
 son continued, " and I heard one of those outside speakers 
 evidently a Yankee farmer, judging from his accent
 
 476 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 declare that his Master, as he called him, was of divine 
 origin. I shuddered at the blasphemy; but I see that one 
 of the morning papers has recorded it in letters several 
 inches high." 
 
 " It would seem," said Mr. Needham, " that the snow- 
 ball has already attained a considerable size. You said 
 just now, Doctor Henderson, that you knew little regard- 
 ing the man's character. Shall I sketch it for you, in 
 four words ? " 
 
 " I shall be glad to have you do so, in as many words as 
 you like." 
 
 " Only fciur are necessary : The man is sincere" 
 
 "Is it possible? You do, indeed, surprise me, Mr. 
 Needham, for I know how certain are your judgments as 
 to the character and motives of men." 
 
 The shaggy white eyebrows of the old minister were 
 drawn together in perplexity. How could a man who 
 made such claims for himself be sincere? Doctor Hen- 
 derson was of another and less tolerant generation than 
 that of the present; he was born before the age of modern 
 psychological analysis, born in a period when for the 
 churchman humanity was divided into sheep and goats. 
 For him, even the so-called higher criticism was little less 
 than heresy, and a man who attacked the authority of or- 
 ganised religion was outside the pale of human sympathy. 
 According to the reasoning of Doctor Henderson, such a 
 man could not be sincere unless, indeed, he were pos- 
 sessed by the devil. The doctor had not a very clear idea 
 of the rationale of demoniacal possession; but he hated the 
 devil with all the passion of those who fear hell-fire. There 
 could be no two opinions as to his sincerity, whatever the 
 younger clergy might whisper among themselves regarding 
 his intolerance. 
 
 " You surprise me," he repeated, looking fixedly at 
 Mr. Needham. "But if the man is sincere, as you be- 
 lieve, can he not be convinced of the error of his way ? " 
 
 Over the controlled face of the rich man there flickered 
 the very ghost of a smile. He said: 
 
 " I could more easily convince the owners of the Q. & 
 L. of the error of their rights of way." 
 
 Now Doctor Henderson's modest savings were all in-
 
 477 
 
 vested in the railways controlled by Mr. Needham, and 
 he was superficially learned in the iniquities of the trouble- 
 some Q. & L. The comparison was therefore convincing, 
 though not reassuring. 
 
 The counsellors reviewed the advent of Jesse Bethel in 
 many lights and in many words. Mr. Needham was the 
 only one who observed that the number of men around 
 Doctor Claflin's study table was twelve, and he mentally 
 compared their council to the deliberations of a jury. 
 When, after two hours of talk, they had arrived at no con- 
 clusion as to ways and means of silencing the troublesome 
 prophet of a spiritual era, he arose and buttoned his coat. 
 The others looked at him, knowing from the expression of 
 his face that he had something important to offer. 
 
 " I would suggest," he said, slowly, pausing every few 
 words to give his simple proposition greater weight " I 
 would suggest that the further consideration of this matter 
 be left in the hands of Doctor Claflin and myself. Is that 
 the will of these gentlemen, and of Doctor Henderson ? '' 
 
 " An excellent suggestion," said the patriarch, who ad- 
 mired the practical methods of his son-in-law, without being 
 able always to adjust them to the standards of his own less 
 elastic conscience. And many other voices echoed, in ac- 
 cents of relief, " An excellent suggestion." 
 
 It was then agreed by this committee of two that they 
 should meet together a little later in the day, after Mr. 
 Needham had taken counsel from his attorney. 
 
 "Oh, you cannot invoke the law against him!" ex- 
 claimed the most sympathetic of the younger men. " He is 
 a peaceable and law-abiding person." 
 
 Mr. Needham waved his hand, in the conciliatory, cas- 
 ual way with which they were all familiar. 
 
 " There will probably be no occasion for strenuous 
 methods," he said; " but it is well for us to know exactly 
 what we may and may not do in case the matter should 
 become more pressing. It is extremely undesirable, in these 
 unsettled and even dangerous times, to have an agitator 
 stirring up the emotions of the masses, who mean well 
 enough, in their way, but who, by reason of the narrow- 
 ness of their outlook, cannot take the large view of pub- 
 lic questions which we take. I think, gentlemen, that we
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 can persuade this evidently well-meaning idealist that the 
 quiet and remote regions, where he has hitherto pursued 
 the will-o'-the-wisp of a regenerated world, are better suited 
 to his mission than the more complex civilisation of the 
 metropolis. I think so, gentlemen, I think so." 
 
 The meeting then dissolved. But more than one of the 
 counsellors went away with troubled thoughts, vaguely 
 unsatisfied with the outcome of the morning's deliberations. 
 Though they felt that the purposes of this new prophet 
 were not in consonance with their own interests, yet there 
 was something about him which stirred their imagination 
 and attracted them against their will. Could it be that 
 the world was really on the eve of a great spiritual awak- 
 ening? They were themselves weary with long years of 
 battering upon the doors of religious indifference and ma- 
 terialism; though they were obliged to use the weapons of 
 materialism or so they had supposed. Was it possible 
 that one who fought the great fight differently, who used 
 only the weapons of the Spirit in the Spirit's cause, should 
 succeed where they had failed? For many of them secretly 
 acknowledged that they had failed. Though their churches 
 grew richer, they were not growing in spiritual grace. 
 These men would have been more than human had they 
 not felt troubled when contrasting the uncountable thou- 
 sands who flocked to hear this stranger with the small gath- 
 erings in their own magnificent churches; but they told 
 themselves that they did not wish any harm to come to 
 him. They recalled with some uneasiness the final words 
 of John Needham. It was evidently his purpose that the 
 agitation of the new prophet, as he was called, should not 
 make further progress; but what was the motive behind 
 the purpose? Was it loyalty to the church? They could 
 not think so, though he gave more liberally to churches 
 than did any other man. These ministers called themselves 
 men of God; but they were men of the world in the 
 sense of knowing the world and the world's ways. Many 
 of them were idealists at heart, and honestly believed that 
 they had given their lives to the service of the ideal. He 
 that is without worldly ambition among you, let him first 
 cast a stone at them.
 
 CHAPTER LXXV 
 
 LEANING meditatively over the railing above a little 
 stream in a secluded part of Central Park stood Judson 
 Carey, about one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. He 
 was dressed in new, dark clothing of good material, pur- 
 chased that morning from the funds of the communal 
 treasury which he carried. The imposing of this trust upon 
 Judson had been Jesse's way of securing for him the con- 
 fidence of the others. Several of the men carried money 
 t)f their own; but the common fund for travelling expenses, 
 to which all contributed according to their means, was in 
 the hands of the least popular of their number. 
 
 He had made an excuse that morning for absenting him- 
 self a few hours from the company of his associates, be- 
 cause he wanted to be alone to think. Walking along 
 the street, he had seen the attractive window of a clothier's 
 and had entered the shop. Surely he owed it to himself 
 and to the Master to make a respectable appearance here in 
 the city where they were attracting so much attention, and 
 his old clothes were shabby. Surely, again, if what be- 
 longed to one belonged to all, then a part of what belonged 
 to all might be used by one, if his need were great. And 
 Judson felt that his need was great. Perhaps, he told him- 
 self, if he had been dressed as well as the four favourites, he 
 might have been one of those to whom the honour had 
 fallen of addressing the crowds outside the Garden the 
 evening before. He thought himself a much better speaker 
 than Andrew. When the two had been travelling together 
 the preceding summer, the shy young man had always told 
 him so. 
 
 Leaning over the railing above the little stream in Cen- 
 tral Park, he gave himself up to unhappy thoughts. It 
 seemed that he was not appreciated by the members of 
 their band, for whom, as he told himself, he had made so 
 many sacrifices. His memory went back to many inci- 
 dents in which he had been made to feel his position as a 
 formerly discharged employee of Peter's. At intervals dur- 
 
 479
 
 480 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 ing the winter, when the men were in Capronville, he had 
 worked in the mill for the Bond brothers; and he had 
 been as rigidly held to the time-schedule as any stranger 
 he, a fellow disciple with his employers! Then, again, 
 the Master himself had never given him the confidence 
 which he gave the four men who each owned an interest 
 in the lumber-mills at Capronville; for the father of James 
 and John Dana was even more prosperous than Peter. It 
 was true that Judson had been given the purse to carry 
 when they were travelling; but he was always being asked 
 by somebody how much he had spent for this and that 
 as if they were afraid of being cheated. He was tired of 
 it. When they came to New York, he had felt that the 
 fact of his having been in the city several times before 
 would give him a certain superiority over men who had 
 never been outside their native State; but no one seemed 
 to consider it. No one seemed to consider him. He was 
 not over-fond of sleeping out of doors so early in the spring, 
 as they had done for the last two nights. Though he had 
 roughed it more or less in years gone by, he was the only 
 one among the Twelve who had caught cold during the 
 long nights on the Palisades. And John had bantered him 
 about it, as if there was something disloyal to the Master 
 in catching cold. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it was just as well that he was not 
 one of those who had been chosen to speak to the crowds 
 outside the Garden the night before. Some of the papers 
 that morning had severely censured even cast ridicule 
 upon the speakers. And, judging by all the Master 
 said about the future, the censure and the ridicule were 
 only just beginning; there was much worse to come. It 
 was all very well so long as Jesse was there, to stand with 
 his charming personality and beautiful words between them 
 and the world; but how about the time when he would 
 not be there if the prediction of his death should be ful- 
 filled? His death! Why should Jesse think that he was 
 going to die? What malice of Fate could let him die, leav- 
 ing the least fortunate of his followers to battle alone with 
 the prejudice of the others? But, if it was really true that 
 the end of their association was at hand, why should not 
 he himself take some thought of his own future? He
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 481 
 
 was glad that he had bought the new clothes in which 
 he stood, and certain other little things from time to time 
 for which no one was the wiser. 
 
 // the Master should die (he still laid stress upon the if, 
 for he did not fully believe it), would he go on working and 
 preaching with the others? Somehow, he did not see him- 
 self in imagination accepting the leadership of Peter Bond. 
 Jesse had always stood between him and the ill-concealed 
 dislike of nearly all the others. Suppose he were to sepa- 
 rate from them and start a movement of his own? The 
 idea of future persecution for the followers of Jesse did not 
 appeal to him. Surely the teachings of the Master could 
 be presented in such a way as to win praise and popularity, 
 not persecution. What need was there for flying in the 
 face of the world's prejudice? A little tact, a little flat- 
 tery, a little modification here and there of the austere 
 ideal of the Master, to suit the time and the people, 
 what else was necessary? Why should he not use the 
 already perfected machinery of the churches to carry on the 
 work? Let the others rave to the rabble in the streets, if 
 they preferred to do so. He would seek out the cultured 
 and refined, and make himself a power among them. He 
 had written down many of the sayings of Jesse; he had 
 caught the style, and could make other sayings of his own. 
 Perhaps he would himself have disciples not country peo- 
 ple merely, but all sorts of people, including the elegant and 
 the rich. It was true, he was not beautiful like Jesse; but 
 he told himself that he knew more of the world more 
 of the mean and sordid souls of which the world was made. 
 He would play upon that meanness and that sordidness, 
 would use them for his own ends, all the time worshipping 
 in secret the real Master, whom he felt that he alone knew. 
 
 What was the feeling of the prominent clergymen re- 
 garding Jesse? he wondered. Suppose he were to find out 
 for himself? Suppose he were to go now, well-dressed and 
 with freshly-trimmed hair and beard, to the house of the 
 Reverend Doctor Claflin? He knew the house. It was 
 not far from the church where the Master had healed the 
 lame woman. Judson had no cards; but he would send in 
 his name by the servant, with the message, " On important 
 business in connection with the Master, Jesse Bethel." Or
 
 482 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 perhaps it would be better not to word the message exactly 
 in that way. " On important business in connection with 
 Jesse Bethel " that would be more politic. Probably the 
 Reverend Doctor Claflin would not think that Jesse should 
 be called Master. It was claiming a good deal, from the 
 standpoint of the world, now Judson came to consider 
 it. Indeed, he hardly knew just when they had begun to 
 call Jesse the Master. He thought it had been started by 
 John, when they joined Jesse in Burlington after his 
 sojourn on the mountain. 
 
 He turned away from the railing above the little stream, 
 whose waters he had been watching with unseeing eyes, 
 and walked rapidly southward through the Park.
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI 
 
 THE Reverend Doctor Claflin and John Needham were 
 sitting alone together in the clergyman's study, two hours 
 after the other counsellors of the morning had been cour- 
 teously dismissed. The committee of two was deliberating 
 in secret the problem of Jesse Bethel. 
 
 " I have consulted with my attorney," Mr. Needham 
 said, " and he tells me that the simplest way is to have 
 him arrested for disorderly conduct, then re-arrested for 
 inciting to riot." 
 
 " But," answered Doctor Claflin, in perplexity, " the 
 man is too peaceable to be disorderly; he will never incite 
 a riot." 
 
 Mr. Needham smiled his peculiar, indulgent smile. 
 
 " Oh ! that can easily be arranged. Leave the matter to 
 me." 
 
 You mean " 
 
 " I mean that the man can be held responsible for any 
 disorder taking place at a street meeting where he is 
 preaching, provided it shall seem to be instigated by his 
 prophecies of revolution." 
 
 " But do you know where he intends to speak during 
 the next few days? " 
 
 " Not at this moment. But in order to hold a street 
 meeting, he will have to notify the police in advance; that 
 is the law." 
 
 " Can the police not forbid him to speak at a certain 
 place, and then arrest him if he speaks? " 
 
 " Not legally, unless there is obstruction of traffic ; 
 though it is sometimes done in the case of political agi- 
 tators." 
 
 Doctor Claflin rubbed his plump, clean-shaven chin, and 
 there was a line of trouble between his brows. 
 
 " I do not think," he said, " that you can get rid of this 
 man merely by arresting him. Can you count on the 
 magistrates ? " 
 
 " No. But I again say, leave that to me." 
 
 483
 
 484 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I am exceedingly grateful to you, Mr. Needham, for 
 taking so much interest in this matter, for wasting your 
 valuable time " 
 
 " Oh, I never waste my valuable time ! I also have in- 
 terests at stake." 
 
 " Will you think me inquisitive if I ask you what in- 
 terests you have at stake which can be injured by a reli- 
 gious agitator? " 
 
 "Why, I have several little bills before the legislature 
 just now, and all this talk about revolutions, spiritual or 
 material, is untimely for my interests. Don't you un- 
 derstand that this man is a power? He has a tremendous 
 personality, a tremendous will. His gentleness only makes 
 him the stronger." 
 
 "And your purpose is?" 
 
 " My purpose is to make public speaking so unpleasant 
 for him that he will abandon it if I can." 
 
 "You are a very great man, Mr. Needham." 
 
 " I usually effect my purposes, if that is to be great." 
 
 " Sometimes I think there is no other greatness," ob- 
 served the shepherd of men's souls. 
 
 " There I do not agree with you," replied the shepherd 
 of men's wealth. " But I know my own calling, and do 
 not strive for the laurel-wreath which I could never win." 
 
 Mr. Needham had recently purchased a world-famous 
 diamond tiara to adorn the empty head of his elderly 
 wife, and the thought of this gewgaw, in comparison with 
 the simple laurel which was beyond his means, brought a 
 smile to his face. He was not without a sense of humour. 
 But, on the whole, he was well pleased with the tiara; for 
 was it not a symbol of the sort of power which was within 
 his means? 
 
 Their deliberations were interrupted by the velvet knock 
 of the butler on the panel of the door. He brought the 
 name and message of Judson Carey, " On business of im- 
 portance in connection with Jesse Bethel." 
 
 "Judson Carey," repeated Doctor Claflin. Then, to his 
 guest he said, " I do not know the man." 
 
 " He is one of the followers of the young prophet," an- 
 swered John Needham, who always knew everything 
 which it was his interest to know. " I have here a list
 
 485 
 
 of their names," and he drew from his pocket a slip of 
 paper. " There is no source of private information so 
 important as the mouths of indiscreet enthusiasts. I con- 
 sider the man's visit as a good omen. You know that even 
 Alexander was a strong believer in omens," And Mr. 
 Needham smiled again his slow, peculiar smile. 
 
 " Show the man in," said Doctor Claflin to the butler. 
 
 Judson entered the study. His heart was beating faster 
 than usual, but his naturally quiet manner made him ap- 
 pear better bred than he really was. Doctor Claflin did 
 not offer to shake hands with his visitor, but met him with 
 an air half-way between cordiality and reserve, an air 
 which was sympathetic enough to invite revelations but not 
 warm enough to be self-committal. Then he briefly intro- 
 duced him to Mr. Needham, who did offer to shake hands. 
 It was a simple action, this offer of his hand by the railway- 
 king to the obscure disciple of a rural prophet; but, like all 
 the actions of John Needham, whether simple or complex, it 
 had an underlying purpose. Had Judson Carey sought him 
 in his own office, he probably would not have held out his 
 hand ; but in the clergyman's study he was on neutral ground, 
 and he calculated the exact effect which his cordiality 
 would produce. From that moment the soul of the dis- 
 ciple was wax in his skilled hand. 
 
 " I met your son the other evening, Mr. Needham," Jud- 
 son said, glowing all over with pleasure and pride. 
 
 It was not the most fortunate remark he could have 
 made; but across the mind of the observing Doctor Claflin 
 there flashed a revealing light. So it was true then, as 
 had been rumoured, that the millionaire's son had sought 
 out Jesse Bethel? Here was a personal motive for Mr. 
 Needham's activity in the matter, a motive more convinc- 
 ing than the one he himself had given of pending legis- 
 lative bills which might be affected by revolutionary agita- 
 tion. On that Sunday morning when Doctor Claflin and 
 the young millionaire had both been listeners to Jesse's first 
 public talk in the city, the clergyman had been so afraid 
 of being seen himself that he had seen no one else. 
 
 " I believe my son did mention something of the sort," 
 was the untruthful answer of the imperturbable one. 
 
 Then ensued a brief and awkward silence, each man
 
 486 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 waiting for one of the others to attack the question before 
 them. 
 
 "Were you sent by your teacher?" began Doctor 
 Claflin. 
 
 " No," answered Judson quickly, " he is not aware of 
 my visit. I came on my own responsibility solely on my 
 own responsibility." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 There was another silence, briefer than the first and less 
 embarrassing; then Judson said, hesitatingly: 
 
 ' I thought ... It has seemed to me ... 
 Well, to put it briefly, though evidently such an idea has 
 not occurred to my teacher, it seems to me that we might 
 work in harmony instead of in opposition." 
 
 " Is there, then, opposition ? " guardedly replied the 
 clergyman. " Naturally we have not looked at the matter 
 in so serious a light as you have. The church has been 
 here a long time, and your teacher has been here but a short 
 time." 
 
 The manner of Doctor Claflin carried more meaning to 
 Judson than did his words. It was plain to him that the 
 clergyman wished to put him at a disadvantage, to sug- 
 gest that the followers of the new religion were not of suf- 
 ficient importance to be seriously opposed by the church. 
 But, though the colour deepened in his bronzed face, he held 
 his temper well in hand. If he had known what he really 
 wanted to do, really known why he was there in that lux- 
 uriously furnished study, talking with this dignitary of the 
 church and his wealthy supporter, he might have had more 
 self-assurance; but his motives were so obscure that they 
 were still hidden even from himself. 
 
 "That was a very large meeting we had last night," he 
 said. "Were you there, Doctor Claflin?" 
 
 " Why, yes, I was passing the Garden, and went in for a 
 little while." 
 
 " Fully a thousand people met the Master at the ferry- 
 house this morning," Judson went on, " and as many as 
 could get near him asked to have their names enrolled as 
 members of our body." 
 
 "Is it possible?" asked the clergyman. "Your teacher, 
 then, is founding a new church?"
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 487 
 
 " He will be obliged to found one; the people will force 
 him to do so. Why, I have never seen such enthusiasm, 
 such adoration ! " 
 
 The large, smooth-shaven countenance of Doctor Claflin 
 was overcast by a cloud of anxiety. John Needham watched 
 the two men with the same look of intentness with which 
 he sometimes watched the stock-ticker in his private office, 
 when no one but his clerk was watching him. 
 
 "There is only one thing that troubles me," the disciple 
 continued, looking from the minister to the millionaire, and 
 back again " only one thing that troubles me. ... It 
 is confidential, of course, what I am going to say?" 
 
 " Certainly, certainly." Doctor Claflin had forgotten 
 for the moment the distance he had before sought to keep 
 between himself and his strange visitor. "You may speak 
 quite freely." 
 
 "Well, it is simply this: The Master has an idea, a 
 fixed belief almost a superstitious belief that he is going 
 to die." 
 
 Doctor Claflin leaped to his feet and walked to the win- 
 dow, turning his back toward the two men. He felt that 
 the sudden joy which thrilled him must be reflected in his 
 face, and he did not wish for a moment to meet the eyes 
 of even his coadjutor. He would not have admitted to him- 
 self an hour before that the thought of death for any of 
 those beings whom he was wont to call the children of God 
 could have filled his heart with such unholy exultation. 
 When he could control his face, he turned from the win- 
 dow and went back to his visitors; but he did not trust 
 himself to speak immediately. The deep and steady voice 
 of Mr. Needham was saying: 
 
 " Your teacher is generally very sure in his intuitions, is 
 he not?" 
 
 " I may say that every prophecy which he has made in 
 the past has been literally fulfilled. But this new idea re- 
 garding his own death . . . Why, it has made me 
 consider." . . . 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 "Well, it has made me consider the future my own fu- 
 ture, and that of the Master's work." 
 
 "I see, I see," said Mr. Needham; but he did not tell
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 them what he saw. Then suddenly his manner changed. 
 He arose, and after a slight inclination of the head and a 
 meaning glance at Doctor Claflin, he turned again to the 
 disciple : 
 
 " Can you meet us here to-morrow, at this hour? I 
 think it will be to your interest, as well as ours, for us to 
 work in harmony." 
 
 " I will be here," was Judson Carey's answer. 
 
 The clergyman followed his distinguished visitor to the 
 door, and in order to get rid of the less distinguished visitor 
 he also held out his hand to him. Then, as soon as he 
 was alone, he rang for a servant and ordered a pot of 
 strong tea, to steady his shaken nerves.
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII 
 
 JESSE had spotcen to thousands that day at the noon- 
 hour in Madison Square, and wherever he went during the 
 afternoon he was followed by tireless crowds. He healed 
 many who were sick, and gave courage and hope to many 
 who were despairing. But already his friends were begin- 
 ning to be troubled regarding the multitudes that pressed 
 upon him; for they gave him no rest, they blocked the 
 streets, and more than once during the afternoon the police 
 had been obliged to scatter them. When, late in the day, 
 Jesse entered the subway on his homeward journey to Fort 
 Lee, Peter and Andrew were obliged to station themselves 
 at the entrance and to beg the people to leave their Master 
 in peace until the morrow, promising that he would return 
 to the city in the morning. 
 
 When he was walking up Broadway in the afternoon an 
 officer had approached him, and, pointing to the hundreds 
 of men and women in his wake, had declared that street 
 parades were not allowed without prior notification to the 
 police. Jesse's answer was never forgotten by the officer, 
 who puzzled over it the remainder of his life: 
 
 " Then I notify you now, as a representative of the 
 police, that men will follow me in multitudes for many 
 thousand years." 
 
 His person had become so well-known, and the curiosity 
 regarding him was so intense, that he could find no quiet 
 anywhere save at the house of the Lanes on the other side 
 of the river ; and even there a guard of his friends remained 
 at the gate until a late hour. 
 
 Going across the ferry that night, the boat had a decided 
 list to starboard, by the weight of the people who crowded 
 into the cabin on the side where Jesse was seated. 
 
 When they were approaching the other shore, Peter said: 
 
 " Master, where is Judson ? We have not seen him since 
 the forenoon." 
 
 " He will follow us in his own time and in his own 
 way," was Jesse's answer. 
 
 489
 
 490 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " The Master is tired to-night," whispered John to 
 Nathan Evans. " I have never seen him look so sad. Much 
 strength must have gone out of him through healing and 
 comforting so many." 
 
 John felt a hand laid on his arm, and turning he saw the 
 troubled face of Marty White. 
 
 " I am anxious about him," the faithful fellow sighed. 
 " He looks as if he had some awful grief that we don't 
 know about." 
 
 The eyes of Mary Lane were fixed on Jesse's face. She 
 and Martha had followed him about all day, as had also 
 his mother and Mary Magnus, until the weariness of the 
 older woman had become so apparent that Mary had per- 
 suaded her to return to their lodgings leaning on her arm. 
 Rose Thomas and the other women had also turned back at 
 the entrance to the subway. 
 
 "Why do you look at the Master like that?" Martha 
 whispered to her sister. " The day has been one long tri- 
 umph for him, and you look as if he had met with grief." 
 
 " Maybe he has," the girl replied, in a strange, awed 
 voice. 
 
 "Why, what do you mean, Mary?" 
 
 " I don't know, sister." 
 
 Not until after supper that night did Judson reappear, 
 saying that he had eaten his evening meal in the city. 
 Though no one asked him what he had been doing all the 
 day, he explained his absence by a rush of excuses: he had 
 been looking for an old friend whom he wished to bring 
 to the Master; he had been delayed by taking a wrong 
 path in Central Park; he had been making inquiries about 
 public halls for their future meetings, halls which could 
 be rented at a less extravagant expense than Madison Square 
 Garden. 
 
 " And where did you get your new clothes ? " asked 
 Peter. 
 
 Judson flushed, and named the place where he had 
 bought them; but the name made no picture in the minds 
 of his listeners. 
 
 " It's a very good shop," he added, glibly; "I'll point it 
 out to you the next time we're walking up Broadway."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 491 
 
 " There's no use in doing that," Peter answered ; " I 
 can't afford any new clothes this year." As he said this, he 
 watched the face of Judson. 
 
 "Where did you get the money for new clothes? " An- 
 drew inquired. " You told me only the other day that you 
 had no money of your own." 
 
 " I think," Judson flashed back, defiantly, " I think I 
 have made sacrifices enough to entitle me to be dressed 
 decently as well as the rest of you." 
 
 " And you bought clothes for yourself out of the com- 
 mon fund ? " demanded Peter. " What right have you to 
 spend our money in that way? " 
 
 " I have a right. It's mine as much as yours." 
 
 " I say it isn't ! You've acted like a thief ! " Peter's 
 voice was loud and harsh. These simple men had not been 
 trained in the courteous control of their feelings. 
 
 At that moment Jesse entered the room. 
 
 " Are these my disciples? " he asked, gently. " Are these 
 the followers of the Spirit, quarrelling among themselves? " 
 
 Peter stated the facts of the case in a dozen quick words, 
 adding, "And I say that he has acted like a thief." 
 
 " He who accuses his fellow disciple of theft has himself 
 stolen much from the honour and glory of discipleship," was 
 Jesse's grave reproof. 
 
 " But, Master! " Peter's face was long with grief. " Do 
 you approve of his spending our money on himself? " 
 
 " The children of the Spirit are one with the Spirit and 
 with each other. To him whose heart is the dwelling- 
 place of Love, there is no mine and thine." 
 
 Had this occurred the day before, Judson would have 
 rushed to Jesse's side and pressed his hand; but now he 
 only gazed his thanks and exulted in his triumph. 
 
 About eight o'clock in the evening the household was 
 surprised by the appearance of Mary Bethel and Mary 
 Magnus. The face of Jesse's mother was drawn and white. 
 
 " My son," she said, going to him and laying her worn 
 hands pathetically upon his heart, " I could not remain 
 away from you this night! An irresistible impulse drew me 
 to come and touch your breast, your hands, your face. You 
 will not send me away ? "
 
 492 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I will not send you away, little Mother. I also felt 
 that we were to see each other this night." 
 
 He led her to his own room, where they might talk more 
 freely than in the company of the others. Mary Magnus, 
 whose eyes were burning with unutterable pain, would 
 have remained behind; but Jesse called her. 
 
 "You, who are the never-tiring comforter of my mother 
 in her hours of separation from me, may not be shut out 
 when she is with me," he said, laying his hand tenderly 
 upon her bowed head, as if she had been a child. 
 
 It was the only caress he had ever offered her, save the 
 one she had shared with Anna Martin on the night of the 
 making of their first song, and she treasured the memory 
 of it always. * 
 
 They sat down together on a sofa in the dimly-lighted 
 room, the mother on one side of Jesse and Mary on the 
 other. For a few moments there was no word spoken, Mary 
 Bethel gazing up into her son's face with eyes of appealing 
 love and sorrow, and the younger woman looking across at 
 her with pitying tenderness. Then Jesse said: 
 
 " The most devoted soul that has not fortitude is like 
 the flame of a candle shaken in the wind." 
 
 " Do you speak to me impersonally, my son, in order 
 that I may be brave? Fear not I shall not waver." 
 
 " He who fears pain will never know the ultimate joy, 
 for the price of it is pain." 
 
 " Jesse, I feel that you, too, are suffering to-night. It 
 was that thought which called me to you. When you were 
 a child you used to bring all your little troubles and lay 
 them on your mother's heart. Can she not help you now 
 to bear this greater trouble, whatever it is ? " 
 
 " He who leans much upon anything," he answered, 
 " even the heart of love, has not attained mastership. But 
 your presence is sweetly comforting to me." 
 
 It was the assurance she craved, and her eyes filled with 
 happy tears. He was still her baby, her little one, though 
 thousands looked up to him as to a strong tower, built to 
 endure the earthquake and the tempest. Her apprehensions 
 for the coming days were vague, and now that she felt the 
 comfort of his living presence she caught at the flying skirts 
 of Hope. 
 
 " When we are back again together in quiet Myra, Jesse,
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 493 
 
 these days of stress and turmoil will seem like a dream that 
 is past, will they not, dear? " 
 
 He pressed her hand, but made no answer. At that mo- 
 ment he had not the courage to remind her of their talk in 
 Capronville, when she had accepted as inevitable the trag- 
 edy which he foresaw. Let her enjoy her little hour of 
 quiet happiness with him. 
 
 " Mother, do you remember how twenty years ago, about 
 this time in the spring, we went to Nash's hill to gather 
 the trailing arbutus you and I ? " 
 
 " How well I do remember, Jesse ! I can close my eyes 
 and see you, just as you looked that afternoon, in the blue 
 blouse trimmed with braid which I had made for you from 
 the skirt of my poplin dress, turned wrong-side out. How 
 pleased you were with it!" 
 
 " You were always a wonder with your needle, Mother. 
 That blouse was very pretty, and all the dearer to me for 
 my having seen you wear the dress so many times. Do you 
 remember, also, how we sat together on the ground under 
 the maple-tree and made a big bouquet of arbutus for old 
 Mrs. Brown, who was sick?" 
 
 " Was it a maple-tree we sat under?" 
 
 " Yes, for I remember the colour of the buds. We sat 
 facing the west, and there was a large white cloud in the 
 sky, just above the setting sun, a cone-shaped cloud, with 
 a curl of vapour like rising smoke above it, and under it a 
 redness as of fire. And I told you it was a new volcano 
 which had been thrown up beyond the Adirondacks. In 
 fancy, we planned a pilgrimage that we would make to this 
 mountain of flame then the cloud changed its shape, the 
 fire beneath it faded into grey ashes, the air grew chilly, 
 and we went home." 
 
 " Why ... I believe ... Jesse, I do remem- 
 ber that cloud ! " And she laughed joyously, for the first 
 time in many weeks. 
 
 Mary Magnus listened to this talk between the mother 
 and son, looking from one to the other through a mist of 
 unshed tears. Intuitively she knew why Jesse's mind went 
 back this night to the scenes of his happy childhood. She 
 knew, too, why he led his mother's thoughts away from the 
 uncertain present to wander in the byways of the past. 
 
 " And you, my sister," he said, turning to her with a
 
 494 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 soft and melancholy smile, "you, too, remember childhood 
 days in old Nashburgh ... the rocky pasture north 
 of the schoolhouse where we played with the other chil- 
 dren . . . the rainy noon-hour when I told you fairy- 
 stories." 
 
 " I remember every hour I spent in Nashburgh, Jesse." 
 
 " I wish my brothers were here with us to-night. It 
 would make me happy to see Fred and Henry again." 
 
 " Shall I not write them to come down ? " asked Mary 
 Bethel, quickly. " I'm sure they would be glad to come." 
 
 " No, Mother ... not yet." 
 
 "Next week, maybe?" Her mouth was tremulous with 
 love and hope. 
 
 " Next week! . . . Yes, dear, you may write to 
 the boys . . . next week." 
 
 "Why has your face grown suddenly so white, Jesse?" 
 
 " I am a little tired to-night ; you know I have been 
 preaching and walking about all day. . . . But let me 
 forget my weariness in thinking of the happy, far-away days 
 in the old home." 
 
 He reminded her of a score of things she had half-for- 
 gotten, drawing her mind with him back into the past and 
 holding it there, lest any troubling thought of the future 
 should break in upon their idyl. For more than an hour 
 they sat talking together in the little room; then he re- 
 minded her that she had need of rest, that she might be 
 fresh and strong to join him on the morrow. 
 
 During all this time the younger woman had hardly 
 spoken. She accepted the privilege of being there as a 
 gift from Jesse's heart. To sit beside him, and to listen to 
 his tender discourse with the mother she had grown to 
 love, were enough of happiness for Mary now. But when 
 the moment came for parting, she trembled so that she was 
 obliged to lean against the wall. Even the relief of tears 
 was denied to her overwrought feelings, for tears would 
 have saddened the mother whom her chosen task was to 
 comfort and sustain. 
 
 Far into the night she knelt beside her window, gazing 
 into the eyes of the indifferent stars.
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII 
 
 THE weather continued warm, and still Jesse and the 
 men who followed him went out each night to sleep under 
 the open sky, with the ever-softening turf for a couch. The 
 moon was young and fragile, and bade them an early good- 
 night. 
 
 Thursday morning the sun arose again in a cloudless 
 sky. When the men awoke and turned to look for their 
 Master, they saw him sitting quietly upon a rock, his chin 
 in his hand, gazing eastward toward the city. John came 
 and stood beside him; but so concentrated was the Master's 
 thought that for a time he did not perceive the presence of 
 the other. Then he turned his head, and motioned John 
 to sit down with him on the rock. 
 
 "Have you been here long, Master?" 
 
 " Half an hour, maybe; but in that time I have drawn 
 away another veil from the face of the great mystery of 
 life. If I could only make you realise what may be ac- 
 complished in one half-hour of meditation! The protracted 
 sojourn in the wilderness is not necessary for every disciple; 
 each day you may ascend for a time the solitary mountain 
 of thought. From this time forth, do that. For half an 
 hour each day, retire to some place of seclusion and medi- 
 tate upon your unity with me, with the Spirit, with all that 
 is. Try to realise that you are the calm, imperishable One, 
 and not this body of warring sensations or this mind of 
 broken reflections. Of all the teachings I have ever given 
 you, this is the most important." 
 
 " And I will follow it, Master, from this time forth, 
 every day. But I have already gone far toward conquering 
 the warring sensations of the body; I am far beyond those 
 who live only in their senses." 
 
 Jesse turned and looked at him. 
 
 " That is well, John, so far as it goes. But do not 
 exalt yourself because you have conquered one, or even all, 
 of your five senses. Go further: conquer the sense of per- 
 sonal exaltation on account of purity." 
 
 495
 
 496 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 At that moment they were joined by the others, who had 
 always looked with jealous eyes upon John's many secret 
 councils with the Master. Then they all went to the house 
 to bathe and breakfast. 
 
 Judson was, as usual, the first to ask for the newspapers; 
 to him the utterances of the press regarding the Master 
 and his followers were of ever-increasing fascination. This 
 morning he turned from printed sheet to printed sheet with 
 clouded brow and eyes of trouble. When Martha came to 
 the sitting-room to tell them that breakfast was ready, he 
 carried the papers with him to the table. He was never a 
 hearty eater, but now he scarcely touched his food, passing 
 from one journal to another in quest of crumbs of com- 
 fort for his wounded pride. 
 
 "What do they say about us this morning?" Andrew 
 asked. 
 
 Judson pushed the papers toward him, saying, " Read for 
 yourself." 
 
 " Andrew may read for all of us," Jesse said ; " but do 
 not allow your souls to be deafened by the buzzing of all 
 these mosquitoes from the stagnant marshes of material- 
 ism. . . . Read the one you have in your hand, An- 
 drew." 
 
 It was an editorial from a paper in which John Need- 
 ham owned a controlling interest, though this fact was 
 unknown to Jesse and his friends. This is what Andrew 
 read: 
 
 " A DANGEROUS FANATIC 
 
 "This journal is not given to prophecy; but we wish to record 
 our belief that the spectacular agitation of the long-haired prophet 
 who blasphemously calls himself ' the mouthpiece of the Spirit ' will 
 end in some deplorable scence of lawlessness and disorder. 
 
 " We are glad to learn that the Park Commissioner has refused 
 to permit his much-advertised meeting in Union Square at three 
 o'clock this afternoon, and that the police have orders to prevent 
 his speaking there, should he attempt to disobey the law by going 
 against the decision of those in authority. The outcome remains to 
 be seen. 
 
 " The following which this mouther of meaningless paradoxes has 
 gained with a certain class of the population of our city is an 
 illuminating commentary on the gullibility of humankind. In any 
 age, a man who claims to raise the dead, to make the lame walk
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 497 
 
 and the crooked to stand upright, can find plenty of sensation-loving 
 ignoramuses to swallow greedily his assertions that man needs noth- 
 ing for his health beyond a belief that he is healthy, and that the 
 moon is made of green cheese. Though the educated and progres- 
 sive portion of humanity has long ago outgrown the geocentric 
 system of astronomy and the belief in the potency of love-philtres, 
 yet survivors from the dark ages still practise their hocus-pocus, and 
 the traffic in charms and talismans continues to be profitable. 
 
 " If a bold twentieth century journal may presume to offer in- 
 struction to an exalted being who modestly (and we hope blush- 
 Ingly) accepts from his hypnotised followers the modern equivalent 
 of divine honours, who sends his henchmen to the newspapers to 
 whisper confidentially that their master is God himself, we would 
 remind Jesse Bethel that while the iridescent soap-bubble of his 
 divinity may float harmlessly above the meadows of his native 
 valley, in the crowded ways of the mammon-loving metropolis it 
 may blow violently against some towering obstruction, and be shat- 
 tered. 
 
 " We are told that, before he discovered that he was an Avatar, 
 he worked successfully at the honest trade of carpentry. Therefore, 
 we have no doubt that, if his anarchistic principles would permit 
 him to join a trade-union, he could find lucrative employment, should 
 he insist on remaining with us. On the whole, a clear-headed work- 
 man is far safer on the scaffolding of a house than in the vanguard 
 of a revolution spiritual or political." 
 
 Andrew laid down the paper. His face was white, and 
 his eyes were full of angry tears. 
 
 " How dare they ! " he cried. 
 
 " I do not understand why," said John, " if they are 
 against the meeting in Union Square this afternoon, they 
 call attention to it by an editorial ! " 
 
 Jesse's eyes were sad, but his lips smiled as he answered: 
 
 "The ways of the wolf are not always understood by 
 the sheep. Our adversaries are even more desirous than 
 are we that the meeting should take place." 
 
 " But will it? " Peter's face was lined with care. 
 
 " When the clock comes round to three, that square will 
 be packed with people." 
 
 "And shall you be there, Master?" 
 
 " I have said that I would be there." 
 
 "Oh, Jesse, do not try to speak!" cried Marty White, 
 and James Dana echoed him.
 
 498 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " I shall in no way disobey the law, as interpreted by 
 those who enforce it," was Jesse's quiet answer. 
 
 " But why go there at all ? " demanded another of the 
 men, from the far end of the table, one who was usually 
 silent but none the less devoted. 
 
 " I go because that square is one of the stations on my 
 journey to . . ." He left the sentence unfinished. 
 
 " It is a hard way which we have chosen to walk," sighed 
 Judson ; then he shut his. lips together. 
 
 Jesse looked at him gravely, until the man dropped his 
 eyes. He said : 
 
 " Never complain of the roughness of the road, save to 
 the one of whom you would ask a ride." 
 
 Judson turned and went out to the kitchen, making an 
 excuse to refill the empty water-pitcher. Could Jesse know 
 of his interview with John Needham? Impossible! Yet 
 one week ago he would have stoutly proclaimed that Jesse 
 could read the thoughts of others. After filling the pitcher 
 at the faucet, he let the cold, refreshing water flow over 
 his hands; it seemed to restore his equilibrium. When he 
 returned to the dining-room he was again able to look 
 Jesse in the face, as he refilled his glass. 
 
 " May all the cups you give me to drink, Judson, be as 
 pure and health-giving as this one." 
 
 Then the inherent coarseness of the man came out. " Do 
 you think I am going to poison you ? " he asked. 
 
 Jesse made no answer, and Judson turned and walked 
 away to the sitting-room, his face dark with anger. A few 
 minutes later, when they started for the city, he went along 
 with them as if nothing had happened; but the contending 
 powers of light and darkness made twilight in his soul. 
 
 As Jesse passed through the crowd outside the ferry- 
 house on the New York side of the river, he was approached 
 by a messenger-boy who handed him a letter. Raising his 
 eyes at that moment, he met the eyes of John Needham's 
 son; the young man was seated in his motor car, and 
 though he did not alight nor approach Jesse, he bared his 
 head respectfully. In another moment the car moved on, 
 and Jesse broke the seal of the letter and read: 
 
 "My honoured Master; 
 
 "Though I am unworthy to be called your disciple, still must I 
 address you as Master, for that you are to me.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 499 
 
 "This letter is to warn you. It has come to my knowledge it 
 matters not how that there is a powerful conspiracy to end your 
 preaching in New York city. I beg of you, do not attempt to 
 speak in Union Square this afternoon unless you are physically 
 stronger than a squadron of police. If you disobey the peremptory 
 and, as I believe, illegal orders of those in authority, I fear that 
 your very life will be in danger. I, and I only among your friends, 
 know the poster of those who are determined to crush you. They 
 are many times stronger than I. 
 
 "It grieves me to grieve you; but there is one among your 
 intimate disciples who is already disloyal, and will be tempted to 
 still greater disloyalty. 
 
 " Will you not let me save you? The captain of my yacht, which 
 
 is lying at the foot of West Street, has orders to take you, 
 
 with eleven of your friends, anywhere you may wish to go, at any 
 hour, day or night, during the next few days. If you remain in 
 the city, I am powerless. The lion is mightier than his whelp, and 
 the jackals have given the signal. 
 
 " Yours in faith and devotion, D. N." 
 
 Jesse twisted the letter between his fingers, and asking 
 a match from Peter, burned it then and there; though the 
 writer had delicately refrained from requesting its destruc- 
 tion. His eyes filled with tears of human longing as he 
 thought of the yacht anchored off the neighbouring dock, 
 thought of the fresh sea-breezes, of the boundless peace be- 
 tween the ocean and the sky, and, more than all, of the 
 love which prompted the princely offer. But security and 
 peace were not the prizes he had come into the world to 
 win. 
 
 He passed the forenoon quietly in Central Park. His 
 mother and the other women had joined him at the ferry, 
 as usual; and again, as usual, many children gathered 
 around him as he sat on a bench beneath a spreading tree. 
 He did not preach this morning; but those who came to 
 ask him questions were not sent away unanswered, nor did 
 he refuse any who begged his healing touch. When noon- 
 time came, they ate their luncheon from the baskets pro- 
 vided by the faithiul Martha; and a little later, as Jesse 
 glanced around the circle of .his friends, he saw that one of 
 them was missing. Judson had stolen away to keep his 
 appointment with John Needham and the Reverend Doc- 
 tor Claflin. 
 
 It was a strange hour which those three men spent to-
 
 500 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 gather. The power of darkness in the soul of the waver- 
 ing disciple had gained ascendency over the power of light. 
 The inevitable tempter that comes to all came now to him 
 in an alluring form, assailing the citadel of his character 
 at the point where it was weakest. Why should he not 
 seize power .and gold, the tempter whispered, making clear 
 to him that the being of light who had been his master was 
 already doomed. From the ruins of the falling temple 
 should he not gather a few stones enough to build a dwell- 
 ing for himself? The devil pays his servants well, and the 
 labour he assigns them is never beyond their strength. And 
 the devil always offers a generous retainer, a reminder that 
 the fees in full are well worth working to acquire. 
 
 When Judson left the presence of his new associates, had 
 he chosen to array himself in the most expensive garments 
 he would not have been obliged to appropriate the where- 
 withal from the humble treasury he carried in trust, as on 
 the previous day. 
 
 Left alone together, John Needham and Doctor Claflin 
 looked into each other's eyes and smiled. Then the clergy- 
 man shook his head in doubt. 
 
 "Do you not realise, Mr. Needham, that the nightly 
 camping-place of this man is across the river in the State 
 of New Jersey ; that our police have no jurisdiction there ? " 
 
 Again came the little wave of the hand with which the 
 acquaintances of the multimillionaire were so familiar. 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself about that," he said. " This 
 fascinating prophet of ours is doubtless better versed in the 
 laws of paradox than in the laws of States. There will be 
 no resistance." 
 
 " But why do you not seize him on the spot this after- 
 noon ? " 
 
 " And precipitate a real riot? No, no, my friend. I am 
 a man of peace." And the steely eyes twinkled under their 
 overhanging brows. 
 
 Doctor Claflin walked up and down the study floor. 
 Then he stood still, his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "Fancy that man Judson Carey going calmly and 
 smilingly over to eat dinner with his friends this evening! 
 I would have spared him that, had I been you." 
 
 " But it pleases my sense of humour, Doctor. Did you
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 501 
 
 ever watch a cat at its merry play with a mouse? This 
 mouse of ours will not escape my long, sharp, golden claws. 
 Then, too, I want to make sure of the actual whereabouts 
 of the more important prey. The man will not return to 
 me until his tired associates are settled for the night." 
 John Needham chuckled. " Now this little game is better 
 sport than my famous acquisition of the Croly Railroad. 
 
 " But come," he added, " we will now go down to my 
 friend's office, in a tall building overlooking Union Square, 
 and watch the next move in the proceedings." 
 
 " If you'll excuse me, I'll stay where I am," declared the 
 clergyman, whose eyes were clouded with anxiety. " You 
 can telephone me." 
 
 " As you like," replied the financier. 
 
 Then he shook hands with his colleague, and hurried out 
 to his motor car which waited before the door. When 
 with Doctor Claflin, he had spoken lightly of the matter 
 in hand; but now, when alone again in the impersonal 
 streets, his face was set in deep, grave lines. The night be- 
 fore he had had an interview with his only son, a stormy 
 interview, which had placed the final seal upon his deter- 
 mination to remove Jesse Bethel from his path and from 
 the path of his son. 
 
 " If I can ruin a railroad, and buy it cheap," he mut- 
 tered to himself, " can I not ruin a prophet, and buy up his 
 disciples? "
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX 
 
 IT lacked a few minutes of three o'clock when Jesse 
 came down Broadway into Union Square; but his progress 
 was slow. The people, by thousands, surged toward the 
 square from all the neighbouring streets. One might pass 
 along with them, but it was not easy to pass through them, 
 for when those in his neighbourhood discovered Jesse, they 
 tried to crowd round him instead of toward the original 
 centre. Finally, in desperation, his companions forced a 
 wedge-like opening in the wall of human beings, and Jesse 
 went through. Foremost among the men at this moment 
 was Judson Carey, who had been waiting for them on 
 Broadway, just north of the square. He* now urged the 
 others on; never had he been so active. 
 
 John looked at him suspiciously, and said : " Where 
 have you been since you disappeared from the park? " 
 
 " Questioning the police, trying to learn why Jesse is 
 not allowed to speak; but I can get no information except 
 that it's their orders." 
 
 The answer was satisfactory to the mind, but not to the 
 instinct of the faithful John. He repeated Judson's words 
 to Jesse, who made no comment. 
 
 Slowly they made their way down the west side of the 
 square to the drinking-fountain ; there Jesse paused, and 
 dividing the twelve men, he sent them right and left 
 through the crowd to tell the people that the Master 
 could not speak to them that afternoon, having been for- 
 bidden by the police. Meanwhile, Jesse waited alone, for 
 he had refused to allow his mother and the other women 
 to follow him to the square. Several officers were posted 
 around him, keeping clear of people the little circle in which 
 he stood. Charmed by his indescribable sad smile, one of 
 these uniformed men stepped up to him. 
 
 " I'm sorry we have to upset your plans," he said, cor- 
 dially; "but the city is full just now of unemployed men 
 and vagrants of all sorts, and we have to watch out for 
 trouble." 
 
 502
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 503 
 
 " But I am myself a vagrant," Jesse answered. 
 
 The man laughed, taking the words for a joke; then, 
 seeing the grave look in Jesse's eyes, he said: 
 
 "You're a strange sort of man. I heard you speak the 
 other night in Madison Square Garden, and I was specially 
 interested in what you said about the chicken broth. Now 
 I've seen that same thing a thousand times, and it never 
 meant anything to me." 
 
 " Does this crowd here this afternoon mean anything to 
 you?" 
 
 " It means a hard day's work." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " I dunno." 
 
 They were standing with their backs to the west, and 
 the afternoon sun shone down obliquely into the eyes of the 
 multitudes that were gazing at them. 
 
 " Look," Jesse said, " look into the myriad eyes of 
 those human beings there. You will see the same thing 
 I saw on the surface of my broth." 
 
 " Well, I'll be blowed! " exclaimed the officer. "You'd 
 think there were a thousand suns down there, too." 
 
 " So there are. And it is because I recognise the light 
 in them that they have come out this afternoon to see and 
 hear me." 
 
 The officer looked straight into his eyes. 
 
 " Say, you're not going to make us any trouble, are you ? 
 I'd hate almightily to use any kind of force with you ! " 
 
 " I shall not give you any trouble. You and your com- 
 panions are stationed here to guard me, are you not? to 
 keep the crowd from coming near? " 
 
 " Yes ; but there are other officers here on other business, 
 I'm sorry to say." 
 
 Behind them was the short flight of stone steps leading 
 up to one of the spouts of the drinking-fountain. 
 
 " Shall I cause you any trouble if I take a little of that 
 water? I am thirsty." 
 
 " Drink away. I'd get it for you, only the chain of the 
 cup isn't long enough." 
 
 When Jesse had drunk of the water and turned to de- 
 scend the steps, facing the crowd and elevated a little above 
 them, from a thousand throats a mighty roar went up:
 
 504 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Speak, speak !"..." We want to hear you." 
 . . . . " Don't mind the cops." ..." Hurrah for 
 Jesse Bethel !"..." Hurrah for the poor man's 
 friend!" . . . " Speak, speak !" . . . " We've come 
 to listen." ..." Hurrah for you ! " . . . 
 
 Then came a sudden clatter of horses' hoofs, and a loud, 
 prolonged, inarticulate howl from those same throats, as 
 a platoon of mounted police charged into the crowd, scat- 
 tering the people right and left and backward. Clubs were 
 swung, hats were knocked off, and even heads were dam- 
 aged. Bellowing like a herd of cattle, the surprised thou- 
 sands ran before the onslaught; men and women, and even 
 little children, screaming and crying, were driven back 
 back toward the east, the north, the south, anywhere out of 
 the square, which the police had been ordered to clear. 
 All the pain and rage of baffled and conquered humanity 
 were in that roar of ten thousand voices. 
 
 The little circle of guardian police closed around Jesse, 
 but not a hand was laid on him, not a word of reproach was 
 spoken to him. With his eyes wet with tears, he touched 
 the arms of the nearest officers. 
 
 " Did I cause that that cruelty by going up there to 
 drink?" 
 
 "No, no," replied the man with whom he had been 
 talking a moment before. " You only hastened it, maybe. 
 They'd had their orders." 
 
 " But my friends are among those people, my compan- 
 ions, my faithful ones ! " 
 
 " Don't take it so hard, sir. They'll find their way 
 back to you. We're not going to keep this square closed 
 off until the Judgment Day." 
 
 As the crowd was driven farther and farther back, the 
 guardian officers moved a little away from Jesse, so that 
 his form was plainly visible from all sides. This was to 
 show such of the flying people as were able to look back 
 that no harm had been done to him. Having quelled a 
 non-existent riot, they had been warned not to precipitate 
 a real riot by any show of danger to the man who was 
 idolised by the crowd. 
 
 For a short time no one was permitted to approach the 
 cleared square; then, one by one, the scattered disciples of
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 505 
 
 the Master were passed through the lines of officers. John 
 was the first; he came running, and catching Jesse's hands, 
 cried out with joy at his safety. Then, from another direc- 
 tion, Peter came, then Andrew, and all the others, including 
 Judson himself, who was loud in his denunciation of the 
 outrage. In fact, at the possibility of physical danger to 
 Jesse, the heart of the disloyal man triumphed for a mo- 
 ment over his own avarice and ambition. With a burst of 
 genuine feeling he pressed the hand of his Master, who 
 suffered the caress in silence. Had Jesse at that moment 
 singled him out from the others by any show of preference, 
 he might not have had the courage or the will to carry his 
 treachery any further. But the moment passed, and Jesse 
 turned away, leaning his arms wearily upon the shoulders 
 of John and Peter. 
 
 " If you men have a home," said one of the officers, " I 
 advise you to go to it now. The people are beginning to 
 straggle back into the square, and we don't want any more 
 trouble." 
 
 " Come," said Jesse to his companions. " We will go at 
 once to the house where my mother is, before any rumour 
 of this disturbance reaches her." 
 
 On the way up, every man had his own story of the out- 
 rage to repeat to Jesse. " I saw a woman with a child run 
 over and trampled by the crowd," said Peter. Andrew had 
 seen a man knocked senseless by a policeman's club. Philip 
 had himself been bruised against a railing, as a mounted 
 officer came charging down the sidewalk. But however the 
 stories varied in detail, their substance was the same, and 
 Jesse's heart grew sick within him. 
 
 " Tell me no more," he said. " I would forget, for a 
 few hours at least, the cruelty of mankind." 
 
 Peter's matter-of-fact mind was struggling with a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Master, what sin against the Spirit have those poor men 
 and women committed, that they should be chased like 
 cattle, and some of them even hurt, by a brutal power 
 which they have not the strength to resist ? " 
 
 " Pain is not always given as a punishment, nor pleasure 
 as a reward. They are the two sides of the page of sensa- 
 tion, in the beginning of the Book of Life, which men are
 
 506 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 to study and understand before they pass on to more per- 
 plexing pages." 
 
 But the answer puzzled Peter more than his own ques- 
 tion. Seeing his troubled eyes, Jesse added: 
 
 " When men suffer, they should pause and inquire as to 
 the cause of their suffering; and when they have found the 
 cause, they should remove it. The wise physician relieves 
 pain by removing the cause of the pain." 
 
 " But will they ever remove it, Master? " 
 
 " If I did not believe so, I would regret having thrust 
 upon my own soul the awful burden of living." 
 
 When they came to the house where the women lodged, 
 Jesse sent for Mary Magnus and told her briefly the 
 story of the afternoon. 
 
 " My mother must not know of this until to-morrow," 
 he said. " See that no evening paper comes to her hand, 
 and tell the others they must guard their speech when in 
 her presence." 
 
 "And may she know to-morrow, Jesse?" 
 
 "To-morrow! . . . Yes, she will inevitably know 
 to-morrow ; but let her spend this night in peace. Where is 
 she now ? " 
 
 " In her bedroom, lying down." 
 
 ]' Is she asleep?" 
 
 " I left her asleep, only a moment before you came." 
 
 He turned to the men who stood near, saying: 
 
 " Wait for me in the sitting-room. I will return to you 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 Noiselessly he entered his mother's bedroom, closing the 
 door behind him. He who could always command sleep 
 to visit the pillow of the weary and the sick, could hold 
 sleep now upon the eyelids of Mary Bethel. Peacefully 
 as a child she lay there, with hands folded upon her breast. 
 The light from the one window at her head fell softly on 
 her pale face and fragile form, and cast grey shadows down 
 the folds of the loose white wrapper which reached beyond 
 her feet. The light hair, only softly touched with grey, 
 was like a shining halo round her head. 
 
 Jesse stood at the foot of the bed and gazed at her, his 
 face alight with love and sorrow and pity. His mother!
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 507 
 
 Those worn hands had worked for him; those frail arms 
 had been the defenders of his infancy, that breast his shel- 
 ter. Hard was the road those feet had walked for him 
 of late, and harder still the road they soon must walk. How- 
 ever great his love, he could not shield her from the inex- 
 orable Law, which declares that she who bears a Teacher 
 of mankind must pay the price in pain. His mother! 
 Though unborn generations should cover her grave with 
 flowers and her name with honour, no power could soften 
 for her the hours which lay between this peaceful hour 
 of slumber and the longer peace of death. 
 
 Great as his love and pity were for all humanity, yet was 
 he human; and the natural human love of child for parent 
 he had no wish to lay aside. He was not great by being 
 less than other men, but by being all that men are and 
 much more. The tears now gathering in his eyes were for 
 his own loved mother not the terrible, despairing, uni- 
 versal tears he had yet to shed for his mission, and for the 
 agony of all humanity held in the grip of pitiless destiny. 
 
 He did not kiss the unconscious woman, nor touch even 
 a fold of her garment. Noiselessly as he had entered the 
 room, he turned now and left it. 
 
 At the door of the sitting-room stood Mary Magnus, 
 her face white, her eyes aflame. 
 
 "Are you in danger, Jesse?" 
 
 " He who speaks the truth to an unready world is always 
 in danger, my sister." 
 
 " May I go over the river with you to-night?" 
 
 " You will serve me best by remaining with my mother." 
 
 "And to-morrow?" 
 
 " To-morrow she will need you even more than to-day." 
 
 With a power of self-control which placed her higher 
 than ever in his regard, she stood in silence, while he said 
 good-night to the other women and to his cousin Jim 
 Bethel, who remained with them in their city lodgings. 
 Then, with the twelve men behind him, he went down the 
 stairs and out of the house.
 
 CHAPTER LXXX 
 
 MARTHA met them, smiling, in the door of her house. 
 To her had not been given that subtle intuition that senses 
 trouble at a distance, and burdens the soul with grief for 
 happenings beyond the vision of the eyes. 
 
 " I've taken advantage of my afternoon at home," she 
 said, " to prepare for you an unusually good supper." 
 
 " I thank you, Martha. But where is your sister? " 
 
 " Oh ! Mary is up-stairs crying her eyes out because 
 two and two make four, I guess; for I don't see any other 
 reason." 
 
 At that moment the missing girl appeared, red-eyed and 
 trembling, having heard their voices at the door. She ran 
 to Jesse, who comforted and soothed her as if she had been 
 in years the child she was in heart. When she was calmer, 
 he said, with a smile in which there was no hint of im- 
 pending tragedy: 
 
 " Now go and help Martha with her supper, little one ; 
 for she is planning to satisfy our hunger to-night in a way 
 to which we simple men are unaccustomed." 
 
 Peter and the others would have discussed the exciting 
 events of the afternoon, but Jesse stopped them: 
 
 " This night," he said, " we will forget all things, save 
 only the happy days we have spent together. The sun is 
 setting upon the troubles of the afternoon, and the troubles 
 of the future have not yet begun. Let me rest a little 
 while in the valley of peace, before ascending the hill of 
 suffering. Is it not happiness enough for the present hour 
 that we are here, all together?" The loving smile he gave 
 them with the words was treasured in their memory for 
 ever after. 
 
 That night Lawrence and his uncle had been called 
 away from home on business, and Martha had set the long 
 dinner table for thirteen only, she and Mary to do the 
 serving. The girls had placed flowers here and there along 
 the board, and a great fragrant mass of them before Jesse's 
 plate. He buried his face among the cool, sweet blossoms, 
 
 508
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 509 
 
 then looked round at the faces of his spiritual family. They 
 had no regular places at the table. This evening Peter was 
 on Jesse's right and John on his left; Judson sat next to 
 James, who was between him and Peter; Andrew was on 
 the left of John, and beyond them were the others. 
 
 They had never seen the Master's face more radiant 
 than during the first hour of the evening. Not even in the 
 early care-free days of the preceding summer beside the lake 
 near Capronville, had he seemed more at peace. As an 
 artist who is adding the last brush-strokes to an immortal 
 masterpiece, which he has wrought with toil and poverty 
 and tears, joys in the contemplation of his triumphant 
 handiwork, so Jesse now rejoiced in the contemplation of 
 the masterwork which was his life the ecstatic vision of 
 his secret soul made tangible upon enduring canvas, for all 
 mankind to see. It was really no more strange that Jesse 
 should know that his masterwork of life was nearly finished 
 than that the artist should know when only the final brush- 
 stroke remains to be added to the great picture. The soul 
 power which we name intuition may be only a more subtle 
 mode of reasoning from causes to effects, only the more 
 masterly logic of the spirit. 
 
 In that hour it seemed to him possible that from the 
 sandy soil of present-day humanity should spring the radi- 
 ant blossom of human brotherhood, of which his life was 
 the seed. His soul was dizzy with the vision; it rose su- 
 perior to the remembered trouble of the past and the dread 
 of the immediate future. 
 
 " O, children of my faith," he said, looking from one 
 to another with love-melting eyes, " how certain seems the 
 harvest of the Spirit, when such strong and willing labour- 
 ers as you stand ready with the harrow and the sickle! 
 Surely your faith will not falter between the spring and the 
 autumn." 
 
 They thought he referred to the autumn of the present 
 year, and John cried joyously: 
 
 " Will the harvest of the Spirit come so soon, dear Mas- 
 ter? " 
 
 " The seasons of the Spirit do not follow those of the 
 earth," he answered; "but even with the Spirit, the sum- 
 mer and autumn invariably follow the spring."
 
 510 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "Then we must wait a little longer?" 
 
 " You must wait, but not in idleness. The field is large 
 in which you have to labour, and the oceans are its fences 
 on the East and on the West." 
 
 " And must we carry your message to the West ? " asked 
 Peter, his face lighting with enthusiasm. 
 
 " Yes, and to the North and South. Before you have 
 cultivated all the ground, the harvest-time will come. 
 Meanwhile, you will listen for the orders of the Spirit as a 
 servant listens for the orders of his master." 
 
 " And shall we hear the voice of the Spirit, the voice of 
 the Lord? " It was James who asked the question, breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 " It may be that if you listen, your Lord will speak to 
 you. And if he should speak, obey his orders though you 
 die for it. But for every Lord who sits above, a devil lurks 
 below; so be sure the voice is that of your Lord before you 
 do its bidding. If the voice commands you to injure or 
 betray another, be sure it is your devil that speaks, and not 
 your Lord." 
 
 At that moment a change came over Jesse's face ; the joy 
 went out of it, and a shadow fell between his eyes and 
 theirs. He was silent for a little time then he said: 
 
 " There is one among you to whom the devil has spoken, 
 one among you who has listened to the messenger of hell 
 one who will betray me." 
 
 A shudder of consternation passed over them. They 
 searched the faces of one another. To whom had the devil 
 spoken? Who had knowingly listened to the treacherous 
 voice, or had ignorantly taken it for the voice of his Lord? 
 Who among them could betray the Master whom they 
 loved! Then every man asked Jesse if it could be himself; 
 even the lips of Judson did not falter as he pronounced the 
 question. 
 
 In the excitement of the moment, John had thrown his 
 arm around the shoulder of Jesse and leaned against him. 
 He now whispered something which the others did not hear, 
 nor did they hear the answer; but they saw Jesse lean for- 
 ward across the table, and taking a choice morsel from 
 the dish, place it on the plate before Judson Carey. Then 
 he quietly said to the man whom he had fed:
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 51 1 
 
 "What the soul has chosen, that must the man find 
 strength to do." 
 
 Those who listened all save John supposed that 
 Jesse had merely reminded him of some duty to be per- 
 formed. _ Never had the Master's voice been more gentle, 
 though his face had turned an ashen white. 
 
 Stumbling over his chair as he rose, Judson turned and 
 left the room, without a glance behind. A moment later 
 they heard the banging of the street-door. 
 
 Peter was still troubled with heart-searchings. He was 
 sure that he had not listened to any inner voice of evil, 
 sure that he never could be guilty of disloyalty to Jesse. 
 He now appealed to him to set his heart at rest, saying in 
 a voice hoarse with anxiety: 
 
 "Master, tell me that you did not mean me! " 
 
 Jesse laid his arm lovingly on the man's shoulder. 
 
 " No, it is not you." 
 
 Peter shook from head to foot with the gladness of his 
 soul's relief. 
 
 " But do not be too certain even now," Jesse added, 
 " that you will never be found wanting in loyalty." 
 
 Peter declared his readiness to follow the Master even 
 to death. After a deep look into his eyes, Jesse half turned 
 away; then, facing him again, he told him that even before 
 the morning his soul would fail in a great test. Grieved 
 and incredulous, the poor man once more avowed his un- 
 swerving loyalty; but Jesse stopped him, saying: 
 
 " As the eartBquake comes when no man looks for it, 
 so does the heart's hidden cowardice suddenly shake the 
 foundations of man's faith and honour." 
 
 Martha and Mary Lane, feeling instinctively that Jesse 
 would prefer this evening to be alone with his men com- 
 panions, when they had finished serving the supper had 
 eaten their own meal in another room; then, bidding the 
 men good-night, they had gone up-stairs together. Jesse 
 asked Andrew to close the dining-room door: they would 
 remain there until the time should come for them to seek 
 their nightly sleeping-place on the Palisades. 
 
 Then he began to speak of the devotion that should bind 
 them all together. 
 
 " Whenever your hearts go out in love to one another,
 
 512 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 you will feel my invisible hand reaching to touch you from 
 the Silence wherein I dwell. 
 
 "When the soul of one of you shall expand with love 
 for its brother, the response will be my presence among 
 you. 
 
 " The proof which I leave to the world of the Spirit's 
 love for me, will be your love for one another." 
 
 Then, realising at last that he was certainly about to 
 leave them, they began to question as to which among them 
 should be supreme in leadership, which one should command 
 the others. And Jesse's answer to this question was, that 
 whoever should be most willing to yield his rights and 
 opinions should be the guide of the others. 
 
 " For," he said, " the one who desires the welfare of 
 the cause above his own desires, will be wise enough to see 
 wherein that welfare lies. 
 
 " True leadership is like a shadow, which ever eludes 
 the pursuer; but follows swiftly along with him who 
 speeds upon the quest of something greater. 
 
 " He who humbles himself before something greater than 
 himself, shall be exalted above all lesser beings. 
 
 " There is a degree of humility that can command the 
 homage even of kings. 
 
 "And there is also a purity that is more powerful than 
 an army. A helpless child in the way of a rush of sol- 
 diers would be strong enough to deflect the line of their 
 attack. 
 
 " Be humble when you seek the crown of wisdom ; be 
 humbler still when you wear it upon your forehead. 
 
 "Never challenge analysis by boasting: there are flaws 
 in the fairest fame. 
 
 " And be not envious of anyone. He that envies another 
 thereby acknowledges his own inferiority. 
 
 " As long as you cherish yourself, Truth can never em- 
 brace you. 
 
 " In order to view yourself, you must get away from 
 yourself." 
 
 He spoke again of the Presence which was to be their 
 comforter when he should be no more with them in the 
 body; and though they only vaguely understood his mean- 
 ing, yet was he able to create around their souls an atmos-
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 513 
 
 phere of expectancy, to fix their attention on the un- 
 seen. 
 
 " So long as I am visibly present with you," he said, 
 "you will not yearn for the invisible Presence; and only 
 to him who yearns for the invisible will it ever reveal its 
 beauty. 
 
 " When the world seems empty, then do the heavens 
 open. 
 
 "When in the agony of your desolation you shall beat 
 your breast and hurl your prayer for me into the seeming 
 void, then will the very power of your supplication make it 
 a command, to which my unseen presence must respond. 
 
 " The soul of man, being one with the Supreme Spirit, 
 can draw from the storehouse of the Spirit whatever it 
 imperatively needs. This, my children, is the secret of the 
 power of prayer. 
 
 " Though I become invisible, I shall not pass into the 
 realm of inaction, for there I could not comfort you nor 
 guide you with my unseen presence; between that realm 
 and the earth there is a high barred gate. But I shall re- 
 main in the nearer region of ethereal forms, ever-conscious, 
 and ever-active, until all humanity shall have attained the 
 right to enter with me into rest. 
 
 " To you, my children, I entrust the labour of hastening 
 that day." 
 
 For a time he sat silent, gazing as though at some vision 
 far away some vision which they could not see. They 
 watched him with uneasy hearts, no longer doubting that 
 the time was soon to come when he would leave them; 
 but no man guessed how near was the hour. The clock 
 ticked steadily on the mantel, telling the seconds in a tone 
 which seemed louder and more insistent than usual. The 
 wind was rising; they could hear it whistling through the 
 branches of the trees outside the window, and a loose blind 
 rattled now and then against the side of the house. 
 Though their minds were full of questions, yet none dared 
 to speak. They only watched him. 
 
 He turned his eyes again to the circle of his loved ones, 
 and the tense stillness was broken by his voice: 
 
 " When I am gone, all things will speak to you of me. 
 You will feel me in the fire that warms you; the touch of
 
 514 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the cold wind on your faces in the winter you will 
 feel to be my challenge to renewed activity. In the rising 
 sun will I greet you every morning, and the darkness of 
 the night will be my mantel which I lovingly draw round 
 you that you may rest and sleep in my embrace. When- 
 ever you place to your lips the cup of refreshing water, it 
 is I that you will drink; whenever you eat bread, you will 
 taste of me. I am in the air you breathe, I am in the 
 meat that sustains you. When the fleecy cloud passes 
 across the sky, you will see in it the veil which hides my 
 face. When the stars look down at you, you will know that 
 my eyes are watching. When the young leaves unfold their 
 tender greenness in the spring, I am the life that has arisen 
 in the sap; and when the dead leaves fall in the autumn, 
 I am the wind that rustles them about your feet." 
 
 Then Jesse reached out his hand to Andrew, the patient 
 lover, who had learned the master-lesson of self-denial 
 through placing the work of the Master above his own 
 desire for happiness, and so had grown strong. And when 
 Jesse felt the devotion of the young disciple in the firm 
 clasp of his hand, and saw it shining in his steady eyes, he 
 said: 
 
 " For you, my son, I have this night a special gift: my 
 blessing on the love which has been purified by sacrifice. 
 When the moon that is now young shall shine round and 
 perfect upon the earth, you may take to yourself the maiden 
 singer of sweet songs whom you so love and in your hap- 
 piness remember me." 
 
 With eyes suffused in tears, and the voice in which he 
 strove to speak his thanks made inarticulate by emotion, the 
 young man arose from his chair and fell upon his knees 
 at Jesse's feet.
 
 CHAPTER LXXXI 
 
 THE night was colder than any of the previous nights 
 they had spent upon the Palisades; but, though every man 
 save Jesse would have been glad to remain in the com- 
 fortable shelter of the house, no one was willing to suggest 
 it. Not a word was spoken as they walked over the un- 
 even ground. A strange depression, such as they had never 
 known before, weighed down the souls of all. For the 
 first time since their coming to the city, they thought with 
 longing of their homes and friends. 
 
 When they reached the spot where they were wont to 
 sleep, Jesse took James and John and Peter a little to one 
 side, and after quietly bidding the others good-night, as 
 usual, with no added word or tenderer hand-clasp to 
 arouse their premonitions, he led the three who understood 
 him best a few yards further south, and told them to sit 
 down upon the rocks and wait for him while he went away 
 alone to pray. 
 
 His soul was very sorrowful. Though he had long held 
 discourse with the thought of death, it had been as one may 
 realise in youth that sometime he must die. The solemn 
 word of a physician, who says that a suffering man has 
 but a day to live, is less convincing to the watchers by 
 the bedside than was Jesse's inner certainty to him, that 
 the trouble of the afternoon was the prelude of a persecu- 
 tion that would, somehow, end in his death. Step by step 
 from the beginning of his ministry he had gone on, always 
 foreseeing what lay along the path immediately ahead. And 
 now he could not doubt, or hope, that his prevision was 
 less vivid than of old. He had long looked forward to 
 death as to the signature of God upon his work; but now, 
 when the final chapter was so nearly written, he longed 
 with a natural and human longing to have the end less 
 cruel. 
 
 Not for a moment did he waver in his determination to 
 pay to the last coin of suffering the price demanded by
 
 516 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the world for the jewel of a consistent spiritual faith; but 
 for a little time that night he allowed himself to wish that 
 the payment might not be demanded. Not for a moment 
 did he dream of taking advantage of the offered possibility 
 of escape; yet he saw in imagination the safe and speedy 
 vessel owned by his young friend lying quietly on the 
 waters just across the river, under orders to take him and 
 his companions whithersoever he might say. 
 
 At that hour the visible world seemed beautiful to him. 
 He thought of the green and peaceful valley of his birth; 
 thought of the far-away wonderful lands that as a boy he 
 had yearned to visit, of the approaching summer with all 
 its splendid pageantry of flowers and bannered trees. Hot 
 tears of longing filled his eyes. 
 
 Throwing himself face downward on the ground, he 
 pleaded with the all-powerful, indwelling Spirit pleaded 
 as a child might plead with its father to be allowed to 
 remain a little longer in the sunshine. Was it not pos- 
 sible? Could not the Spiritual Sun ripen for the harvest 
 the field which he had sown, even though the sower should 
 remain above the ground? It was so sweet to be alive and 
 to breathe the pure air! The mystery of the change from 
 the visible to the invisible was shrouded in darkness, even to 
 his eyes. His prayer was an agony of supplication; yet 
 with every appeal he pledged anew his resignation to the 
 will of the Spirit. 
 
 All was now dark to his eyes. The human, prayer for 
 life had veiled the superhuman vision. The cold of the 
 ground penetrated his body, and seemed to his overwrought 
 imagination to be the cold of death. But though he shud- 
 dered, there was no fear in his heart; for he remembered 
 that the Spirit has its dwelling in the darkness as well as 
 in the light; that life and death are but the positive and 
 negative poles of the infinite magnet, whose current is 
 without beginning and without end. All this he remem- 
 bered only; for in those moments of his anguish the face- 
 to-face communion with the Spirit in which he had lived 
 so long was interrupted. Souls of development far inferior 
 to his have known this hour, and have called it the Great 
 Dark. 
 
 Staggering to his feet, he turned to seek the three friends 
 whom he had left to watch with him while he struggled
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 517 
 
 with the Spirit that was himself. He felt a passionate 
 need of their sympathy and companionship; for the loneli- 
 ness of his soul was more than he could bear. But, coming 
 to the place where he had left them, he found them all 
 asleep. 
 
 With words of sad reproof, he woke them. But in their 
 drowsy attention there was no comfort for his heart. 
 Never had he been more vividly awake, more keenly con- 
 scious; and again he left them, with the request that they 
 should pray for him and for themselves, that they might 
 avoid the Tempter that was ever watching. 
 
 Alone again, he sat down upon a rock and looked up at 
 the stars which shone that night with unusual brilliancy. 
 How far away they seemed and how cold! Though his 
 heart should break with love for a thankless world, the 
 stars in their indifference would shine as brightly. Be- 
 tween his eyes and theirs the slender, naked branches of 
 the oak-trees swayed restlessly in the wind. Movement, 
 everywhere movement and life! But neither in the swaying 
 trees nor in the dancing stars was there consciousness of 
 him or of his pain. Even the disciples of his heart, whom 
 he had loved beyond their understanding, had failed him at 
 this hour. Among all those who had followed him and 
 had partaken freely of the cup of spiritual strength and 
 healing that he offered, there was one only who would not 
 have failed him now. . . . And he had denied her last 
 request to be allowed to come with him across the river 
 to-night ! 
 
 The disloyalty of Judson was a bleeding wound in his 
 heart. So intimate was the sympathy between him and the 
 Twelve, that for days he had felt the wavering of this 
 man's faith as a constant drain upon his own vitality. With 
 all his love for humanity and his belief in its perfectibility, 
 no sneering sceptic ever knew the weakness and the coward- 
 ice of the human heart as Jesse knew it. Only a love as 
 vast as his may dare to draw aside the veil that hides the 
 secret motives of men. He knew that even of the eleven 
 who slept yonder, believing themselves faithful, the greater 
 number would weaken and fly like cowards at the approach 
 of real danger. They who had loudly proclaimed so many 
 times their willingness to follow him to death, would find 
 a score of worldly reasons for not following him to jail.
 
 5i8 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 And if this was true of his intimates, to whom he had 
 given some measure of his own spiritual strength, what 
 loyalty and faith could unregenerate men expect from one 
 another! What hope was there for a world wherein dis- 
 trust and cowardice were universal! He suffered less from 
 the fact that the hearts of those whom he loved could fail 
 him, than from the awful realisation that such failure was 
 a part of the universal failure of mankind. The personal 
 incident, the personal grief, was but a symbol of a vaster, 
 more inexorable and overwhelming fact. 
 
 Oh, the suffering of the world ! He felt it surging over 
 him, bearing him down, crushing him with despair. For 
 every care-free heart that joyed in the sunshine, there were 
 a hundred bowed beneath the weight of irremediable woes, 
 hunger and endless toil, pain of the body and pain of the 
 soul, ignorance, hatred, strife, the apathy of hopelessness, 
 and over all the cold and nagging fear of the future, of 
 starvation, of death. 
 
 And he had dared to dream that his one life might pay 
 the whole world's debt! He had dared to believe that he 
 had only to show mankind the path to a purer life, and 
 they would walk in it! He felt now that they would not 
 walk in it; that all his words were written in the sand, 
 to be obliterated by the rising tide of evil whose roar now 
 deafened him. Oh, to escape one moment from the para- 
 lysing consciousness of failure! To hear the assurance of 
 some soul that believed in him and in itself! 
 
 He would go back to the friends whom he had asked to 
 watch and pray; surely their greeting would revive his 
 fainting hope. But when he came to the place, again he 
 found them all asleep. . . . Why, in the months gone 
 by he had known one of them, the imaginative John, to 
 outwatch the stars, because, as he had said, the night was 
 so beautiful that he could not bear to shut out the vision 
 of it by closing his eyes in sleep. And now he was as 
 heavy as the others! It seemed as if the spirit of Darkness, 
 eternal mate and enemy of the spirit of Light, had decreed 
 that Jesse should drink to the bitter dregs the cup of mortal 
 desolation, before he could be crowned with the wreath 
 of immortality. 
 
 He woVe ibr three men a second time, and in a voice
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 519 
 
 choked with grief reproved them for their lack of under- 
 standing. And they, being convicted by their own con- 
 science, did not know what to answer him, and so answered 
 nothing. 
 
 Then he left them and went away, to be again alone. 
 His heaviness increased with every step. Never before, not 
 even in his darkest hour, had he been visited by this haunt- 
 ing fear that his life and work might, after all, have been 
 in vain that men might reject the message he had brought. 
 His love for the world was tenderer than that of a mother 
 for her only child, and his life had seemed so small a gift 
 to bring to it. . . . But if the gift were useless! . . . 
 Must the orphan child, Humanity, still go on suffering 
 through countless ages, a homeless wanderer in the wilder- 
 ness, bruising its naked feet upon the rocks of life, now 
 burning on hatred's treeless sands, now freezing on the icy 
 steeps of selfishness and cruelty? He reached his arms 
 into the empty air, as if groping for the world to draw 
 it to his breast. Oh, that he might take upon his own soul 
 the burden of the sin and failure of all mankind! That he 
 alone might bear the sorrows of the whole world! Surely 
 there could be no greater anguish than that he now endured. 
 Why could he not so suffer alone, for them, through eternity 
 and they have joy, and peace, and love? He offered 
 himself to the indwelling Spirit as a sacrifice, praying, 
 beseeching that he might go on suffering like this through- 
 out eternity to pay the price of happiness for them. 
 
 The pitiless light of the future shone full upon his mind. 
 He saw that all his preaching of the Spirit, his love, his 
 death, would not carry mankind more than one step farther 
 forward; that even those who should take his name upon 
 their lips and call themselves his followers would not really 
 follow in his footsteps. He saw himself as only one of 
 a long line of the world's saviours and redeemers a line 
 extending back into the misty beginnings of time. The 
 tears of all these labourers in the sterile human desert 
 burned his eyes; their yearnings and despairing love were 
 more than he could bear. 
 
 He threw himself upon the ground and buried his face 
 among the dead leaves of preceding summers. With every 
 year new leaves would grow upon the trees, only to fade
 
 520 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 and fall; with every cycle new messengers of the Spirit 
 would come into the world, to suffer and to die. He felt 
 the whirling of the earth through space upon its bourneless 
 journey, till his brain was dizzy with the motion of it. He 
 felt, as cutting into his own flesh, the chain that bound the 
 Spirit to its dark brother, Substance. He was bathed in 
 the sweat of his tortured body, as humanity is bathed in 
 the agony of its struggle to be free from the merciless Law, 
 from which it never can escape until the countless suns 
 and systems of suns shall fall asleep in the darkness of 
 dissolution. 
 
 Then, gradually, there came upon him peace a peace 
 beyond the understanding of all save those rare beings, far 
 isolated in time, who are capable of suffering to that utter- 
 most point where the great circle of feeling returns upon 
 itself, and suffering becomes joy. Its touch was like that 
 of a ministering angel, soothing and strengthening the soul. 
 It seemed to whisper that everything was in its place, in 
 time and in eternity; that nothing, not even evil and de- 
 spair, could be in vain; that what seemed lost and dead 
 was only being transformed, to re-emerge a little farther 
 on. 
 
 There returned to him now the memory of the dream 
 which had come to him in youth, of the iron face of the 
 Law revealed upon the mountainside, the pitiless iron face 
 with blazing eyeballs, which, when he gazed upon it fear- 
 lessly, melted into the smiling face of Love. He had never 
 fully understood the dream until this hour. 
 
 He turned his eyes again to the stars: they seemed no 
 longer cold or unconscious of him, but in the deeps of their 
 myriad eyes he saw the recognition of their brotherhood 
 with him and with each other. Even the eternal Tempter, 
 that had come to him in visible form during his sojourn 
 upon the mountain the preceding year, he now realised 
 anew to be only a servant of the Great Law, stationed 
 for ever beside the gates of power to test the souls that 
 would pass through. 
 
 Again he looked at the naked branches of the oak-trees 
 swaying in the wind against the sky; their life no longer 
 was remote from his, and their every movement seemed 
 a conscious caress.
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 521 
 
 Then he thought of the three men, his loved disciples, 
 whom he had left a little while before. Poor tired ones! 
 What matter though their eyes had been closed in sleep? 
 Their souls were still awake, their souls that were one with 
 his. 
 
 With a light step he crossed the intervening space and 
 stood before them. This time they awoke without a word 
 from him, as if electrified by his approach. In a voice more 
 gentle than the gentlest tones they had ever before heard 
 even from him, he told them to sleep on and take their rest. 
 
 But they did not return to sleep. For suddenly the 
 sound of approaching footsteps brought them to their feet, 
 startled and alert.
 
 CHAPTER LXXXII 
 
 COMING toward them was a company of men how great 
 a number they could not be sure at first, because of the 
 uncertain light, but apparently there were no fewer than 
 thirty. And there was something peculiar in the way they 
 came, not irregularly, or walking two by two, but in a 
 broad curved line, as if they sought to cover every foot 
 of ground for a wide space. Though the line was broken 
 here and there, because of the rocks and trees, yet the men 
 seemed to be making for a definite place the group of 
 oaks whereunder Jesse and his three friends were standing. 
 
 " What can they want ? " said Peter hoarsely, and John's 
 heart began pounding with sudden, unexplainable alarm. 
 
 "What can they want?" echoed the gentler voice of 
 James. "Master, what can they want?" 
 
 " They seek me," Jesse answered, " led by one who sought 
 me with a different purpose but a little while ago." 
 
 Then he went forward to meet the advancing men. 
 They stopped when they saw him coming, tall and majestic 
 in the starlight; they stopped as if uncertain what to do, 
 for the power of his presence surprised them. But one 
 rushed forward and caught him by the arm: it was Judson 
 Carey, and he had been drinking. 
 
 " Master," he cried, breathing his unpleasant breath in 
 Jesse's face, " come with us now across the river. You 
 will come, won't you, Master? It is very important that 
 you come with us now across the river." 
 
 His speech was thickened. He had been nerving himself 
 for an ordeal. The grossness of his state was like the 
 devil's grinning commentary on the sublimity of Jesse's last 
 half-hour like the gargoyle on the face of a cathedral. 
 Even reproof would have been wasted on him; though 
 Jesse said, more for the others who stood near than for this 
 fallen companion: 
 
 " He who betrays the soul will himself be betrayed by 
 the body." 
 
 Then he asked the crowd what they desired of him; 
 
 522
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 523 
 
 and a large, soft-voiced man, who was the butler and 
 trusted servant of the Reverend Doctor Claflin, stepped 
 before the others, who had been recruited from the lower 
 ranks of hirelings, the hangers-on of saloons and livery- 
 stables. These men had made the trip across the river 
 as they would have gone on any rowdy excursion that 
 promised a few free drinks ; they did not even know whence 
 came the money on which they were to regale themselves 
 when their easy work was over. The dignified clergyman 
 had of course not soiled his lips by giving orders in such 
 a matter; he had merely granted his faithful servant an 
 extra night off. He would have been profoundly and 
 sincerely shocked had the details of the affair in which he 
 acquiesced been forced upon him. The man who was. seen 
 to leave the Claflin house with the butler that night had 
 not long before succeeded in breaking a strike on one of 
 the Needham railroads but he had never come in personal 
 contact with John Needham, being but the deputy of a 
 deputy thrice removed. If an officer in citizen's clothes 
 was also of the butler's party that night, why, any citizen 
 has a right to cross the North River on a ferry-boat. On 
 this night Heaven and Hell shook hands, each helping the 
 other to achieve a masterwork of the extreme and opposite 
 kind of each. 
 
 The soft-voiced butler answered Jesse's question: 
 J. have been requested to request you to accompany 
 me and my friends to the New York side of the river." 
 
 Here Peter Bond sprang forward, and would have laid 
 hands on the man had not Jesse restrained him. 
 
 " Master, you shall not go ! " he cried. 
 
 " What matter," said the Master, " whether I go with 
 these to-night or with my friends to-morrow? I came 
 down here to preach the faith of the Spirit to the dwellers 
 in the great city yonder, and I should certainly re-cross the 
 river at the usual hour to-morrow morning." 
 
 At that moment the other men, who had been sleeping 
 a few rods away, came running to the spot, having been 
 awakened by the sound of voices. James Dana told them 
 in a dozen words the meaning of the unusual scene: and 
 they, not knowing what to do, and being outnumbered 
 three to one by the intruders, did nothing.
 
 524 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 Jesse now said to the man who seemed to be the leader 
 of the crowd: 
 
 " I am going with you, and of my own free will. Did 
 I not wish to go, I could at this moment call upon the 
 Spirit within me, and the Spirit would utter through my 
 lips such words of power that even those who follow you 
 would be electrified by the awakening of the Spirit in them- 
 selves, and would defend me against you. But this is the 
 hour of darkness, and the hour of my sacrifice of self 
 the proof of my renunciation. One thing only I ask: that 
 these men who have followed me shall go their way un- 
 molested." 
 
 " Oh, we don't want them ! " answered the man. " They 
 don't count." 
 
 Without another word, Jesse strode forward across the 
 uneven ground toward the little winding road which led 
 idown-hill to the ferry, and behind him came the band of 
 ruffians. He had not asked his friends to follow him, and 
 only two had followed, even at a distance. The others, 
 bewildered by the sudden appearance of the hostile-looking 
 crowd, frightened at the possibility of violent opposition, 
 and driven to despair by their remembrance of the Master's 
 prophecy of death, had fled away into the night. And 
 when Jesse turned to look for the half-drunken Judson, 
 whose beastliness made even treachery grotesque, he al^o 
 was not there. Alone, as at the outset of his ministry; 
 alone, as on the mountain of illumination, Jesse passed 
 down the flight of wooden steps at the beginning of the 
 winding road. 
 
 Where the road turned sharply, about half-way down, 
 stood the stump of a dead tree which had been sawed off 
 evenly. Here he paused and sat down for a moment. On 
 one side of him rose the almost perpendicular wall of rock, 
 on the other side were the branches of trees which grew 
 on the hillside below. 
 
 "Tired?" asked the lackey leader of the rowdy band, 
 as he paused and waited beside Jesse. 
 
 " I shall not be loath to rest, when my hour strikes." 
 
 "Well, don't rest too long here, or we may be obliged 
 to hurry you. That boat won't wait for us." 
 
 The tone was insolent, but Jesse hardly heard it. The
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 525 
 
 exaltation and the peace of that last half-hour of meditation 
 were with him still. He was so far removed in conscious- 
 ness from what was merely personal, that insolence could 
 not find him. He realised only that the man had said the 
 boat would not wait, and they were going to cross the river 
 on the boat; so he rose immediately and went on down 
 the hill. The butler, having himself a coward soul, as- 
 sumed from this that he was afraid of him. 
 
 A moment later Jesse stumbled over one of the small 
 tree-trunks which were laid across the steep road at in- 
 tervals, to prevent the washing away of the soil; and as he 
 caught himself, the man cried: 
 
 " Hi, there! Can't you keep your feet?" 
 
 The boat was in the dock when they reached the ferry- 
 house, and they went immediately on board, the butler 
 paying Jesse's fare. .On that same boat John and Peter 
 crossed the river; but they did not go near the Master, 
 only keeping him in view. Even now Jesse was hardly 
 conscious of his surroundings. He went forward and stood 
 at the bow, just behind the gates; but though his eyes were 
 upon the foam that glistened below, he did not really see 
 it. His thoughts were rapt in the realisation which had 
 come to him a little while before, as he prayed alone be- 
 neath the stars the realisation that everything was in its 
 place, in time and in eternity. He knew that he was being 
 carried forward across the water of this river toward some 
 unknown and cruel fate; but it all seemed prearranged, 
 and in accordance with a beautiful design; his sorrows 
 were only the dark threads in the pattern which the 
 Supreme Artist was weaving on the loom of faith. With- 
 out the contrast of the black, the brilliant colours would 
 seem less brilliant, and the fabric would not so strongly 
 appeal to the eye of beauty. 
 
 As the boat drew near the shore, the lights glittering 
 before his eyes drew Jesse's thoughts back to the earth 
 which bore him. Though the hour was late, the great 
 city was still illuminated ; it lay beside the river like a 
 dragon shaking its gleaming scales. On an elevation to 
 the right of him he saw the twinkling lights of that gay 
 hostelry which nightly watches late beside a hero's tomb ; 
 to the left of him the colossal ribs of a now nearly depleted
 
 526 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 gas-tank stood, like a giant skeleton from pre-human ages, 
 black, threatening, against the sky. He even smiled at a 
 grim fancy which flashed across his mind: the black ribs 
 of that colossus yonder protected the lungs of the fire-breath- 
 ing dragon; in imagination he could smell its awful 
 breath that breath which is slowly inhaled through the 
 daylight hours and slowly exhaled after dark. These were 
 his last impressions as he neared the shore of the river he 
 had loved. 
 
 The boat bumped against the piling, the chains of the 
 windlasses rattled, the gates were thrown back with a 
 metallic snap, and the ferry poured its passengers into the 
 State and City of New York. 
 
 An officer in uniform laid his hand on Jesse's arm, 
 telling him that he was under arrest. He was then taken 
 down-town and cast into a jail, like any common male- 
 factor.
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIII 
 
 WITH trembling hand John pulled the door-bell of the 
 house in the city where the women lodged. It was long 
 after midnight. Could he gain entrance at that hour? 
 He would, he must! The small considerations of 
 propriety were not for times like that. Somewhere 
 in the dark, silent house was the one soul who was strong 
 enough to help him in his hour of terror and despair, and 
 he must force a way to her. He pulled the bell a second 
 time. Oh! would not someone come? At last he heard 
 a light step, and the inner door was opened; there was 
 the rattling of a chain, the sliding of a bolt, and a woman's 
 voice : 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! It is I, John. Let me in." 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 Her whisper was commanding; but the door opened, 
 and she drew him into a dark room on the right, the 
 reception-room of the house. 
 
 "What is the matter? Where is Jesse?" 
 
 " I do not know. They have brought him over to the 
 city. Oh, Mary! What shall I do?" 
 
 She closed the door into the hall and lighted the gas. 
 She was dressed as in the daytime, but her hair was loosened 
 and fell about her shoulders. Her face was white. 
 
 "Tell me everything, John, quickly." 
 
 " We were sleeping, as usual, on the Palisades. . . . 
 A crowd of men came. . . Judson was with them. 
 . . . They brought the Master to the city, Peter and I 
 following. . . . An officer arrested him." 
 
 ' Where did the officer take him ? " 
 
 ' Oh, Mary, I do not know ! " 
 
 'Where is Peter?" 
 
 ' I lost him in the crowd. . . . I do not know. . ." 
 
 ' There is no crowd at this hour, John." 
 527
 
 528 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " But I lost him." 
 
 " You mean, that Peter followed Jesse, and you did 
 not?" 
 
 " I meant to follow him. A heavy truck came between 
 and a motor car. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, that I were a man! Since first I followed the 
 Master, I have longed to be a man. I may not go out 
 and preach about him, I may not remain with my fellow 
 disciples on the other side of the river, I may not hold 
 long counsels with him in the dawn, like you; but I would 
 have followed him to prison or to death." 
 
 " Oh, don't, sister, dear sister! . . . I am so un- 
 happy! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, poor child ! You are unhappy, but what of 
 him?" 
 
 "What could I have done, Mary? I could not have 
 made the officer release him." 
 
 "You could have proved your worthiness to be his friend. 
 You could have followed him." 
 
 The boy for he was still only a boy suddenly sat down 
 in one of the satin chairs, and laying his head upon the 
 padded back, burst into tears. For a minute Mary stood 
 looking at him; then she came over and laid her hand on 
 his hair. When she spoke her voice was rich with tender- 
 ness, but her words were strong: 
 
 " This is no time for tears, little brother." 
 
 He raised his head, dashing the drops from his eyes; 
 then he stood up, facing her. 
 
 "What can I do, Mary?" 
 
 " Let me think. . . ." 
 
 "You are fully dressed, Mary! Haven't you been to 
 bed at all?" 
 
 " No. I feared I knew not what, this night. I could 
 not have slept." 
 
 He remembered, with a sudden rush of shame, how he 
 and the other men had slept, while Jesse prayed alone. 
 
 "How great you are, sister!" 
 
 She seemed not to hear him; her eyes were brilliant with 
 thought, her face was flushed. After a little time, she 
 said: 
 
 " I could learn where he is by telephoning to the office
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 529 
 
 of the city editor on any of the great papers. He is illus- 
 trious. His arrest would be immediately reported." 
 
 " I had not thought of that," John said. 
 
 Mary was silent, looking straight out before her. 
 
 "Shall we telephone now, sister?" His voice was 
 hesitant, unsteady. 
 
 " Let me think," she said again. " Let me think. . 
 
 He stood looking at her. Deeply as he had always 
 loved her, he had not realised before how beautiful she 
 was. And she had been watching and listening all these 
 weary hours, feeling that some danger threatened Jesse; 
 she had come down herself to open the door. . . . 
 
 " John." 
 
 "Yes, Mary." 
 
 " I have been asking myself what he would wish us 
 to do. I do not think that he was surprised by his arrest. 
 He must have been expecting it, after that scene in Union 
 Square this* afternoon I mean, yesterday afternoon. It 
 seems a century ago ! " 
 
 "And you think ..." 
 
 " I feel that he would not wish us to make any effort 
 to release him. He will be taken before a magistrate in the 
 morning. He can then speak for himself." 
 
 "But he is in jail, Mary. It is horrible!" 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " What is a jail to him? He can make heaven of the 
 darkest place." 
 
 John's eyes lighted at her words. 
 
 " Why," he said, " the Master at this moment is doubt- 
 less comforting the wretches who are confined with him 
 in the prison ! " 
 
 " Yes," Mary answered. " And now I think further 
 about it, I am more certain than before that he would 
 wish us to do nothing. But, tell me, what became of 
 the other men when the crowd took Jesse away?" 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 "You mean, they disappeared ? " 
 
 He nodded his head. 
 
 " And you and Peter followed him across the river ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What time was that ? "
 
 530 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " Two hours ago, perhaps. I wandered about the 
 streets alone for a long time . . . and then I came to 
 you." 
 
 " And all the other men disappeared," Mary repeated, 
 musingly, " all the other men." 
 
 John made no answer, for he realised that, to the Mas- 
 ter, he also had disappeared. After another silence, Mary 
 said: 
 
 " Now I think you had better find a public telephone, 
 for there is none in this house, and learn where Jesse is. 
 I have 'told you how. Then go to the place yourself. I 
 believe that you will find Peter somewhere around the out- 
 side of the jail." 
 
 "And what are you going to do, Mary? " 
 
 " Wait for the morning. Then I shall take the other 
 women with me to the court." 
 
 Suddenly she caught her breath with a choking cry. 
 
 " What is it? " he whispered, frightened by her look. 
 Her self-control had given way all at once, and she was 
 weeping, pitifully. 
 
 " Oh, John, / shall have to tell his mother! "
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIV 
 
 IT was ten minutes before nine in the court of Magistrate 
 Palmer. Though the bench was still empty, the room 
 was packed to the doors, the hall outside was packed, and 
 a mass of people obstructed the sidewalk before and around 
 the building. A dozen newsboys reaped a generous har- 
 vest of coppers by selling " extra " journalistic comments, 
 headed in three-inch letters, on the trial which had not yet 
 taken place. 
 
 The portly outer guardian of the temple of justice was 
 bewildered; no such crowd had ever been seen before in 
 that court. He was a good-natured officer, in sympathy 
 with the ardent curiosity of these people; and long before 
 the hour for court to open he had yielded up one of the 
 benches usually reserved for lawyers, and had packed all 
 the available spaces in the room as an expert might pack 
 a box of sardines. The majesty of the law being still 
 absent, he made no attempt to keep silence in the court- 
 room. As he moved here and there, preserving order, he 
 heard the comments of the crowd: 
 
 "What will they do with him?" . . . "Disorderly 
 conduct, the paper said." . . " I was there myself; 
 
 he hardly moved." ..." This is an outrage ! " . . 
 " Will they send him to the Island ? " . . . " You never 
 saw him, you say? Why, where have you kept yourself 
 these last few days!" . . . "I told you so! I knew 
 'twould come. I said "... " That's his mother, 
 down there in front." ... "Oh, you don't say! 
 Which one?" . . . "It's a conspiracy, I tell you!" 
 . . . " Why didn't somebody bail him out ? " . . . 
 " He says he's God himself, but that so is every other 
 man." ..." It's nearly time for court to open now." 
 . . . " Will his case come up first ?" . . . " I won- 
 der who that handsome woman is, down there." . 
 " He can't succeed. The world is not ready for that kind 
 of thing." ..." I'm glad they took him up : he's a
 
 532 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 blasphemer!" . . . "The paper says he wants to stir 
 up strife." . " I heard him preach in Madison 
 
 Square Garden the other night." ..." I'll bet you 
 a drink the magistrate lets him go." 
 
 Seated near the railing were Peter and Andrew Bond, 
 James and John Dana, Marty White, Jesse's mother, Mary 
 Magnus and the other women. They did not know that 
 in the crowd outside, unable to get into the courthouse, 
 were Lawrence Lane and his sisters, with two of the men 
 who had disappeared the night before. 
 
 Mary Bethel was paler than Lawrence had been as he 
 lay in his coffin one week ago that day. She had known 
 nothing of Jesse's trouble until six o'clock that morning, 
 when Mary Magnus had come to her room and told her, 
 with more than a daughter's tenderness, that Jesse, to 
 prove the power of the Spirit was all-sustaining, had 
 consented to spend a night in prison, and that they were 
 to meet him in the court that morning. Then, as the 
 softened truth broke gradually over her consciousness, she 
 had hidden her face for a few moments from even the lov- 
 ing eyes of her companion. That was three hours ago; 
 and though she had not wept, she seemed to herself to 
 have suddenly become an old woman. She had been born 
 and bred in New England and her son was in jail! 
 
 During that hour of waiting Mary Magnus suffered less 
 than she had suffered many times before. She knew that 
 the shade and dampness of a prison could not quench the 
 flame which burned in Jesse's soul; she also knew that 
 wherever he went his ministry went with him, and her 
 heart swelled to think of the peace and hope his presence 
 must have brought to the poor wretches who were his 
 night companions. What dangers lay beyond this hour 
 she could not imagine; but she realised that Jesse had 
 done nothing for which the laws of the country could 
 punish him. That there might be interests strong enough 
 to stand for a time above the law was a possibility she had 
 not considered. The dread which had appalled her on 
 their first day in the city was present with her still; but 
 it seemed to point to something beyond this pleasant court- 
 room with its ruddy-faced attendants ... to some 
 vague and still unseen danger. She had even slept a little
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 533 
 
 toward morning, knowing there was nothing she could 
 do for him until the daylight. 
 
 Peter had not slept a moment during the long night. 
 As Mary had supposed, John had found him walking up 
 and down before the building, having been denied ad- 
 mittance by the officer in charge. The other men had 
 learned from the morning papers where the Master was. 
 
 "Hats off! Hats off!" 
 
 The quick, sharp order of the officers meant the arrival 
 of the magistrate, and in another moment a large man with 
 iron-grey hair and beard, in the flowing black robes of 
 Justice, passed across the platform and took his seat upon 
 the bench. If he saw the unusual crowd which packed 
 the spaces of his court, he gave no sign. The clock pointed 
 to five minutes past the hour. Justice is always rather late 
 when it comes to deal with the world's Teachers. 
 
 Through a door at the side, behind the rail which 
 separated the spectators from the court, came several men 
 and ranged themselves at the bar. Some words were 
 spoken, inaudible to the breathless group of men and women 
 from Vermont; then in a sharp, mechanical tone came the 
 question of the magistrate: 
 
 "What have you got to say?" 
 
 " He hit me first, yer Honour. I was goin' about me 
 business, and up he comes and says to me, says he : ' What 
 for do ye try to git me job away, ye blasted son of a 
 gun?'" 
 
 " And so you hit him? " 
 
 " I say, he hit me first, yer Honour. I wouldn't hev 
 blacked his eye if he'd kep' a civil tongue in his head, 
 and " 
 
 " One dollar." 
 
 "Next case!" 
 
 And the belligerent one was hustled away to make room 
 for another prisoner, a man with a bandage round his 
 head, only a " drunk and disorderly," who was promptly 
 sent to the Island for ten days. 
 
 A fat negress followed, and, from what the listeners could 
 gather, the charge against her was the stealing of a garnet 
 scarf-pin from a dapper little negro whom she afterward 
 referred to as " ma bo'der."
 
 534 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 " What have you got to say ? " 
 
 She denied the charge with firmness, and as the evidence 
 of the only witness in the case was insufficient, the magis- 
 trate discharged her with a warning, and she passed out 
 of the courtroom muttering something about " spo'ty 
 gen'lemen as wears brass sca'f-pins with glass beads stuck 
 in 'em." 
 
 The degradation of it all, the squalor, broke the proud 
 heart of Mary Bethel. Her son, her Jesse, a fellow pris- 
 oner with such as these! 
 
 " Next case. Jesse Bethel." 
 
 Suddenly all the seated spectators leaped to their feet, 
 to get a better view; but the loud voice of the officer in 
 charge rang out above the sound of moving feet and rustling 
 garments. 
 
 " Sit down ! Sit down ! " 
 
 Jesse was standing before the magistrate, who looked at 
 him gravely while the charge of disorderly conduct was 
 stated by the officer. 
 
 "What have you got to say?" repeated the magistrate, 
 using from force of habit the form of words he had ad- 
 dressed day after day, year after year, to thousands of pris- 
 oners standing in that same spot. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Jesse's clear voice was audible in every part of the room. 
 Though his back was toward the spectators, the power of 
 his presence was felt by everyone; and two or three un- 
 fortunates who had been brought in with him from the 
 prison were seen to edge nearer and to touch his garments 
 furtively, as if they fancied there might be strength and 
 healing in the contact. 
 
 The magistrate motioned Jesse to the small platform 
 immediately before him, and Jesse went up and stood there, 
 eye to eye with his judge. The tenacious perfume which 
 had followed him everywhere since it was poured upon his 
 hair some days before stole over the senses of the puzzled 
 magistrate. In all his long experience no prisoner like this 
 had ever stood before him. The colour rose in his bronzed 
 face, and for a little time there was utter silence while the 
 two men looked at each other. 
 
 " What did you do at the moment mentioned by thii 
 officer?"
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 535 
 
 " I drank a cup of water." 
 
 "Was that all?" 
 
 " That was all." 
 
 " Why did you go up those steps? " 
 
 " I was thirsty." 
 
 "Was that your only reason?" 
 
 " That was my only reason." 
 
 " Had any of the officers forbidden you to go up ? " 
 
 " One of them gave me permission to go up." 
 
 " What did you say to the crowd ? " 
 
 " Nothing." ^ 
 
 " What motion, or gesture, did you make to the crowd ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " How long had you been standing there facing the 
 crowd when they began shouting when they became dis- 
 orderly?" 
 
 " I merely turned and came down." 
 
 Jesse's answers were given with a simple dignity which 
 made the questions of the magistrate seem to himself an 
 impertinence. 
 
 " I find no fault in this man's conduct," he said to the 
 officer who had made the arrest. Then he turned again to 
 Jesse, saying: 
 
 " You are discharged." 
 
 The gate was opened, and Jesse found himself outside 
 among the spectators. His friends gathered round him in 
 silence; they were afraid even to whisper in this place, so 
 great was their dread of the grim machinery of the law. 
 Mary Bethel put out her hand and touched the hand of 
 her son, who responded with a strong clasp and a con- 
 fident smile which changed the colour of the world for the 
 frightened mother. Perhaps, after all, she thought, the 
 matter had not been so serious as it seemed; it was a mere 
 mistake, a technicality, an officer's stupidity; for Jesse was 
 free again, and everyone in the courtroom seemed to be fol- 
 lowing him now, with admiration in their eyes, as he made 
 his way slowly toward the door. She looked at Rose 
 Thomas and smiled. 
 
 Among the faces in the crowd, Jesse saw that of the man 
 who had led the band of ruffians over the river the night be- 
 fore. He did not know that a small steam-launch had 
 waited in the neighbourhood of the ferry-landing, and that
 
 536 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 he would have been a passenger thereon had he demurred 
 at crossing with the men who had climbed the hill. 
 The sight of the butler's oily smirk made Peter clench 
 his fists. 
 
 As they came down the steps of the building, the people 
 in the street gave rousing cheers, and Lawrence Lane and 
 his companions forced a way to Jesse's side. Their glad- 
 ness at seeing him was unrestrained. Half a hundred 
 voices were shouting for a speech from Jesse Bethel; but 
 a line of officers came round the corner at that moment 
 and began to clear the sidewalk. 
 
 "Won't you come home with me, Jesse, and rest?" his 
 mother pleaded. " You must be very tired. Did you sleep 
 at all?" < 
 
 He smiled at her reassuringly, but did not answer the 
 question. 
 
 " Come to our house, instead," cried Martha Lane. 
 " You can rest there, and the mother can rest, too." 
 
 Mary Magnus made no suggestion, but only waited, with 
 her eyes on Jesse's face. Why was he so pale? More than 
 once she had known him to pass a night without sleep, and 
 seem no different on the morrow. The haunting dread, 
 which she had scarcely felt while in the courtroom, was 
 gathering round her again. Oh, that she dared to persuade 
 him to go away now, far, far away! Though the day was 
 warm, she shivered as in winter, and her teeth were chat- 
 tering. Why was he still standing here in the street? 
 
 " Come, Jesse," said the mother, appealingly. " You 
 must rest for a few hours." 
 
 At that moment a group of officers approached them, and 
 one laid his hand on Jesse's arm, telling him that he was 
 under arrest. 
 
 "Again?" shouted Peter Bond. "What trumped-up 
 charge have you against him now ? " 
 
 " If you're not quiet, I'll arrest you, too," said the of- 
 ficer. "Clear out!" 
 
 "Arrest me! I wish you would. That's what I want," 
 cried the now thoroughly angry man. 
 
 The officer laughed in his face. " If I remember rightly," 
 he said, " you weren't so dead sure last night that he was a 
 friend of yours."
 
 537 
 
 ^ A flush of shame overspread Peter's face, and he dropped 
 his eyes. 
 
 "We don't want anything of you," the officer added. 
 Then, turning to Jesse, he said: 
 
 " Come on, now! " 
 
 _The two re-entered the grim building, leaving Jesse's 
 friends standing on the sidewalk, bewildered and despair- 
 ing. 
 
 "What shall we do? Oh! what shall we do?" cried 
 John, whose nerves were stretched to the breaking point. 
 
 The mother was now crying bitterly on the breast of 
 Mary Magnus, who had no words of comfort ready for this 
 unexpected need. For the moment she was no less confused 
 than the others. What could it all mean? She turned to 
 the quiet Andrew for the strength she needed; but he was 
 engaged in comforting Anna Martin, who was weeping on 
 his arm. Peter was beside her; but from the look on his 
 face she realised that he was going through some harrow- 
 ing mental struggle. What words could have passed be- 
 tween him and that officer last night, that a mere allusion 
 to them should cover him with shame? The only one 
 among them who seemed to have any presence of mind was 
 Martha Lane; she was the only one who had slept un- 
 brokenly for the last seven nights. She now said to James 
 Dana: 
 
 " Come with me to the desk of the police station. We 
 will try to learn when Jesse will appear again before the 
 magistrate." Then to the others: "Wait here till we 
 come back." 
 
 "Shall we not get a lawyer for the Master?" Philip 
 Manning asked. " Surely it is our duty." 
 
 Mary answered for the others: 
 
 " Can any lawyer speak as Jesse speaks ? " 
 
 " He would not wish us to do anything like that," John 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, my son, my son ! " sobbed Mary Bethel. " God, 
 our Father, do not forsake my son ! "
 
 CHAPTER LXXXV; 
 
 JESSE stood a second time before Magistrate Palmer, 
 charged with inciting to riot. And there were witnesses 
 who swore that when he stood on the steps of the fountain, 
 in plain view of the people, he had raised his arms dramat- 
 ically, as if appealing to them for a demonstration; that 
 he had sent his followers through the crowd to urge the 
 people to revolt against the orders of the police that there 
 should be no speaking; that the word "revolution" was 
 heard on every side that afternoon. The powers which 
 stood behind this effort to incriminate Jesse Bethel did not 
 appear in the police court, for fear their dignity might be 
 defiled. In a republic, where all men are equal, dignity is 
 a delicate fabric and easily soiled; but there is plenty of 
 rough serge and homespun to be bought cheap and used 
 for common purposes. 
 
 Peter and John, with their brothers, who watched 
 and listened in the courtroom, heard false testimony to the 
 effect that they, as Jesse's representatives, had told men in 
 the crowd at Union Square that they were expected to 
 shout when Jesse should give the signal. They also heard 
 that Jesse had declared that he would start a revolution 
 which no power could stay; that he .was sent by God to 
 destroy the government, and to establish a new order with 
 himself as ruler. 
 
 The magistrate listened to all this testimony with a 
 clouded brow. When the last witness had been questioned, 
 he sat looking at Jesse for some moments. Finally he asked 
 him, quite irrelevantly: 
 
 "Have I not seen you somewhere, before to-day?" 
 
 " It may be," was the answer; " you may have seen me 
 a long time ago. The memory of man is brief, and the ex- 
 perience of the soul is long." 
 
 " What have you to say in answer to the testimony of 
 these men?" 
 
 " To false testimony there is always but one answer." 
 
 538
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 539 
 
 " Can you prove that their statements are false?" 
 " I cannot prove, by witnesses, that I have never told you 
 what I hold to be the truth; and yet you know that I have 
 never told you what I hold to be the truth." 
 
 The magistrate fingered his watch-chain; he turned over 
 and over a bundle of papers which lay before him; but his 
 blue, penetrating eyes never shifted from Jesse's face. 
 " Are you hoping to revolutionise the world ? " 
 " I hope to change the heart of the world." 
 " Do you believe in government ? " 
 " I believe that the soul should govern the man." 
 " Do you claim to be have you ever stated that you were 
 God himself?" 
 
 " I have said that God is in .all men." 
 " Have you ever told any man to disobey the law? " 
 " I have told all who would listen that every atom of the 
 universe moves in obedience to the Great Law." 
 
 " Why did you go to Union Square yesterday afternoon, 
 when you had been forbidden by the police to speak there? 
 Remember that you are under oath." 
 
 " I am always under oath to testify to the truth, though 
 there are few who understand it. I went to Union Square 
 because I knew that my bodily presence, though my lips 
 were silent, would remind all who saw me of the Spirit in 
 themselves." 
 
 Among those who listened to this colloquy between a pris- 
 oner and his judge, there were only three who knew the 
 struggle that was going on between the brain and the soul 
 of that judge, and two of these three were practical poli- 
 ticians, so-called. The other was young Daniel Needham, 
 the fabric of whose dignity had been strengthened by a 
 triumphant faith. He had figured carefully beforehand how 
 far the brain of the man on the bench might compromise 
 with his soul, and he was prepared for any emergency which 
 he foresaw. But his vision being slightly clouded by his 
 own integrity, he did not see beyond the next half-hour. 
 
 The magistrate did not seem to be weighing the evidence; 
 he seemed to be weighing Jesse. There were reasons why 
 it would not be expedient for him simply to discharge this 
 prisoner for the second time; but he was bound, if he could 
 not save him altogether, to shift the responsibility from his
 
 540 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 own burdened conscience. The form of questioning which 
 he adopted, so unusual in a police court, made Daniel Need- 
 ham wonder if he were not merely playing for more time 
 in which to settle with himself the terms of his soul's com- 
 promise. 
 
 " What is the purpose of all your talk about a spiritual 
 revolution ? " he asked. 
 
 " I seek to incite a spiritual revolution." 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " I seek to excite the Spirit, which slumbers in every 
 man, to a degree of aspiration that shall transform his life, 
 his thoughts, his purposes, his heart." 
 
 " But the word ' revolution ' is dangerous." 
 
 "The Spirit of God is dangerous to those whose ways 
 and purposes are evil." 
 
 " What are you trying to prove by your preaching ? " 
 
 "I am trying to prove by my life that a man may live 
 the faith he preaches; that a formula, if true, may be dem- 
 onstrated; that the ideal and the practical are one and in- 
 dissoluble. I am a miner who does not fear to test his gold 
 with acid; I am a mower who sharpens his scythe on the 
 grindstone of experience." 
 
 "And do you, then, fear nothing? " 
 
 "Fear is the only thing that man need fear." 
 
 Then Magistrate Palmer, having settled with himself 
 the terms of compromise, told Jesse that he should be 
 obliged to place him under bonds to keep the peace. 
 
 At that moment Mary Bethel, who was half-blinded by 
 despair, felt the pressure of a hand upon her arm; and 
 looking up, through the mist of her tears, she saw the 
 strong face of young Daniel Needham bending over her 
 with filial tenderness. 
 
 " Have no anxiety," he said. " I will arrange this 
 matter of the bond, and your son will be free in a few 
 minutes."
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVI 
 
 WHEN Jesse was again in the open street, free, under 
 bonds to keep the peace, he stood still for a minute or two, 
 looking up at the sunlit sky. The Law, in the person of 
 the magistrate, had compromised so far with Persecution, 
 which had not appeared in person, but through representa- 
 tives. The beauty of the day, the glory of freedom, came 
 to him now as new and real experiences, thrust forward in 
 his consciousness by contrast with their opposites. He had 
 not realised that he suffered in the prison, save from mere 
 bodily fatigue; for he had reached and passed the climax 
 of personal suffering the night before, in that dark hour 
 under the indifferent stars, when his spirit had wrestled 
 with despair and conquered it. But freedom and sunlight 
 were good, and he enjoyed them. His friends, respecting 
 his desire for silence, waited a few moments before ap- 
 proaching him. 
 
 The crowd which had attended his first trial had become 
 weary of waiting for his second appearance, and as the hours 
 wore on the people had gradually drifted away. Even the 
 early afternoon papers only casually mentioned the fact that 
 he had been discharged and re-arrested, whereas the morn- 
 ing issues had been full of him. One might have said that 
 the city was taking breath, in preparation for another and 
 even more pronounced sensation. 
 
 As Jesse stood with bared head, looking up at the sunlit 
 sky, two rather rough-looking men a short distance from 
 him were talking together, keeping all the time an eye on 
 Jesse and on a group of men who lounged in apparent idle- 
 ness around the steps of a building across the way. 
 
 "Queer job, this! Wonder what it all means," observed 
 the smaller and shabbier of the two. 
 
 "Oh, it's Bill's job, and he always knows what he's 
 about," replied the other. 
 
 " But I don't even know what I'm s'posed to do." 
 
 54i
 
 542 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 "You don't need to know nothin'. All we've got to do 
 is to follow Bill, till he gives orders." 
 
 " It's an easy job too blamed easy fer my taste." 
 
 " Oh, don't growl yet awhile ! You ain't done with it 
 yet." 
 
 " Seems to me we hain't begun, though we've been 
 standin' round here fer hours." 
 
 "Waitin' is sometimes doin', so Bill says." 
 
 " Well, I prefer strike-breakin' ; leastways, there's some 
 excitement, and a feller knows just what he's up against." 
 
 "What's the difference, so long as you get the money? " 
 
 "Wonder why they want to worry the man. . . . 
 Look at 'im! Mike says he's a preacher. Say, who's 
 behind this job, anyway?" 
 
 " Ask Bill." 
 
 " Bill ? He never tells nothin'. Even that time they 
 jailed him in Chicago, he never opened his mouth." 
 
 This conversation was overheard by John Dana, who told 
 his brother in a whisper the substance of it. They looked 
 at each other in dismay. Only four of the men, with Law- 
 rence Lane and the women, were near Jesse at this hour. 
 The others, overpowered by weariness during the long 
 hours of waiting for the second trial, had stolen away to 
 snatch a little rest, and had not yet returned. Daniel 
 Needham, also, when his brief but important duty was per- 
 formed, had gone back to the duties of his daily life. 
 
 " We must get the Master away," John said to Peter, 
 under his breath. " He is in danger." 
 
 " I don't understand him to-day," was Peter's answer. 
 " He seems to be in a kind of haze." 
 
 " I think we're all in a haze, from lack of sleep," said 
 Andrew. 
 
 " That is true of us," John replied ; " but it's something 
 more than the lack of sleep that troubles him. His soul 
 seems far away, as if it had left the earth." 
 
 " Yet he was never more vividly himself than when he 
 answered the questions of the magistrate a little while ago." 
 
 John now approached Jesse and laid a hand upon his 
 arm, saying: 
 
 "There is nothing more that we can do here, Master: 
 let us go."
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 543 
 
 As they started to cross the street, the rough-looking men 
 who had been lounging around the steps of the building op- 
 posite suddenly moved forward, and the two groups met 
 at the corner. In telling the story afterward, John said 
 that the one who ran violently against Jesse was of a 
 swarthy complexion; but Peter was sure that he was blue- 
 ej T ed and fair. 
 
 "Look where you're going!" shouted Andrew, as he 
 tried to throw himself between Jesse and the men; but he 
 was carried off his feet by a rush of other men from be- 
 hind. 
 
 There was a sudden roar of voices and immediately peo- 
 ple began running toward the spot from all directions. 
 The women ran up the steps of a building, and huddled to- 
 gether in fright. Though there seemed to be a score of men 
 pushing and tossing around Jesse, they could not see that 
 any blows were exchanged. In the centre of the uproar 
 stood the Master, tall and calm, with the sunlight glinting 
 on the gold of his uncovered head. 
 
 "Oh, my son! my son!" wailed the mother, wringing 
 her helpless hands. 
 
 In the bellowing of voices words could be now and 
 then distinguished, insulting words directed to the one 
 who stood there so calm and beautiful in the centre of the 
 tumult; but though the bellowing was in many voices, the 
 words were not. 
 
 "How can he stand so quietly?" one of the women 
 cried. 
 
 " Because they are not touching him," said Mary Mag- 
 nus. 
 
 At that moment, as if her words had been a challenge, 
 they saw an ugly ruffian strike Jesse in the face. 
 
 " My God 1 " wailed the mother. " Save him, Oh, my 
 God!" 
 
 Down the whiteness of Jesse's face there ran a line of 
 scarlet. On the hand which had dealt him the blow there 
 had been a jagged ring. At the sight of his blood, the 
 women gripped each other; their lips moved, but no sound 
 came. Again they heard insulting words to Jesse above the 
 babel of voices. 
 
 But the passers-by, who had gathered at the sound of
 
 544 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 the tumult, were now pressing forward, pushing to right 
 and left the rowdies who had manufactured the affray; and 
 cries of " Shame! " " Police! " and " Give him fair play! " 
 were mingled with the coarser words of the rioters. 
 
 "The police are coming!" someone cried, and other 
 voices took up the cry, " The police, the police ! " Several 
 officers were making their way through the crowd. 
 
 At that moment Jesse was seen to raise his hands above 
 his head, as if to quiet the people, and his lips moved. 
 
 " He wants to speak! " . . . "Be still, and let him 
 speak!" . . . "He's going to speak!" shouted those 
 who had joined the crowd from the outside. 
 
 A burly teamster, who had witnessed the cowardly blow, 
 now thrust himself forward, and pointing to the ruffian, 
 said to Jesse, in tones of rage and sympathy: 
 
 " I saw him strike you ! Have the law on him, sir ! It's 
 right that you should have the law on him ! " 
 
 Above the noise, which had subsided a little at the of- 
 ficers' approach, Jesse's voice rose clear and strong: 
 
 " I know no law above the law of love. In each of you 
 is the all-powerful and immortal Spirit. Awake, and It 
 will revolutionise " 
 
 " Hi, there ! No talk about revolution," shouted a po- 
 liceman, as he made his way toward Jesse, with club up- 
 lifted. 
 
 " Awake," Jesse's thrilling voice went on, " awake, and 
 the Spirit will revolutionise your lives with the glory of 
 Its presence. Its love " 
 
 The night-stick of the officer descended on the speaker's 
 head, and the appeal his last appeal to the groping souls 
 he loved was never finished. The women who watched 
 saw only a gap in the crowd where his Spirit-lighted face 
 had been. He had gone down, like a soldier in battle, his 
 last words a ringing call, his last thought for the 
 cause to which he had given every breath of his dedicated 
 life. 
 
 A sudden stillness held the people; for several heart- 
 beats no one moved nor spoke. The officer who had dealt 
 the blow stood like a figure of stone, staring down at the 
 motionless form on the ground. Why was it so still? 
 Could it be ... Then a heart-breaking cry, which
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 545 
 
 those who heard it never could forget, penetrated the still- 
 ness : 
 
 "Oh, my son, my son! They have killed my son!" 
 And Mary Bethel, staggering through the crowd that drew 
 back to make a way for her, fell forward across the body 
 of him who had been her babe, her hope, her glory, her 
 despair. 
 
 Master, it is finished. Crowned with the thorny wreath 
 of death, you lie in the dust of the earth you dreamed to 
 save. Upon the cross of human life you have suffered, nor 
 have you drunk the vinegar and gall, the self-deception and 
 the bitterness, that cloud the consciousness of baser souls. 
 Lifted up, by the Spirit that inspires you, to a height where 
 every passer-by may see, you shall draw all men unto you 
 by the beauty of your soul. As you passed from the outer 
 to the inner life, the world seemed dark because you were 
 leaving it; the veil of the temple of a dead and formal re- 
 ligion was rent from the top to the bottom, and the earth 
 shook in the birth-throes of a new and living faith. For 
 what heart can fail to be touched by a love like yours? 
 a love that understands all things, that forgives all things, 
 knowing that when men cause suffering to one another and 
 to you, they know not what they do.
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVII 
 
 FROM THE JOURNAL OF MARY MAGNUS 
 
 The Presence! I have seen the Presence, the promised 
 Comforter, the living Master after three days of darkness 
 and despair. With all my faith, I only half believed that 
 I should see Him, only half grasped the promise; nor did 
 I dream that it would be like this so real, so visible 
 that He would come to me. 
 
 I have spoken of the inner vision, but knew not what it 
 meant until this day. I used the words as others use 
 them; they were to me a phrase, a figure of speech; I did 
 not know that they were literally definitive of a new and 
 undreamed of faculty of the soul. 
 
 I write down calmly, simply, as a witness testifies, the 
 wonder that I saw; though my pulses quiver and my spirit 
 is on fire. Will any understand? 
 
 It was this morning, before dawn. All night I had not 
 slept. Until a late hour I had remained with the mother, 
 who would not let me go; but made me repeat to her over 
 and over the talk I had with Jesse in Peter's garden, when 
 He first told me that He would die, but that I should see 
 Him again. Even then I did not understand. And yes- 
 terday, when I repeated Jesse's words to Daniel Needham, 
 he thought them figurative^ " We see the dead," he said 
 to me, " even as we see the scenes of our childhood, with 
 the eye of memory alone." 
 
 As I have written, it was this morning, before dawn. I 
 had risen from my bed and sat in a large chair by the open 
 window; though the air was rather cold, I did not seem 
 to feel it. It was the time of deepest darkness, before the 
 grey begins. I had closed my eyes, which were burning 
 with tears and sleeplessness; yet I seemed to be looking out, 
 out into the void that His death had made of all the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Suddenly, vividly, against the blackness of my inner eye- 
 
 546
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 547 
 
 lids, I saw His face. ... I saw it clearly as I see my 
 hand, now when I hold it up before my eyes, only the vision 
 of His face was far more vivid than my normal sight, the 
 colours were intenser, the light was clearer than the light 
 of earth, and seemed to shine down upon Him from above, 
 making the whiteness of His high forehead startlingly ap- 
 parent. At first the eyes were downcast, the face was in 
 repose; though it was not the repose of death but of calm 
 life at rest, and the colour of His face was as I have al- 
 ways seen it revealed in a light brighter than that of the 
 sun and more transparent. 
 
 Then He raised His eyes and looked at me. . . . 
 
 How can I tell this story with the calmness of a witness 
 giving testimony I who have seen the living Master! 
 How can I make those understand to whom the inner vision 
 is only synonymous with imagination ? 
 
 He raised His eyes and looked at me. It was the Mas- 
 ter, the real Master, consciously present there in that inner 
 world of which the seers have told us. No, I was not 
 dreaming. To verify my certainty of that, I passed my 
 hand along the arm of the chair to a place where the fringe 
 was ripped away, and felt the well-known rent with my 
 fingers. Never was I more vividly awake. 
 
 The vision still remained, and a faint smile further il- 
 lumined the illumined face. He was at peace, then, and 
 happy! In a sudden rush of joy I breathed His name, and 
 He responded with a brighter smile. 
 
 Then, by what means I know not but let no one dare 
 deny the truth of what I say I caught these words, which 
 seemed to come from a great distance: 
 
 " I am with you always, and with all men and women 
 who believe; and I shall here remain until the universe of 
 souls can enter with me into rest." 
 
 That was all. The face was gone, and I peered for it 
 in vain through the darkness behind my eyelids. The 
 voice was gone, too; only the rumble of an elevated-train 
 disturbed the stillness of the night. 
 
 It is noon-time as I write, and I have told them all 
 what I have seen; but do they understand? As He said 
 to us one day, " Can you describe the rainbow to a man
 
 548 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 
 born blind ? " They know I would not speak what I do 
 not believe; but do they think me self-deceived? A child 
 would say that I had dreamed a beautiful dream; a learned 
 psychologist would say that I had been the victim of a 
 strange hallucination. But I am wiser than the learned 
 psychologist, and simpler than the child. And I shall see 
 Him again of that I am quite sure. 
 
 He has said that He will be always with all men and 
 women who believe. The eleven men believe, and many 
 of the women. Will they not also see Him? To the 
 mother He will surely come, and I have hope that He will 
 come to all. Even the new believers, and those who in 
 the future, shall open their souls to the indwelling Spirit, 
 may see Him, if their faith is strong enough; for the Mas- 
 ter is not dead, and He has promised to remain in the in- 
 ner region of ethereal forms until all men can enter with 
 Him into rest. Oh, sublime sacrifice ! 
 
 He who has earned the right to merge His consciousness 
 in the universal consciousness of the One Spirit, to be at 
 one with the Father, the selfless Self, has sacrificed that 
 right that He may dwell for ever with the souls of men! 
 He will suffer with us for our sins, will patiently endure 
 the long effect of every cause which mankind in ignorance 
 or folly shall launch upon the shoreless sea of action. He 
 will wait for us, postponing His own bliss until all hu- 
 manity shall, by countless lives and ages of experience, be- 
 come as pure as He. But will they can they become pure ? 
 Hopeless the waiting seems, yet He will wait for them. 
 What mind can grasp such love as this? To help men to 
 aspire, to make the long and heartsick journey easier for 
 them, His soul will wait for theirs. 
 
 Whoever hates another; whoever fails in charity and 
 love; whoever speaks evil of another which He has said 
 is just as bad as doing evil to them; whoever turns his 
 back upon the spirit to revel in the coarser pleasures of 
 matter, retards His rest. For He will wait for man. 
 
 Where will He wait? In the inner region of ethereal 
 forms, He has declared; and I, who saw Him in that re- 
 gion, can vouch for its existence on the universal map. In 
 the darkness behind my eyelids I beheld Him; then must
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 549 
 
 that inner region co-exist with the universe of matter, inter- 
 penetrating it, as another dimension of space. 
 
 Bewildering thought! Yet He has said that the Spirit is 
 within us, so must the Spirit dwell in that ethereal region. 
 Will He become the link between the Spirit and the world 
 of material beings? Was it for that He sacrificed all thought 
 of happiness for self? How clear become the mysteries of 
 faith when seen in this new light! How real becomes the 
 dream of the indwelling Friend! No loneliness can ever 
 sadden one who has found Him; no grief can be too heavy 
 to endure, when He endures it with us. 
 
 And yet the question rises: how can even He be con- 
 sciously present with all men at the same time? Can He 
 be personally conscious of us all? But wait a moment be- 
 fore answering. ... If He dwells in another dimen- 
 sion of space, may there not also be another dimension of 
 time? The mind will reason, even though the heart be 
 satisfied, and in such reasoning there is no wrong. It may 
 be that to the very ones who are most learned the assur- 
 ances of simple faith will seem most reasonable. 
 
 I close my eyes, for I am still a little weary from long 
 watching. Behind my eyelids there is darkness, even in the 
 day ; though nevermore will the darkness seem a void to me. 
 To-morrow I will write to my faithful old servant, who 
 also loved Him, and tell her 
 
 Oh, again He is here! The Master! . . . Shall I 
 see His face whenever I am moved to do a loving act? He 
 smiles, and the vision fades. But in my soul there is the 
 strength of many a sudden rush of power, a lightness, a 
 determination to make my life an instrument for the service 
 of the world. 
 
 Master, anoint my lips and guide my hand, that I may 
 reveal you, as a living reality, unto all men. 
 
 THE END
 

 
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