In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference. Johnston Annie Fellows

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СКАЧАТЬ of. But he put aside every objection, and overruled every argument I could make. I did not want to come at all, but he planned his campaign like a general, and I had to surrender."

      "Tell me how he managed," said Mrs. Marion. "You know I did not get home from Chicago until yesterday morning, and I have been too busy getting ready to come on this excursion to ask him anything."

      "When he had urged all the reasons he could think of for my going, but without success, he attacked me in my only vulnerable spot, little Jack. The child has considered Cousin Frank's word law and gospel ever since he joined the Junior League. So, when he was told that my health would be benefited by the trip, and it would arouse me from the despondent, low-spirited state I had fallen into, he gave me no rest until I promised to go. Jack showed generalship, too. He waited until the night of his birthday. I had promised him a little party, but he was so much worse that day, it had to be postponed. I was so sorry for him that I could have promised him almost anything. The little rascal knew it, too. While I was helping him undress, he put his arms around my neck, and began to beg me to go. He told me that he had been praying that I might change my mind. Ever since he has been in the League he has seemed to get so much comfort out of the belief that his prayers are always answered that I couldn't bear to shake his faith. So I promised him."

      "The dear little John Wesley," said Mrs. Marion; "you ought to give him the full benefit of his name, Bethany."

      "Mamma did intend to, but papa said it was as much too big for him as the huge old-fashioned silver watch that Grandfather Bradford left him. He suggested that both be laid away until he grew up to fit them."

      "Who is taking care of him in your absence?" was the next question.

      "O, he and Cousin Frank arranged that, too. They sent for his old nurse. She came last night with her little nine-year-old grandson. Just Jack's age, you see; so he will have somebody to make the time pass very quickly."

      Mrs. Marion stopped her with an exclamation of surprise. "Well, I wish you'd look at Frank! What will he do next? He is actually pinning an Epworth League badge on that young Jew!"

      Bethany turned her head a little to look. "What a fine face he has!" she remarked. "It is almost handsome. He must feel very much out of place among such an aggressive set of Christians. I wonder what he thinks of all these songs?"

      Mr. Marion came back smiling. As superintendent of both Sunday-school and Junior League, he had won the love of every one connected with them. His passage through the car, as he distributed the badges, was attended by many laughing remarks and warm handclasps.

      There was a happy twinkle in his eyes when he stopped beside his wife's seat. She smiled up at him as he towered above her, and motioned him to take the seat in front of them.

      "I'm not going to stay," he said. "I want to bring a young man up here, and introduce him to you. He's having a pretty lonesome time, I'm afraid."

      "It must be that Jew," remarked Mrs. Marion. "I know every one else on the car. I don't see that we are called on to entertain him, Frank. He came with us, simply to take advantage of the excursion rates. I should think he would prefer to be let alone. He must have thought it presumptuous in you to pin that badge on him. What did he say when you did it?"

      Mr. Marion bent down to make himself heard above the noise of the train.

      "I showed him our motto, 'Look up, lift up,' and told him if there was any people in the world who ought to be able to wear such a motto worthily, it was the nation whose Moses had climbed Sinai, and whose tables of stone lifted up the highest standard of morality known to the race of Adam."

      Mrs. Marion laughed. "You would make a fine politician," she exclaimed. "You always know just the right chord to touch."

      "Cousin Frank," asked Bethany, "how does it happen you have taken such an intense interest in him?"

      He dropped into the seat facing theirs, and leaned forward.

      "Well, to begin with, he's a fine fellow. I have had several talks with him, and have been wonderfully impressed with his high ideals and views of life. But I am free to confess, had I met him ten years ago, I could not have seen any good traits in him at all. I was blinded by a prejudice that I am unable to account for. It must have been hereditary, for it has existed since my earliest recollection, and entirely without reason, as far as I can see. I somehow felt that I was justified in hating the Jews. I had unconsciously acquired the opinion that they were wholly devoid of the finer sensibilities, that they were gross in their manner of living, and petty and mean in business transactions. I took Fagin and Shylock as fair specimens of the whole race. It was, really, a most unaccountable hatred I had for them. My teeth would actually clinch if I had to sit next to one on a street-car. You may think it strange, but I was not alone in the feeling. I know it to be a fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of Church members to-day that have the same inexplicable antipathy."

      Bethany looked up quickly.

      "My father's reading and training," she said, "has caused me to have a great admiration and respect for Jews in the abstract. I mean such as the Old Testament heroes and the Maccabees of a later date. But in the concrete, I must say I like to have as little intercourse with them as possible. And as to modern Israelites, all I know of them personally is the almost cringing obsequiousness of a few wealthy merchants with whom I have dealt, and the dirty swarm of repulsive creatures that infest the tenement districts. We used to take a short cut through those streets sometimes in driving to the market. Ugh! It was dreadful!" She gave a little shiver of repugnance at the recollection.

      "Yes, I know," he answered. "I had that same feeling the greater part of my life. But ten years ago I spent a summer at Chautauqua, studying the four Gospels. It opened my eyes, Bethany. I got a clearer view of the Christ than I ever had before. I saw how I had been misrepresenting him to the world. The inconsistencies of my life seemed like the lanterns the pirates used to hang on the dangerous cliffs along the coast, that vessels might be wrecked by their misleading light. Do you suppose a Jew could have accepted such a Christ as I represented then? No wonder they fail to recognize their Messiah in the distorted image that is reflected in the lives of his followers."

      "But they rejected Christ himself when he was among them," ventured Bethany.

      "Yes," answered Mr. Marion, "it was like the old story of the man with a muck rake. Do you remember that picture that was shown to Christian at the interpreter's house in 'Pilgrim's Progress?' As a nation, Israel had stooped so much to the gathering of dry traditions, had bent so long over the minute letter of the law, that it could not straighten itself to take the crown held out to it. It could not even lift its eyes to discern that there was a crown just over its head."

      "It always made me think of the blind Samson," said Mrs. Marion. "In trying to overthrow something it could not see, spiritually I mean, it pulled down the pillars of prophecy on its own head."

      Mr. Marion turned to Bethany again.

      "Yes, Israel, as a nation, rejected Christ; but who was it that wrote those wonderful chronicles of the Nazarene? Who was it that went out ablaze with the power of Pentecost to spread the deathless story of the resurrection? Who were the apostles that founded our Church? To whom do we owe our knowledge of God and our hope of redemption, if not to the Jews? We forget, sometimes, that the Savior himself belonged to that race we so reproach."

      He was talking so earnestly, he had forgotten his surroundings, until a light touch on his shoulder interrupted him.

      "What's the occasion of all this eloquence, Brother Marion?" asked the minister's genial voice.

      He turned quickly to smile into the frank, smooth-shaven face bending over him.

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