A Little Journey in the World. Charles Dudley Warner

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      The girl was hurried into the carriage, and the group quickly dispersed. “Well, I'll be—” The tender-hearted little wife of the rough man in the crowd who began that sentence did not permit him to finish it. “That'll be a case for a doctor right away,” remarked a well-known practitioner who had been looking on.

      Margaret and Mr. Lyon walked home in silence. “I can't talk about it,” she said. “It's such a pitiful world.”

IV

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In the evening, at our house, Margaret described the scene in the park.

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      “It's dreadful,” was the comment of Miss Forsythe. “The authorities ought not to permit such a thing.”

      “It seemed to me as heroic as pitiful, aunt. I fear I should be incapable of making such a testimony.”

      “But it was so unnecessary.”

      “How do we know what is necessary to any poor soul? What impressed me most strongly was that there is in the world still this longing to suffer physically and endure public scorn for a belief.”

      “It may have been a disappointment to the little band,” said Mr. Morgan, “that there was no demonstration from the spectators, that there was no loud jeering, that no snowballs were thrown by the boys.”

      “They could hardly expect that,” said I; “the world has become so tolerant that it doesn't care.”

      “I rather think,” Margaret replied, “that the spectators for a moment came under the spell of the hour, and were awed by something supernatural in the endurance of that frail girl.”

      “No doubt,” said my wife, after a little pause. “I believe that there is as much sense of mystery in the world as ever, and as much of what we call faith, only it shows itself eccentrically. Breaking away from traditions and not going to church have not destroyed the need in the minds of the mass of people for something outside themselves.”

      “Did I tell you,” interposed Morgan—“it is almost in the line of your thought—of a girl I met the other day on the train? I happened to be her seat-mate in the car-thin face, slight little figure—a commonplace girl, whom I took at first to be not more than twenty, but from the lines about her large eyes she was probably nearer forty. She had in her lap a book, which she conned from time to time, and seemed to be committing verses to memory as she looked out the window. At last I ventured to ask what literature it was that interested her so much, when she turned and frankly entered into conversation. It was a little Advent song-book. She liked to read it on the train, and hum over the tunes. Yes, she was a good deal on the cars; early every morning she rode thirty miles to her work, and thirty miles back every evening. Her work was that of clerk and copyist in a freight office, and she earned nine dollars a week, on which she supported herself and her mother. It was hard work, but she did not mind it much. Her mother was quite feeble. She was an Adventist. 'And you?' I asked. 'Oh, yes; I am. I've been an Adventist twenty years, and I've been perfectly happy ever since I joined—perfectly,' she added, turning her plain face, now radiant, towards me. 'Are you one?' she asked, presently. 'Not an immediate Adventist,' I was obliged to confess. 'I thought you might be, there are so many now, more and more.' I learned that in our little city there were two Advent societies; there had been a split on account of some difference in the meaning of original sin. 'And you are not discouraged by the repeated failure of the predictions of the end of the world?' I asked. 'No. Why should we be? We don't fix any certain day now, but all the signs show that it is very near. We are all free to think as we like. Most of our members now think it will be next year.'—'I hope not!' I exclaimed. 'Why?' she asked, turning to me with a look of surprise. 'Are you afraid?' I evaded by saying that I supposed the good had nothing to fear. 'Then you must be an Adventist, you have so much sympathy.'—'I shouldn't like to have the world come to an end next year, because there are so many interesting problems, and I want to see how they will be worked out.'—'How can you want to put it off'—and there was for the first time a little note of fanaticism in her voice—'when there is so much poverty and hard work? It is such a hard world, and so much suffering and sin. And it could all be ended in a moment. How can you want it to go on?' The train approached the station, and she rose to say good-by. 'You will see the truth some day,' she said, and went away as cheerful as if the world was actually destroyed. She was the happiest woman I have seen in a long time.”

      “Yes,” I said, “it is an age of both faith and credulity.”

      “And nothing marks it more,” Morgan added, “than the popular expectation among the scientific and the ignorant of something to come out of the dimly understood relation of body and mind. It is like the expectation of the possibilities of electricity.”

      “I was going on to say,” I continued, “that wherever I walk in the city of a Sunday afternoon, I am struck with the number of little meetings going on, of the faithful and the unfaithful, Adventists, socialists, spiritualists, culturists, Sons and Daughters of Edom; from all the open windows of the tall buildings come notes of praying, of exhortation, the melancholy wail of the inspiring Sankey tunes, total abstinence melodies, over-the-river melodies, songs of entreaty, and songs of praise. There is so much going on outside of the regular churches!”

      “But the churches are well attended,” suggested my wife.

      “Yes, fairly, at least once a day, and if there is sensational preaching, twice. But there is nothing that will so pack the biggest hall in the city as the announcement of inspirational preaching by some young woman who speaks at random on a text given her when she steps upon the platform. There is something in her rhapsody, even when it is incoherent, that appeals to a prevailing spirit.”'

      “How much of it is curiosity?” Morgan asked. “Isn't the hall just as jammed when the clever attorney of Nothingism, Ham Saversoul, jokes about the mysteries of this life and the next?”

      “Very likely. People like the emotional and the amusing. All the same, they are credulous, and entertain doubt and belief on the slightest evidence.”

      “Isn't it natural,” spoke up Mr. Lyon, who had hitherto been silent, “that you should СКАЧАТЬ