Saved as by Fire! CHAPTER 14.
Back to Saved as by Fire!
On the following day I went to see Granger at the Reformatory Home. I found him in a clean, well-furnished and cheerful room. He was in bed, looking very pale; but his eyes were clear and bright, and he welcomed me with a smile that played softly over his wasted features, and gave them a touch of their old fine quality. A book lay open on the bed. I saw that it was a copy of the New Testament. His manner was very subdued, and he did not speak until after I was seated; and then not until I had asked how he was feeling. His answer almost gave me a startle, it was so unexpected. He spoke in a low but even voice.
"As if I were standing just inside the gate of Heaven."
I waited for a few moments before replying, for I scarcely knew what to say; then remarked: "I am glad you feel so comfortable. This is better than the police station or the prison."
The light went out of his face, but came back quickly.
"But for you, my kind friend, I would now be dying in the cell from which you and good Mr. Stannard brought me yesterday. It was God who sent you; and it seems as if I shall never be done thanking Him. My poor heart broke all down when Mr. Stannard prayed for me. It seemed as if God were all at once bending right over me, and when I cried out to Him in my helplessness, I had a feeling as if His arms were reached out and I taken into them. And I believe it was so."
"May they ever be round about you," I replied, scarcely able to keep my voice steady, for I was not prepared for this, and it affected me strangely.
"Nothing less can save me from the assaults of my enemy," he said, his countenance growing more serious.
I remained with him for half an hour, and when I left, my confidence in this new effort at reformation was greatly increased. An incident of the visit gave me large encouragement. As I sat talking with him, there came a rap on the door, and then a lady, in company with the matron of the institution, entered. I knew her well by sight. She was related to a family of high social standing; and while a woman of refinement and intelligence, and an ornament to the circle in which she moved, was largely given to good works. Her hand as well as her heart were in many charities. She had often met Mr. Granger and his wife in their better days, and was among those who had been deeply pained at his downfall. A member of the Auxiliary Board of Lady Managers, she had learned on her visit to the Home, that Mr. Granger was there, and all her interest was at once awakened. To save him and restore him to his family and society, was something to be hoped for, and prayed for, and worked for; and she lost no time in seeing him, and letting him feel the warmth of her interest in his welfare.
I was talking with Granger, as just said, when Mrs. Ellis entered his neat little chamber. He knew her, of course, and I saw a slight tinge of color steal over his pale face as she came to the bedside.
"I am right glad to see you here, Mr. Granger," she said, with an interest so genuine that it affected me.
"And I am glad to be here, Mrs. Ellis," he replied, in a voice subdued but earnest. "It is like coming out of Hell into Heaven."
"May it indeed be as the gate of Heaven to your soul," she responded. "If that is so, all will be well with you again. And I pray for you that it may be so. Only look to the blessed Savior and trust in Him, and you shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed."
She remained only for a few minutes, but said as she was going out: "You are now among true friends, Mr. Granger, and they will do everything in their power to help you. Take heart; it is all going to come out right again."
He was much affected by this brief visit, and after Mrs. Ellis had left the room said, in a half-wondering tone of voice: "I can hardly understand it all. What is she doing here?"
I explained to him that she was one of the Lady Managers of the Institution, through whose constant care and supervision the highest comfort of the inhabitants was secured. That the presence of these ladies in the Home, as visitors and supervisors, enabled them to gain an influence with the inhabitants which was very helpful. They made themselves acquainted, as far as possible, with the nature of their domestic relations, if they had families, and if their families were in destitute circumstances, visited them and did whatever lay in their power to help them. Many desolate homes had already been made bright and happy through their agency.
Granger listened with half-closed lids while I spoke of all this. A deep sigh was his only response when I ceased speaking. His thoughts had evidently drifted out of the room in which he was lying, and gone far away from the Home. I did not break the spell of thought that was upon him, but waited until he came back to himself again.
"It seems still as if I were only dreaming," he said, lifting his eyes at length and looking at me with a kind of wistful earnestness. "As if I would awaken at any moment into the old, dreadful life."
"You may dream this dream to the end if you will," I replied.
"God keep me from waking!" He gave a slight shiver as he said this.
At my next visit, I found Granger well enough to be downstairs. He was in the reading-room talking with an intelligent-looking man, whose face I recognized as one with which I was familiar. I did not at first know this man, but when he reached out his hand and called me by name, his voice brought him to my recollection. He had once been a merchant, standing at the head of a firm doing a large business; but wine, the mocker, had betrayed him, and he had fallen into hopelessly dissolute habits. When I last saw him, he was staggering on the street.
"Why, Lawrence!" I exclaimed, in pleased surprise. "You here?"
"Yes, I am here, friend Lyon. And here is our old friend Granger. You remember him."
"Of course I do," taking the hand of Mr. Granger as I spoke, who gave me back a silent pressure.
I looked at the two men, wondering at the change which had been wrought in them; noticing, as I have had occasion to notice many times since, the quick restoration of the face, after drink is abandoned, to something of its old, true character.
We sat down and had a long talk. Mr. Lawrence informed me that he had been there about five weeks, and was now holding the position of bookkeeper in the store of one of the directors of the Home, but still boarded in the Institution, as he felt that he needed all the help it could give him. He had been separated for over two years from his wife, who was now living in a distant city; but he had already written to her, telling the good news of his reformation, and of his purpose, by God's help, to keep himself forever free from his old habits.
"And here's a letter from her that I received today," he said, as he took an envelope from his pocket, with an almost child-like exhibition of pleasure. "And she writes that she'll be here in two weeks. She was always so good and so true, and she stayed by me until it was of no use. Poor Helen!"
I did not wonder at the dimness that came over his eyes; nor at the break and gurgle in his voice.
"But it shall never so be again," he went on after a little pause. "I trusted in myself, and did not care for God. He was never in my thoughts. But I have found a better way since I came here, and One who will keep me in that way if I look to Him — walking always by my side. So long as I put my trust in Him, I shall be safe, but not for a moment longer."
I was looking at Granger, and saw that his gaze was fixed intently on Mr. Lawrence. His eyes were a little dilated and there was a shade of sadness on his countenance. He did not take any part in the conversation. When an opportunity came for us to be alone, and I could ask more particularly about him, his manner changed and brightened; but was more subdued than on the occasion of my previous visit.
"You are looking so much better," I said, "and are feeling, of course, as well as you look."
"I hope so," he answered, quietly. Then, after a slight pause: "If one could only stop thinking sometimes."
"Right thinking is the way to right acting," I replied, speaking in an aphorism, because I was not sure as to what was in his thought, nor how my answer might be taken.
"If it were as easy to do right as to think right, living in this world would be safer than it is. But that is not what I meant. It is the trouble of unavailing thought to which I refer. Ah! if I could only stop this kind of thinking for awhile. If I could only bury the past out of sight!"
"If your future is as the verdure of spring and the fruitfulness of summer, the past will before long be covered, as the earth after a desolate winter is covered with greenness and beauty. The influx of life into what is orderly and good, is quick and strong. You are already beginning to feel this influx, my friend. May it have steady increase."
A man came into the room where we sat conversing, and, after taking a book from the library, went out. I noticed that he had an intelligent face, and an air of refinement, but looked wasted and broken as though just risen from a severe illness.
"That is Dr. Rawson," said Granger. "He had a large practice in our city a few years ago, but lost it on account of alcoholism. His family was broken up at last — wife and children being compelled to leave him. This breaking up of his family and separation from his wife and children, so affected him that he quit drinking and started off for a western city, in order to get away from old associations, there to begin life anew, and make for his family another home into which the old blight and curse should never come. But this change did not take him out of the sphere of temptation, nor diminish the strength of his appetite for alcohol. He fought allurement and desire for awhile, and then yielded, little by little at a time, still fighting, but steadily losing the power to resist, until he was down again. That was five years ago. Falling and rising; now struggling for the mastery over his appetite — and now in its toils again; now taking his place in respectable society — and now rejected and despised; never standing firm for longer than a few months at a time — the years since then have passed. Two weeks ago he came drifting back to his native city, a poor, helpless, broken wreck, with a vague impression on his mind that he was being impelled here by a force he could not resist. He came, as a drifting wreck, wholly purposeless. Let me tell you the story of what followed, just as he told it to me. I give you his own words as near as I can remember them. He said:
"'A man in Pittsburgh, to whom I told a plausible story, in which was not a single word of truth, got a pass for me on the railroad to this city, and gave me two dollars with which to get something to eat on the way. The first thing I did, after parting from him, was to buy a bottle of whiskey. With this as my companion, I took my seat in the second-class car to which my pass assigned me and started on my journey eastward. The bottle was empty before half the distance had been made. It was filled at one of the stopping places, and emptied again before the trip was completed. So drunk that I could not walk steadily — I was thrust out of the car by a breakman on the arrival of the train at midnight, and sent into the street homeless and friendless. I still had forty cents in my pocket, and might have procured a night's lodging, but I preferred the station-house to a comfortable bed, in order that I might have the means of getting my drink in the morning. When morning came, I made a narrow escape from a commitment to the county prison for drunkenness and vagrancy, but got off with a reprimand and a warning. At a cheap restaurant I spent fifteen cents for a breakfast, and ten cents for something to wash it down. In less than an hour afterwards the remaining fifteen cents had disappeared, and I was the worse for three glasses of bad whiskey.
"'Aimless and miserable, I wandered about for the whole of that day; spending the greater part of my time in bar-rooms, in the hope of being asked by somebody to drink. My thirst was growing intense. I was beginning to feel desperate. Late in the afternoon I went into a saloon and going up to the bar, called for a glass of whiskey, making a motion with my hand as if I were going to take money from my pocket. The bar-keeper eyed me sharply for a moment or two, and then gave me the liquor for which I had called. It was at my mouth and down my throat with the quickness of a flash. I knew by the man's face that he would kick me out of the saloon — but what cared I for that! My fumbling in my pockets, and turning them inside out, and my calling on God to witness that I had money when I came in, did not save me. I was collared and dragged to the door, and then kicked into the street. As I fell on the pavement, a crowd of boys jeered me, and when I attempted to rise, pushed me over. A friendly policeman saved me from their farther persecutions.
"'I was not drunk. The glass of whiskey which I had taken did nothing more than give a little steadiness to my nerves. As I arose from the pavement, assisted by the policeman, I saw on the opposite side of the street a face that made my heart stand still. A young girl had stopped, and was looking across at me with a half-startled, half-pitiful expression. It was my own daughter, whom I had not seen for six years. A little girl of twelve when I last saw her, she was now a tall and beautiful young lady in her eighteenth year. Her dress was plain, but very neat, and she looked as if she might be on her way home from some store, or office, or manufactory, in which she was earning a livelihood. Scarcely had I recognized her, before she turned and went on her way. But it seemed as if I could not let her go out of my sight. As though some strong invisible cords were drawing me, I started after her, keeping so close that her form was always in view. So I followed, now within a few paces, and now farther behind, lest she might turn and recognize me, until we had gone for a distance of seven or eight blocks. Then she passed lightly up to the door of a house, and after ringing the bell, turned her face while she stood waiting, so that I could see it again. It came to me like a gleam of sunlight. But in a moment after, the sweet vision was gone, and I stood in outer darkness.
"'I lingered about the neighborhood until the fast falling twilight was gone. Night shut in, the lamps were lighted, and the hurrying sound of homeward feet became almost silent. And still I lingered. Inside were, I believed, the wife and children I had once so loved and tenderly cared for; and I stood on the outside, an alien to the love which had once been given me in lavish return. Twice I ascended the steps and laid my hand on the bell, but turned each time and went back without ringing it. I will go away, I said, and make myself more fitted to come into their presence. But where was I to go? Friendless and penniless, soiled and tattered, who would take me in? And then there rushed upon me such an overwhelming sense of helplessness and degradation, and of the utter folly of any new attempt to lead a better life, that the very blackness of despair came down upon my soul! Better die! said a voice within me. Better take the chances of the life to come, than the certain misery of this, God is more merciful than man.
"'I hearkened to this voice. A single plunge in the river, and all would be over. I felt the waters closing about me, and the rest and peace of their dark oblivious depths. I was sitting on the curb-stone with my face buried in my hands, when this purpose was reached, and was about rising to put it into execution, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice, whose tones sent a chill through me, said: "You seem to be in trouble, my friend." It was the voice of a man whose family physician I had been, more than ten years before, and its sound was as familiar to my ears, as if no time had intervened since I heard it last. I could not move. A great weight seemed holding me down. "Are you sick?" The voice was even kinder than at first. "Yes," I replied. "Sick with an incurable disease."
"'He did not speak again for several moments. Then he said, in a voice full of mingled compassion and surprise, "Dr. Rawson! Can it indeed be you?"
"All that is left of me," I returned, not looking up or attempting to rise. "Sick, but not with an incurable disease, Dr. Rawson," he said, after a brief pause. "There is a Physicianwho can cure all manner of sickness. He can make the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and bring even the dead to life. Come to this good Physician, my old friend, and be healed of your malady."
"'How strange and new this sounded — almost as much so, as if I had never before heard of this Physician; and in fact, so far as any conscious need of Him was concerned, I never had. Sickness of the soul and the healing of spiritual diseases — had been to me little more than figures of speech; and my idea of a Physician of souls had rarely lifted itself above the thought of a vague symbolism that might mean anything or nothing. But now there was in it something tangible; the impression of a real personality; and my poor, despairing heart began to turn and lift itself, and to feel in its dead hopes, the feeble motions of a new life. And when he said again, "Come, my old friend, come to this good Physician," and drew upon my arm, I got up from the curb-stone on which I was sitting, and stood cowering and trembling in my shame and weakness, dimly wondering as to how and where this Physician was to be found. "And now, doctor," he said, "do you really wish to be saved from the power of this dreadful appetite?"
"'I would rather drown myself than continue any longer in this awful bondage," I replied.
"'And then I told him how I had made up my mind to gain deliverance through the desperate means of suicide.
"'My poor friend," he answered, "there is a safer and better way. Come with me."
"'I did not hesitate, but went with him. As we walked, he told me of this Christian Home, and said that if I would enter it and make use of all the means of reformation to which it would introduce me, I might hope to be restored to myself, and gain such power over my appetite as to hold it forever in check. And here I am, with new hopes and new purposes, and a trust in God for deliverance and safety, that my heart and my reason tell me shall not be in vain.'"
After Mr. Granger had related Dr. Rawson's story, he said: "If that man can be saved, and if I can be saved, through trust in God, no one is so fallen that he may not be lifted up, and his feet set in a secure way." Then, after a slight pause, he added, in a subdued and humble voice: "But in and of myself, I cannot hope to stand. When I forget that, my imminent peril is near!"
Back to Saved as by Fire!