A New Beginning (17 page)

The two men talked a little, Pa trying to say the kinds of things that would put Mr. Royce at ease and assure him that what he'd said was true, that Pa
had
forgiven him and that there were no hard feelings whatever on his side.

“Just when I was beginning to feel downright awkward about being there with them,” Christopher told me later, “Mr. Royce started talking again . . . this time to me.”

“There is something else I would like to tell you—both of you,” he said, “and I have you to thank for this, Mr. Braxton—”

“Please . . . Christopher,” said Christopher. “If I won't let Drum call me
Reverend
I certainly cannot allow you to call me
mister
.”

All three laughed, and it seemed to help Mr. Royce feel more relaxed, because Christopher said he then began to share even more freely.

“Thank you, uh . . . Christopher—that is very kind of you. I will appreciate your returning the kindness.”

Christopher nodded. “But what could you possibly have to thank
me
for, Franklin?” he asked.

“For the sermons you've been preaching since becoming our pastor.”

“I appreciate your encouragement. All young pastors wonder what their people are thinking.”

“I can assure you that this is one member of your congregation that has been listening to every word you've said. I would like to tell you about it, if you don't mind, because it will serve as preface for a question I must ask you both.”

“Of course,” Christopher answered. “I am eager to hear your story.”

Mr. Royce glanced over at Pa with a questioning expression.

“You bet, Franklin—go on ahead. We've got all day.”

“It may just take that long,” laughed the banker, a bit nervously. He wasn't too used to doing much laughing.

“I told you,” he went on, again turning toward Christopher, “that your words on that one particular Sunday pierced me deeply, especially those last March about going and doing what you knew you had to do as your Christian duty.

“Everything you said penetrated so deeply. You spoke so warmly and personally about God. You spoke about living as a Christian with such force, I knew it was all the world to you and that nothing else mattered so much to you as that. You spoke about what you called Christlikeness with such longing, it was clear that to you there could be no higher goal to be attained in all the universe. And you spoke of denial and sacrifice as if they were the highest pinnacles to which a man or woman might hope to strive.

“Imagine my reaction.
Me
—be like Jesus! Franklin Royce, wealthy banker—
deny
himself . . . be a
servant
!

“The very thoughts seemed absurd.

“All my life I have subscribed to precisely those tenets you spoke of as indicating what men ordinarily believe: Get all you can . . . raise yourself up . . . possess. I have lived by the creed which says that greatness is measured by
being
served and that the
first
are first, not the last.

“Yet all the while, I considered myself a respectable ‘Christian' man. I went to church and believed in God, didn't I? And while maybe I wasn't what is called as good as the next man, I was probably better than a few of them, and certainly was no murderer.

“Your words, however, brought me up short and caused me to look at myself, perhaps for the first time in my life, straight in the eye. ‘If you
are
a Christian, Franklin Royce,' a little voice inside me kept saying as I sat there, ‘then why is not a single one of these things the young Braxton fellow is talking about evident in your life?'

“I had never considered the first element of the kind of practical Christianity you spoke of. That I was a son of God, and that he could be a personal Father to me—never had such thoughts come within a hundred miles of my consciousness through all my years of churchgoing. That I owed obedience to him, that I ought to be poring through the Bible that sits in one of my bookcases at home—for all practical purposes like new, though I have had it for thirty years—for daily instructions about how to order my life—had someone said such things to me a year ago, I would have dismissed them out of hand. I probably would have burst out laughing at the words.

“‘This Braxton fellow
is
a radical,' another little voice said in the other side of my brain, ‘by his own admission. The people in his previous church knew what they were doing when they threw him out. You may safely ignore these firebrand notions of his just as comfortably as you have ignored every other preacher you have heard.'

“But you see, Braxton—I'm sorry . . . Christopher—I
couldn't
ignore your words, for one very simple reason.

“I had been nearly knocked off my feet the week before in listening to your personal story. As I listened the second week, therefore, and in the weeks which followed, I could not ignore what you were saying, because in you I saw so much of myself. In you I saw what I might have been . . . perhaps what I
should
have been.”

As Christopher heard the words, he scarcely could think what Mr. Royce might mean.

“Listening to you,” the banker went on, “was like standing in front of a mirror, hearing a voice out of my own past, speaking to me about what kind of person I could have been . . . and what still might be. I was
compelled
to listen.

“I would like to tell you both why—that is, if you do not mind.”

“Please,” said Christopher, glancing over momentarily at Pa, “proceed.”

Pa nodded his head earnestly.

“Your personal story,” Mr. Royce went on, “is so remarkably similar to mine that the possibility of mere coincidence seems to me impossible.

“Your father was a farmer, mine was a wealthy investment banker. Like you, I was born late in my father's life to his second wife. My mother died, like yours, when I was fourteen years old. You did not mention how much longer your own father lived. Mine died three years after my mother, and I was left alone in the world to fend for myself.

“I went from relative to relative looking for help, looking for compassion, hoping to find someone who would care whether I lived or died. But everywhere I was turned away. I too lived with aunts and uncles, all wealthy in their bank accounts but impoverished when it came to demonstrating human emotion.

“You described the feelings of worthlessness, of thinking you would never amount to anything. As you spoke I was certain no one else in that church could have known you as I did. I knew you . . . because I had been there myself. You might just as well have been describing me. Your very words struck such bitter memories in my heart.

“You spoke of your desire to go to college and to learn, and the offer your brother made you. It was a time of decision for you.

“Such a time came for me too. I was given an opportunity by one of my relatives to go to college, or I could continue in the investment firm of which my father had been a partner and hope to work my way up one day into the upper echelons myself.

“In the end, I too arrived at a decision. I stood at a crossroads, just like you. But what different choices we made!

“You had suffered and been hurt, you had faced disappointment and doubts about whether you were a person worthy of life at all. You chose in the end to turn that inner grief into good. You chose to find what no human could give you, from God himself. You dedicated yourself to him and to your fellowman. You chose to help people. You chose the occupation of the ministry. You chose the road, as you put it, of serving your fellowman. Because of that decision, you are now who you are today.

“Facing the same griefs and disappointments and self-doubts, I chose a different road. I determined that I would get even with all who had turned their backs on me. I would show the world that Franklin Royce would be worth more than they ever dreamed of. I determined that I would become rich and powerful no matter who I had to hurt to achieve it. I would follow in my father's footsteps, but I would become even
more
powerful than he. Never again would anyone laugh at
me
or look down on
me
.

“Listening to you tell your tale, Christopher, made me realize so many things. I realized that, though the circumstances of every man's life vary, at the root all still face the same two basic choices—will they live for themselves as independent beings striving to
get
all they can, or, as you explained it, will they
yield
themselves to God so that they can live as his sons. It is the simple difference between trying to do good for yourself or for others . . . trying to accumulate or give away . . . trying to be first or last . . . trying to exalt yourself or your neighbor.

“You made the right choice. I see now that I made the wrong one all those years ago. It is not that one of the paths—college or investments—was right and one of them wrong. It was my
motives
which were wrong. I chose the career I did just so that I could become rich and powerful and lord it over my fellowman. I went down the road of self, and this is where it has brought me—rich . . . but empty. Do you see what I am saying? I now realize that actually—in spite of appearance—my life is one of poverty in the things that really count.”

He stopped, looked away for a moment, smiled a melancholy smile, then continued.

“I learned something else, however, from my friend here,” Mr. Royce added, glancing over at Pa. “From what I know of your past, Drummond, there was a time you were on the wrong road too.”

“That's right, Franklin,” said Pa. “For more years than I like to remember.”

“That is exactly my point,” Mr. Royce went on. “Because of you, I see that it is possible for a man to change roads. Even though he may have made wrong choices when he was young, perhaps many wrong choices, it is never too late. The way to that right road, the road both of you are on now, is never closed off, no matter what a man may have done.”

He paused and looked seriously first at Pa, then to Christopher.

“Am I correct in making that statement,” he asked, “—that it is never to late to change?”

Pa and Christopher nodded their heads together.

“You are absolutely right,” answered Christopher.

“I'm the living proof, all right,” said Pa. “I don't like to admit it, but I was past forty by the time I got myself over onto God's road instead of my own.”

“All right then,” said Mr. Royce, “we're finally to the question I came here to ask the two of you, once I got the business of my apologies to Drum out of the way. You said in your sermon, Christopher, that you were going to challenge the people of Miracle Springs, and that if we weren't comfortable being challenged to make something better of ourselves, then you weren't the man for us. Do you remember saying that?”

Christopher nodded.

“Well, I don't know about anyone else, and I cannot say I
was
comfortable with it, but I'm one man of your congregation that
does
want to make something better of myself. So I'm going to take you up on your challenge.”

The next words out of Mr. Royce's mouth were so simple, yet so profoundly humble, that Christopher could hardly sit calmly as he listened to them.

“So I'm going to take you up on your challenge,” Mr. Royce had said. “And my question is this: How
does
a man start over? How
do
you go back and undo all those years of walking down the road of self? How
do
you get onto God's road?

“You see, as strange as it sounds to be coming from my mouth, I guess the plain fact of the matter is that I've had enough of Franklin Royce. If God is a Father like you say he is . . . well, I'm ready to be his son, that is, if he'll have me, and to live like you talked about last Sunday.”

I could hardly believe my ears as Christopher recounted Mr. Royce's words!

Pa looked over at Christopher in amazement. Mr. Royce looked at them both. “So,” he said, “what do I do now?”

“I knew from the look on your father's face,” Christopher said, “that he didn't have any idea what to say. Yet I was reluctant myself to take the lead. I felt that your father had been the primary influence in Franklin's life, even though it had been listening to what I said that finally prompted him to come and face your father and make the confession he had. I felt like your father ought to be the one to talk to him, to answer his question. It would mean more coming from someone he had known such a long time. But I knew your father hadn't been in many situations like that—”

“Not a one I can think of,” I said.

“That's the point. I didn't want to just get up and walk out and leave them both embarrassed and wondering what to do.”

“So what
did
you do?” I asked.

“I tried to get the conversation moving in the right direction, telling him some of the same things I told Alkali Jones.”

Christopher then recounted the rest of the conversation.

“Do you recall what I said last Sunday, Franklin?” Christopher said to him. “When a man or woman, a boy or girl, no matter how young or old, wants to become God's son or daughter, the process is always the same. Whether it's starting down the road for the first time or changing roads later on, as you put it . . . whether it's someone who's been going to church for years or has never set foot inside a church in his life—they all still have to do the same thing.”

“That's my question,” repeated Mr. Royce. “What is that thing they must do?”

“It's simply a matter of giving yourself over to your Father. Do you remember—I said that means hands, feet, brain, heart, thoughts and feelings and attitudes and behavior—everything. You're saying to him,
Here, Father . . . here is my life. I
give it to you. You take charge of it now
. I want you to be my Father, and I will
be your good and obedient little son
. That's all there is to it.”

“That's all?”

“You asked how to start over?”

Mr. Royce nodded.

“Well then, that is how to do it. That's how to make a
start
. But then you asked if that was all. And in answer to that I would say—no, it's only the beginning. Once you've done that, you've gotten onto the right road. Now you have to
walk
down that road. Now it becomes a matter of
growing
, as I also spoke of. It becomes a matter of living and behaving and thinking like the good and obedient little son you told your Father you wanted to be. So you have to find out what your Father wants you to do. It usually means unlearning many old habits and patterns and learning new ones in their place.”

“How will I find out all these things?”

“He will show you. The Gospels are the beginning, as I also explained. That's where we find out how children of the Father are to live and behave.”

“What if something I need to know isn't in the Bible?”

“He will show you.”

“How?”

“I cannot say. He uses different means with all of us. But if you ask for your Father's help, he will give it. Ask
him
all your questions. Ask him what
he
wants you to do. When we ask, he always answers.

“By this time,” Christopher told me, “he was so broken, with all his defenses down, that he was sitting there like a little child who didn't know what to do next. It was quite wonderful.

“‘Do you want to tell the Father that you want to be his son, Franklin?' I asked.

“‘Yes . . . yes, of course I do,' he answered.

“‘Then I'm going to leave the two of you alone,' I said. Even as I said it, I saw your father look over at me with his eyes wide open. I knew he was thinking,
Don't leave me now, Christopher!
But I knew he could lead Franklin through what he needed to do just as well as I could, and that he would grow himself from the experience.

“‘Drum, would you pray with Franklin?' I said. ‘Show him that there's nothing frightful about talking with our Father just as naturally as we've been sitting here talking with one another. The two of you brothers can just have a talk with your Father.'

“‘Franklin,' I said, ‘I want you to know that you may come see me anytime, day or night, with any questions you may have. Once you tell the Father you want to be part of his family, that instantly makes you and me brothers, in just the same way Drum and I are brothers. We're kinfolk! And you can call on this brother of yours anytime, about anything.'

“Then I got up, left, and went over to the main house.”