The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (14 page)

The day was bright and clear with a warmth in the air that was unusual for that climate and that time of year; and the sky was blue and misty with that highness that comes on days when the mystery of Heaven seems to be about the earth. But his feet dragged as he walked, for it seemed that every step that took him to the old trysting place made him more conscious of the absence of the one who had made those trips so wonderful, and been the heart and the life of the day. 

And behind him, at a great distance, so that he would not be noticed, walked old Hespur, dodging behind trees at any turn of the road where his quarry might turn and look back, but always keeping him in view. 

The road wound across a stream, and gradually up, up the “mountain.” John Treeves walked on with head down, observing nothing as he mounted to the crest above him. Worn out, absorbed with his own thoughts, he dropped upon the hard earth underneath the old tree and buried his face in his hands. 

Half an hour later old Hespur, puffing and panting, halting, and all but exhausted, toppled to the crest of the hill, gave one swift glance about, sighted the huddled figure under the bare tree, and slid down out of sight. Stealthily he circuited the great rock, and climbed again until he reached a position where he could see and not be seen, and there he sat him down to wait and try to understand. 

Was this lad bent upon some evil deed, and was his conscience repenting him? Or had he come here for some mysterious secret meeting? Perhaps he was a spy! Or again, it might be a girl! Some girl that his friends did not approve. But no! He had no friends from all accounts, save a few villagers in the hamlet below the hill, and perhaps some far-away soldiers in Prance. And it was plain as the nose on your face that he did not care a whit what Calvin Treeves thought or wished. Old Hespur decided that here must be some deep-laid plot, perhaps for a nationwide reformation of some sort. He had faith enough in the fine brow and the strong Treeves chin to know it was nothing evil. And so old Hespur waited, and from time to time peered forth from his hiding place to see if his companion was still there. 

Once he heard the rattle of a paper, and strained his neck to try and see what like it was, for he knew of old that his master was interested in all possible details, and had often been put to it to invent enough to satisfy him. 

The letter that John Treeves finally opened tenderly and read with blurring eyes and choking breath was such a letter as could only be written by a consecrated mother who had agonized over her beloved child, and had pleaded with God for his salvation from the infidelity of the world. There was no ranting nor pleading, no attempt at learned argument, nor quotation from theologians. She did not attempt to refute the so-called science wherewith he had bolstered his new freedom from the faith of his fathers. She simply set them all aside and told him that reasoning of man was vain. That religion was a spiritual thing and must be tested spiritually. God was a spirit and those that reached him must reach out their spirits, not their intellects, to grasp Him. The Bible and its claims either were true or else they were not, and it was quite easy for anyone who cared to put them to the test. Wisdom and knowledge were vain without that spiritual out-reaching. Wisdom and knowledge would fall into place and be found all harmonious when the approach was made first by the spirit. Science and knowledge changed from year to year, but there had not been wanting those in every age who had found God by searching for Him with all their hearts, and by taking Him at His Word. That was what she asked of her son, to “search with all his heart,” and to make it possible for God to show him the truth, by complying with the conditions of the promises in the Bible. 

She recalled to his mind how Abraham had belonged to a heathen nation and had heard God’s call and had enough faith in the promise to take his family to a foreign land and become a new nation. She had marked the main great promises, beginning back when God first led His people, and she asked him to read them aloud to himself there on the hill, and then to talk with God about them until he should know. That was the main emphasis, that he should stay there until he should know one way or the other whether he was to be a child of God or not. 

There was no pleading with him to get ready to come home to her as some mothers would have written; there was throughout the whole epistle a tender confidence as of one giving directions of a well-known oft-trod way, to another in the dark, with the surety that he would follow and find the way home. 

When he opened the little Bible there were no blisters of tears on its thin, worn pages. The print was as clear as when it was new, though the edges of the leaves were frayed and crumpled with much use. He could almost see his mother's confident smile as she bent over the beloved pages. Her faith reached through the years of separation even though a grave was between, and seemed to be drawing him on. He began to wonder how with such a mother and such teaching he had ever got away from it all. 

A fine shame and contempt of himself burned within him, while yet he felt that it had been the natural outcome of his own development. And yet, as he held that beautifully worn Bible in his hand, he felt how audacious it had been for him to have the temerity to draw away. He seemed to see his mother's face as it used to look when she read to him on Sunday afternoon; and then the strong yet tender face of his grandfather, her minister - father, whom he dimly remembered, whose powerful and convincing sermons had been only excelled by his devoted self-forgetfulness for others. And yet, on the other hand, stood a goodly company of wise and learned professors, with scholarly countenances, with dignified and cold demeanor, and a bit of a sneer on their lips; he knew like a well-read book the reasoning by which they would try to sweep away his mother's faith with such adjectives as “emotional” and “sentimental” and the like. And he in between the two must act independent of either scholars or mother, and must go out alone to meet God, even as the Wise Men had searched, and studied and fared forth, led by some inner call, to find the light. He had come here to do this, and here he would stay until it was done, although his soul shrank inexpressibly from the ordeal. 

Something seemed drawing him back, away from the things he had thought and believed as a little child, something seemed crying out to him that it was foolish and ridiculous for him, a grown man, to take a group of legends and treat them seriously, putting in claims on their strength before he had assurance. And yet — ^that was what faith was, a taking things on trust -- a swinging off and acting as if things were so! That was what his mother had done, and it had stayed by her through the struggle of life clear to the end and kept her sweet and strong -- yes, and happy, even through sorrow and toil and disappointment. He recalled the messages she had left for him, and knew that even on her death-bed she was happy in her faith; that with her last breath she spoke the name of Jesus, with a happy smile, as if her faith had been justified. There was absolutely nothing that could stand as an argument against that, though he was fully aware that some cold stranger might urge the whole thing a bit of imagination supplemented by sentiment. But he knew his mother too well to accept any such theory. And there he was, in a strait betwixt two kinds of reasoning when his eyes came to the very verse she had quoted in her letter as an initial promise: “And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart!” 

Well, how did one search? He would begin. He would put the full strength of his purpose into it, and dispose of this question one way or the other, now and forever. It was queer though, this searching for a thing in which one did not believe. He read the verse over again, “Ye shall find me when ye shall search.” It suddenly came over him that this believing after all was a voluntary act of the will. He could decide to act on a certain hypothesis and go ahead, whether he was really assured of it or not. It was the first tune that the idea had presented itself to him in that way. When his mother had asked him to “only believe” he had responded, “I would gladly, if I could.” He had always supposed that he must wait for assurance or until the power to believe was given him. Now he suddenly saw that if he willed to believe he could act upon that with as much success as if he knew that the hypothesis were true. It was like getting into a car, or a boat; one might not believe that it was seaworthy, or able to travel, but one could put one's self in its seat and wait for the car to give the assurance. He would try that. He would put himself into God's hands, and see if He would “be found of him.” 

“Well, then, I will do it now!” he said aloud with decision, and the words echoed back to him from an opposite hill with startling distinctness. 

He arose and stood for a moment looking up uncertainly to the brilliant autumn sky, as one approaching gazes up at the house of a stranger upon whom one is about to call. Then with great reverence he knelt beneath the tree with bared head, and as he did so, as clearly and distinctly as if a voice had spoken than came the words he had learned so long ago sitting beside his mother on Sabbath afternoons: “Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” 

Instantly as if it had been a rope thrown out to him in the midst of an overwhelming tide he seized it with his heart and began to cry aloud to God, “Oh, Lord, I take Thee at Thy word! A God cannot lie! I have come with my whole heart to search for Thee! Oh, be found of me, be found of me, for my soul is in great distress!” 

Old Hespur, trained to respect royalty above all else in the universe, at the word “Lord” scrambled to his feet and peered out from his hiding in wonder, but seeing the young man upon his knees, and perceiving no other presence, he got quickly into the attitude of respect and attention, and thus stood behind the great rock for a long time stilled with awe and delight, scarcely daring to breathe lest he should break the mysterious audience, standing as any well-trained servant, would, stand immovable in the presence of a great and kingly guest. 

But no sound of rattling stone or crunching gravel reached the ear of the young man upon his knees. His soul was in the presence of his God and his spirit was holding communion with him. Every longing that had ever been unsatisfied, every doubt that had clouded his faith, every rebellion that had hindered his growth, these were poured forth from the very depth of his being and laid before the God whom he had come to find. Then like troops of bright angels for everything he had to say, came the promises of God, both from the Old and New Testaments, especially promises concerning Jesus Christ. They were verses he had learned long ago, and thought he had forgotten, perhaps, at least they had not been in his mind for years, though if anyone had asked how they ran he could always have repeated them. But now they came as though fresh and new and spoken like a voice ringing through his soul with a thrill of truth that was amazing, and with a preciousness that was unspeakable and almost incredible; and they seemed not so much to fall into his mind, but into his heart to be put within the voluntary powers of his mind. All the old doubts, the old fallacies, the old impossibilities, were as if shut behind locked doors, rubbish that had nothing to do with the case. What were they after all but the product of men's minds? This was real, this spiritual communion, more real than anything that had ever come into his life, only approached in part by the love of his mother and his life with her. This was something that took hold of his spirit and made him live as he had never dreamed life could be; it was inexplicable, exalting, glorious beyond expression, something for which he would willingly exchange all the worldly knowledge and wisdom he had ever gained. How trivial they seemed to him now. How easily he had been fooled into unbelief by them. Why, why had he not known! How could he have been so deceived? 

Then, as if in a revealing light, he saw himself as a sinner. He had never felt condemned before, for he knew that as men went he had lived on the whole a most exemplary life so far, clean and wholesome and kindly. That had been the result of his mother’s training and rather an inheritance than a voluntary or virtuous act however; this he now plainly saw. But he saw also that the great sin^ the sin of which he had been guilty, had been the neglect of God, the leaving of Christ out of his life, and at once it became clear to him that all sin was comprehended in that one sin, the turning away from Salvation, rejecting Christ and His atonement. His indifference of the past seemed an active ugly thing hurled at the Christ, and he bowed his head at the thought of it, and as if in answer came the words “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” He found himself repeating the words with the Voice, in a note of triumph, and the sense of sin rolled away so completely that he was troubled. 

“But I am a sinner!” he kept saying over to himself, "and I should feel condemned! Can I have grieved away His spirit?” 

Again came promises, words from the old prophets: 

“In that day there shall be a fountain open . . . for sin and for uncleanness.” “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” “I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” 

His mother's Bible lay on the ground beside him, but he hardly needed to take it up and turn its pages, so rapidly did the promises come, even before his eyes caught the words with his mother’s markings here and there underlining words; and with them came a new clear meaning that he seemed always to have known, but never before apprehended. He talked aloud to God about them until the high, clear day became more glorious it seemed to him than any day that had ever dawned before. 

The little quiet village lay like a painted thing set in its autumn foliage with the little jeweled stream winding through the valley, and in the distance darted a train of cars with its stream of trifling smoke, threaded its way among the trees, paused a brief space, and hurried on to busy cities beyond the hills; but the quiet trysting place was undisturbed as Heaven, and had become a holy place.