New Name (20 page)

He cast a quick glance around him, and saw that his delegation were all being seated up near the front of the auditorium. With swift steps he marched down the aisle and out the door and came face-to-face with the man who was to lead the devotional meeting, to whom he had just been introduced.

“I was looking for you, Murray,” he said. “You’re wanted at once up on the platform. They want to consult you about the appointment of the committees before the meeting opens. Better hurry! It’s time to begin.”

Baffled again, Murray turned back up the aisle, resolving to find some excuse to slip out the side door, which he could see opening from the platform. There was to be a devotional meeting. He had heard talk about selecting hymns. He would slip out while they were singing. At any rate, there was no escape here just now, for the leader of the devotional meeting was just behind him.

So he went to the platform, bowed, smiled, and tried to conduct himself in an altogether happy and carefree manner, assenting to all the suggestions about committees, listening to reasons for certain appointments as if he knew all about it and was interested, with that flattering deference that was second nature to him. But his eyes kept turning constantly to the door at the left of the platform, and when they were finally through with him and motioned him to a seat in the center of the platform, he sank into the big chair of honor with relief. Now, at last, his release was at hand! When they arose to sing the first hymn, he would look up as if someone beckoned. No matter where that door led to, he would get out of sight somewhere and stay hidden until this infernal convention was over, and he could safely vanish into the world again.

Someone handed him a hymnbook open to the hymn. Hewas not acquainted with any hymns, but it struck him as strange that this one should be about hiding. He accepted the book, as he did all things when he was conscious of his predicament, merely as a mask to keep him from suspicion, and he pretended to sing, although he had never heard the tune before.

“Oh, safe to the Rock that is higher than I
,

My soul in its sorrow and anguish would fly;

So sinful
,
so weary, Thine, Thine would I be;

Thou blest ‘Rock of Ages,’ I’m hiding in Thee!”

Murray Van Rensselaer had never heard of the Rock of Ages except in connection with an insurance company. He did not understand even vaguely the reference, but as his lips formed the words which his eyes conveyed to his brain from the book, his heart seemed to grasp for them and be saying them in earnest. Hiding! Oh, if there were only some hiding for him! Sinful? Yes, he must be sinful! He had never thought he was very bad in the days that were past, but somehow since he had been in this region where everybody talked about Right and Wrong as if they were personified, and where all the standards of living were so different, it had begun to dawn upon him that if these standards were true, then he personally was a sinner. It was not just his having been responsible for Bessie’s death. It was not even his running away when he found he had killed her. Nor yet was it his allowing these good people to think he was Allan Murray—a Christian with a longrecord of good deeds and right living behind him. It was something behind all that—something that had to do with the Power they called God and with that vague Person they called Jesus, who was God’s Son. It was dawning upon him that he had something to do with God! He had never expected that he would ever have anything in the remotest way connected with God, and now suddenly it seemed as if God was there all the time, behind everything, and had not been pleased with his relation to life. It seemed that God had been there dealing with him even before he was born into the family of Van Rensselaer. Before being Van Rensselaer’s child, he was God’s child! His father had bitterly berated him for the way he had misused and been disloyal to the fine old name of Van Rensselaer; how would God speak to him sometime about the way he had treated Him?

“Hiding in Thee! Hiding in Thee!” sang the gathering throng earnestly and joyously, and he shuddered as his lips joined with theirs. Hiding in God! How could he hide in God? It would be like taking refuge in a court of justice and expecting them to protect him from his own sin!

He recalled the first lesson his Sunday school class had taught him about Saul who was Paul, when a light shined round about him and he met the Lord on the way to Damascus. He had heard more of him since, in sermons, and in the Bible readings, and in his talks with Mrs. Summers. One could not hear a story like that referred to again and again without getting the real meaning into his soul, but never before had it come home to him as a thing thatreally happened, and that might happen again, as it did while he sat there singing. It seemed to him that he was suddenly seeing the Lord—that for the first time he had been halted in his giddy life and made to see that he was fighting against the Lord God, that his whole life had been a rebellion against the Power that had created him, just as his whole former life at home had been a life apart from the parents who had given him life and supported him. It was not the decent thing at all. He had never thought of it so before. He would not have done it if he had ever thought of it that way. Of course his father had told him in a way—a bitter way, cursed at him, but given him the money to pay for his follies just the same. And he had not been honest with his father! He had not been honest with the law of the land either! He had broken it again and again, and counted it something to be proud of when he got away without having to pay a fine. All his life he had run away from fines and punishments. So far as law was concerned, he had been many times guilty. And then when one went further and thought about the laws of God, why, he did not even know what they were. He had never inquired before until a Sunday school session had forced the Ten Commandments to his attention. Of course he had always heard of the Ten Commandments, but they had seemed as archaic as the tomb of some Egyptian pharaoh. He had no notion whatever that anybody connected them with any duties of life today, until Mrs. Summers had discussed the subject briefly one night in that mild impersonal way of hers.

But now as he sat on that platform, singing those words about a hiding place for a soul that was sinful and weary, he knew that he ought to have known those commandments. He ought to have found out God’s will for him. He knew that the right name for the state he was in was sin, and he felt an overwhelming burden from the knowledge. He was hearing God’s voice speak to him, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks,” and he did not understand it any better than Saul had done as he lay blinded on the way to Damascus.

The singing had ceased, and he realized that he had not yet slipped away. This was to be a devotional meeting. Perhaps during a prayer he might find a better opportunity.

Startling into his troubled thoughts came the words of the leader: “I am going to ask our new president, Mr. Allan Murray, to lead us in the opening prayer—”

Chapter 19

N
ever in his life had Murray Van Rensselaer been asked to make a speech or do a stunt that he had been known to refuse or be inadequate to the occasion. It had been his boast that a fellow could always say something if he would just have his wits about him, but the time had come when wits would not serve him. He was suddenly confronted with the Lord God and told to speak to Him before many witnesses! A great swelling horror arose around him like a cloud of enemies about to throttle him. His speech went from him, and his strength, also his self-confidence. A few weeks back he might have jumped to his feet and rattled off a pleasant little prayer, appropriate in its petitions, correct in its address and setting, and felt smart about having risen to the occasion. Not so now. He felt himself to be sitting confused and ashamed before the Lord, and he had nothing to say.

He was in dire straits. He realized fully that if he did not do what he was asked, his mask was off, and before all this assembled multitude he would be discovered and brought to shame. Yet he dared not say off a prayer that he did not mean. So much he had grown in the knowledge of the Holy One. He knew it would be blasphemy.

There was a dead silence in the room, a settling down of awe and waiting, half-bowed heads, trying to glimpse the new president before the prayer began, yet reverently waiting for him to address the great high throne of God for them.

A panic came upon him. He dared not sit still. Old habit of responding to any challenge, no matter how daring, goaded him; fear got him to his unwilling feet, and there he stood.

The silence grew. The heads were bent reverently now. Such a young man to be such a great leader, they thought. Such a deep spiritual look upon his face!

Murray stood there and faced God, his voice all gone!

Then the audience seemed to melt away behind a great misty cloud. A radiance was before his closed eyes, and his voice came back. Unwillingly it had to speak, to recognize the Presence in which he stood.

“Oh, God!—”

A wave of sympathy came up from the audience inaudibly, as incense from an altar. Murray felt the uplift of their spirits, as if they were far away, yet pressing him forward.

“You know I am not worthy to speak for this people—” He paused. His forehead was damp with the mighty physical effort of the words, as if they were drawn forth from his very soul.

“You know I am a sinful man—”

He felt as if he stood in the courtroom at last, confessing himself guilty before the world. Now his mother would know! Now his father would know! Now Bessie’s mother and Mrs. Summers, and all of them would know, but he was glad! Already his soul felt lighter! The burden was going!

“You know I am not what they think!” he burst forth. “I am not able to preside at a meeting like this. Won’t
You
take my place, oh God? Won’t
You
lead these people, and won’t
You
help me and tell me what to do? I am willing for You to do what You like with me. I’m
hiding
in You!”

He hesitated. Then he added what he had heard in prayers ever since he came to Marlborough, what Mrs. Summers always closed her evening petition with—“For Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”

Two ministers at the back of the church whispered to one another softly.

“A most remarkable prayer!” said one.

“Yes, and a most remarkable young man, they say!” said the other. “A wonder in this age that his head is not turned with all the praise he is receiving. How humble he is!”

Murray slumped into his seat with a sense of exhaustion upon him and dropped his head upon his shielding hand. The leader in a sweet tenor voice started softly the hymn:

“Have Thine own way
,
Lord, have Thine own way!

Thou are the potter, I am the clay;

Mold me and make me after Thy will
,

While I am waiting, yielded and still.”

The many voices took it up and it swept through the room like a prayer, softly, tenderly, the words clear and distinct. Murray had never heard anything like it before.

“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!

Search me and try me, Master, today!

Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now
,

As in Thy presence humbly I bow.”

Murray felt a great longing sweep over him to be washed whiter than snow. He had never heard talk like this, but it filled his need. He felt soiled inside. He did not understand it at all, but he seemed to have been wandering for a long time in filth, and now he realized that what he needed was cleansing. His own soul began to cry out with the spirit of the prayer song that was trembling about him from all these people, who seemed to know the words and by some miracle to all feel the same way that he did. Why! Were they all praying for him?

—“wounded and weary, help me I pray!

Power, all power, surely is Thine!

Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!”

They sang with such assurance, as if they knew He could and would do what they asked. Dared he ask, too? Were thereconditions to such assurance? Would God take a man who had killed a girl and then gone on masquerading as a Christian just to save his skin?

“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!” went on the quiet prayer. Ah! That was the condition. Surrender! Well, he was ready. That was what that fellow Saul did, just said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” He could ask that.

“Hold o’er my being absolute sway!” went on the song. Yes, he could echo that. He was ready for anything, if there was only a way out of this awful hole he was in. He was sick of himself and his own way. It had never been much but froth. He saw that now. Why had he not seen it before?

“Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see

Christ only, always, living in me!”

What would that be like? Filled with Christ’s Spirit! And men looking at him would see Christ, not Murray Van Rensselaer anymore. He understood. That was just what he had been trying to put across about Allan Murray, and he had almost done it. That was the reason why he had not been able to get away, because men looking at him had seen Allan Murray and taken him for what they expected Allan Murray to be! Ah! But this was to be Jesus Christ! Could he possibly get away with that? Only this was not to be a getaway. It was to be real. He was to surrender and let Jesus Christ live in him. Just cut out the things he wanted as if theywere not, and let the Spirit of Christ do with him what He liked. Would that be unbearable? What was there he cared for anyway now? Why! He
wanted
to do this! He
wanted
to be made over! He
wanted
to die to the old life forever and be made new, and this seemed to be the only way to do it:
Could this be the new birth?