He hung his overcoat on the back of a tall chair, and folded his arms across it.

"The other day I made the acquaintance of a Russian Jew, Sigmund Ragolsky. He has a remarkable history. He married an English Jewess, was a rabbi in Glasgow for a long time, and is now a Baptist preacher, converted after a fourteen years' struggle against a growing belief in the truth of Christianity. The story of his life sounds like a romance.

He was so strictly orthodox that he would not strike a match on the Sabbath. He would have starved before he would have touched food that had not been prepared according to ritual. He is here for the purpose of establishing a Hebrew mission. You should see the people who come to hear him. They are nearly all from that poor cla.s.s in the tenement district. One can hardly believe they belong to the same race with Rabbi Barthold and his cultured friends. Ragolsky, though, is a scholar, and I should like to hear the two men debate. He says the Reform Jews are no Jews at all--that they are the hardest people in the world to convert, because they look for no Messiah, accept only the Scripture that suits them, and are so well satisfied with themselves that they feel no need of any mediator between them and eternal holiness. They feel fully equal to the task of making their own atonement. Rabbi Barthold says that the orthodox are narrow fanatics, and that the majority of them live two lives--one towards G.o.d, of slavish religious observances; the other towards man, of sharp practices and double-dealing. I want you to hear Ragolsky preach some night. I'll tell you his story some other time."

"Tell me this much now," said Bethany, as he picked up his overcoat again; "did he have to give up his family as Mr. Lessing did?"

"No, indeed. Happily his wife and children were converted also. He had two rich brothers-in-law in Cape Colony, Africa, who cut them off without a shilling, but he is not grieving over that, I can a.s.sure you.

O, he is so full of his purpose, and is such a happy Christian! If we were all as constantly about the Master's business as he is, the millennium would soon be here."

Afterward, when the children had been taken home, and the feast and the tree, and the people who gave them, were only blissful memories in their happy little hearts, Bethany stood by the window in her room, holding aside the curtain.

Everything outside was covered with snow. She was thinking of Ragolsky and Lessing, and wondering which of the two fates would be David Herschel's, if he should ever become a Christian.

Would Esther's love for her people be stronger than her love for him?

She knew how tenaciously the women of Israel cling to their faith, yet she felt that it was no ordinary bond that held these two together.

Looking up beyond the starlighted heavens, Bethany whispered a very heartfelt prayer for David and the beautiful, dark-eyed girl who was to be his bride; and like an answering omen of good, over the white roofs of the city came the joyful clangor of the Christmas chimes.

CHAPTER XVI.

A "WATCH-NIGHT" CONSECRATION.

THE office work for the old year was all done. Mr. Edmunds had locked his desk and gone home. David would soon follow. He had only some private correspondence to finish.

Bethany sat nervously a.s.sorting the letters in the different pigeon-holes of her desk. Ninety-five was slipping out into the eternities. It had brought her a prayed-for opportunity; it was carrying away a far different record from the one she had planned. She felt that she could not bear to have it go in that way, yet an unaccountable reticence sealed her lips.

David had been in the office very little during the past week, only long enough to get his mail. This afternoon he had a worried, preoccupied look that made it all the harder for Bethany to say what was trembling on her lips.

She heard him slipping the letter into the envelope. He would be gone in just another moment. Now he was putting on his overcoat. O, she must say something! Her heart beat violently, and her face grew hot. She shut her eyes an instant, and sent up a swift, despairing appeal for help.

David strolled into the room with his hat in his hand, and stood beside her table.

"Well, the old year is about over, Miss Hallam," he said, gravely. "It has brought me a great many unexpected experiences, but the most unexpected of all is the one that led to our acquaintance. In wishing you a happy new year, I want to tell you what a pleasure your friendship has been to me in the old."

Bethany found sudden speech as she took the proffered hand.

"And I want to tell you, Mr. Herschel, that I have not only been wishing, but praying earnestly, that in this new year you may find the greatest happiness earth holds--the peace that comes in accepting Christ as a Savior."

He turned from her abruptly, and, with his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets, began pacing up and down the room with quick, excited strides.

"You, too!" he cried desperately. "I seem to be pursued. Every way I turn, the same thing is thrust at me. For weeks I have been fighting against it--O, longer than that--since I first talked to Lessing. Then there was Dr. Trent's death, and that nurse's prayer, and the League meeting Frank Marion persuaded me into attending. Cragmore has talked to me so often, too. I can answer arguments, but I can't answer such lives and faith as theirs. Yesterday morning I had a letter from Lee--little Lee Trent--thanking me for a book I had sent him, and even that child had something to say. He told me about his conversion. Last night curiosity led me down town to hear a Russian Jew preach to a lot of rough people in an old warehouse by the river. His text was Pilate's question, 'What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?' It wasn't a sermon. There wasn't a single argument in it. It was just a tragically-told story of the Nazarene's trial and death sentence--but he made it such a personal matter. All last night, and all day to-day those words have tormented me beyond endurance, 'What shall I do? What shall I do with this Jesus called Christ!'"

He kept on restlessly pacing back and forth in silence. Then he broke out again:

"I saw a man converted, as you call it, down there last night. He had been a rough, blasphemous drunkard that I have seen in the police courts many a time. I saw him fall on his knees at the altar, groaning for mercy, and I saw him, when he stood up after a while, with a face like a different creature's, all transformed by a great joy, crying out that he had been pardoned for Christ's sake. I just stood and looked at him, and wondered which of us is nearer the truth. If I am right, what a poor, deluded fool he is! But if he is right, good G.o.d--"

He stopped abruptly.

"Mr. Herschel," said Bethany, slowly, "if you were convinced that, by going on some certain pilgrimage, you could find Truth, but that the finding would shatter your belief in the creed you cling to now, would you undertake the journey? Which is stronger in you, the love for the faith of your fathers, or an honest desire for Truth, regardless of long-cherished opinion?"

For a moment there was no answer. Then he threw back his shoulders resolutely.

"I would take the journey," he said, with decision. "If I am wrong I want to know it." Bethany slipped a little Testament out of one of the pigeon-holes, and handed it to him, opened at the place where the answer to Thomas was heavily underscored:

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

"Follow that path," she said, simply. "The door has never been opened to you, because you have never knocked. You have no personal knowledge of Christ, because you have never sought for it. He has never revealed himself to you, because you have never asked him to do so."

He turned to her impatiently.

"Could you honestly pray to Confucius?" he asked; "or Isaiah, or Elijah, or John the Baptist? This Jewish teacher is no more to me than any other man who has taught and died. How can I pray to him, then?"

Bethany fingered the leaves of her little Testament, her heart fluttering nervously.

"I wish you would take this and read it," she said. "It would answer you far better than I can."

"I have read it," he replied, "a number of years ago. I could see nothing in it."

"O, but you read it simply as a critic," she answered. "See!" she cried eagerly, turning the leaves to find another place she had marked. "Paul wrote this about the children of Israel: 'Their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil' (the one told about in Exodus, you know) 'untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.'"

"Where does it say that?" he asked, incredulously. He took the book, and turning back to the first of the chapter, commenced to read.

The great bell in the court-house tower began clanging six.

"I must go," he said; "but I'll take this with me and look through it another time."

"I wish you would come to the watch-meeting to-night," she said, wistfully. "It is from ten until midnight. All the Leagues in the city meet at Garrison Avenue."

He slipped the book in his pocket, and b.u.t.toned up his overcoat. A sudden reserve of manner seemed to envelop him at the same time.

"No, thank you," he answered, drawing on his gloves. "I have an informal invitation from some friends in Hillhollow to dance the old year out and the new year in."

His tone seemed so flippant after the recent depth of feeling he had betrayed, that it jarred on Bethany's earnest mood like a discord. He moved toward the door.

"No matter where you may be," she said as he opened it, "I shall be praying for you."

After he had gone, Bethany still sat at her desk, mechanically a.s.sorting the letters. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had quite forgotten it was time to go home.

The door opened, and Frank Marion came in. He was followed by Cragmore, who was going home with him to dinner.

"All alone?" asked Mr. Marion in surprise. "Where's David? We dropped in to invite him around to the watch-meeting to-night."

"He has just gone," answered Bethany. "I asked him, but he declined on account of a previous engagement. O, Cousin Frank," she exclaimed, "I do believe he is almost convinced of the truth of Christianity!"