Although Edwin no longer lived in the community of his mother or Mr. Fitch, for he was supporting himself, he had learned what a mother's place in his life should be and the att.i.tude that a son should hold toward her. He therefore, regardless of her former shortcomings, went occasionally to see her. In answer to those who questioned how he could respect or visit his mother after all that she had caused him to suffer, he would say: "She is still my mother, just as though she had always been good to me, and I shall always regard her as a mother. During my childhood I held nothing against her for all the things I suffered, and why should I now?" Hearing of Elmer's trouble, Edwin hastened to his mother's home, and while listening to her tale of woe he heard her say:

"I just can't understand what Elmer means by doing such outlandish things now that he is grown up. If he were a boy, I wouldn't think so much about it, but here he is a man and bringing home to us nothing but sorrow and disgrace. He can scarcely get out of one trouble until he is in another, and he even sets the other children up to do things that are bad. Now, how is it that you, whom I never gave credit for knowing anything, have never caused me any anxiety or trouble in any way? No matter where you are or how hard you have to work, I can never find any one that has anything bad to say about you. I can't see why there should be such a difference."

"Why, Mother," Edwin answered, "it is very plain. I can tell you all about it. Do you remember the time when Elmer took the pebbles from my pocket in the night time? That was his start. After that he often took things from your dress-pockets and money-drawer, and it was easy for him to slip in behind the counters at the stores to help himself, for you always took his part and shielded him; and you never taught him that he must be true to his wife. You told me I must never speak to you of these things, and I did not before, for I knew that it would do no good; but the little seed that was planted in his heart that night when he was allowed to keep the pebbles has grown until it is what you see it now. Elmer is a thief and will have to receive from the law the punishment that you ought to have given him long ago."

"I don't see how taking a few little stones out of your pocket could make him a thief or amount to this," his mother said as the truth began to dawn upon her.

"Why, Mother," Edwin answered, "it is just as natural for that little deed to grow and multiply as for a thistle-seed to grow and increase when it is dropped in the ground. One healthy stalk will bear a great many blossoms, and every blossom will have an abundant crop of seeds. The little thistle-seed is very small and perfectly harmless if watched and destroyed before it has time to grow, but let it take root in fertile soil and get a start, and it will surely yield many more thistles and continue to increase long after the plant itself is forgotten."

While Edwin was speaking, his mother seemed to realize something of the meaning of his words. The time to undo many of the wrongs that she had done the growing boys when they were under her care had gone; but had she known it, there was still a chance to help poor Edwin, who, through observation, had discovered some deep and mysterious truths.

He had found that there is nothing certain upon the earth except that everything must have a beginning and an ending, and that old age and death are unavoidable. The stories of ghosts and superst.i.tious sayings had opened up avenues for thought, and he reasoned that if everything must die, and if there is a heaven and a h.e.l.l, and if G.o.d knows all we do and say, there must be some way for a person to know in which of these places he will live after he is dead.

For a long time the thought had troubled him, but although he had asked many people regarding the matter, no one had explained it to his satisfaction. Taking note of his mother's friendly att.i.tude toward him, he ventured to ask if she could give him any information on the subject, but her answer was: "We can not know these things until after we are dead. We must wait and see."

As Edwin left his mother's home to return to the place where he had been working, he was more perplexed than ever; but he had decided that since the good place and the bad had been made for a purpose and since the good and the bad must inhabit their own proper places, he would not cease trying to solve the problem until he proved that it was an impossibility to do so.

Poor Edwin! Could some one have read to him from the Bible--but no! Had he listened, he could not have understood; he had no way of knowing that it was G.o.d's word to man.

"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city" (Rev.

22:14).

CHAPTER XI

SEARCHING FOR LIGHT

The inquiring spirit will not be controlled; He would make certain all, and all behold.

--Sprague.

At the age of twenty-one Edwin had formed one bad habit. Having had n.o.body to tell him that the use of tobacco was harmful to his body and seeing it used as commonly as a food by nearly all, regardless of age or s.e.x, he had learned both to smoke and to chew. By the permission of the farmers for whom he had worked, he had raised a few tobacco-plants for himself, and the leaves of these plants, when carefully dried, were what he used as smoking-tobacco, but the cigars and chewing-tobacco he purchased at the store.

But although Edwin had never heard that tobacco was in any way unfit for the use of man, something within him seemed to suggest that there were some things about its use that were filthy and unclean. One thing that he abhorred was the chewing of tobacco in the house, because he pitied the women who were forced to look after and clean the spittoons. When in the house in the evening or on Sunday he considered smoking his pipe or cigars more appropriate, and he had supplied himself with special mouth-pieces for his cigars and convenient cases in which to carry them in his pockets. He did his chewing when at his work in the field. He also felt that it was placing his employer's property in too much danger to smoke when about his work in the barn, and this he always avoided. Thus, the same principle that had governed his earlier years was still his ruling trait.

Although for so many months Edwin had been seeking carefully and often with tears for some clue to the mystery connected with the hereafter, he had as yet found no one who could inform him on the subject; for those whom he considered the best people living were as uncertain concerning the future reward as the most vile. But from information gleaned he felt that there must be a place somewhere beyond the grave where the good and the bad would live again. When reasoning about the matter, he would say, "Now, if I am on the road to heaven, how am I to know if I get off that road and take a branch that will land me in h.e.l.l?"

The thought of his own good behavior and abhorrence of all that he considered evil did not suggest to his mind that for this reason he might be the more ent.i.tled to enter the better place, for all his actions had been prompted by a sense of justice and his duty toward his fellow men.

Having become acquainted with a young married couple named Frank and Amanda Kauffman, Edwin went often to their home to pour out his troubles and perplexities. But although these people tried hard to help him, their efforts often plunged him into greater doubts and confusion. Whenever he went to them or to any one else with his question, it seemed that the answer was still the same: "No one can know about these things. We must all wait and see." Still he was not discouraged. Instead he was more than ever determined to keep on trying until he did find out.

Had Edwin been able to reason about the drunkard, the thief, or the liar, as not being fit for the good place, it might have been different, but to him the evils with which they were bound were a matter of choice. He had never heard the story of Adam and Eve, and so did not know that their first sin had severed not only them but also the entire human race from G.o.d's family (Rom. 5:19). Had he known that it is impossible for any one to know G.o.d or to enter the better world without first realizing that he is already condemned and on the road to destruction, and that the only way to be transferred to the highway leading to heaven is to be forgiven and adopted back into the family of G.o.d as a redeemed child, it would not have been so hard for him to understand upon which road he was traveling.

It was springtime, and as the days grew warm and bright, the tiny gra.s.s-blades in the meadowlands made their appearance. Then it was that the farmer for whom Edwin was working realized that it was time to gather the stones that were scattered here and there throughout the meadow into piles that they might be hauled away before they became lost in the soft, velvety carpet of green; for should they be left where they were, later on the knives of the mowing-machine and the teeth of the hay-rake would be badly damaged and perhaps broken. Edwin was told, therefore, that his work for a time would be to gather all the stones, both large and small, into heaps in systematic order so that they could be easily hauled away by the team in the large farm-wagon.

As THe field was large and level, it was a pleasant place to work, and Edwin, having plenty of time to think, confined his thoughts princ.i.p.ally to the things that were uppermost in his mind. He reasoned thus:

"Now, if a man must walk every step of the way through life in uncertainty and doubt as to what the end will be, and has such a short time to stay in this world how miserable THe remainder of my life will be! If only I could do something whereby I could know surely that I would at the last have my desire, I would be so glad! Still," he reasoned on, "there must be some way to know these things, and I will not stop trying to find out just what it is. It's altogether unreasonable to believe that we can not know until after we die about these things. G.o.d surely has some way to let us understand; for if he didn't what would there be to hinder every person on earth from going to h.e.l.l? Surely G.o.d wants some of the people to go to the other place."

His belief that some were surely on their way to heaven was firm, and he felt that those few must not be in doubt as to where they were going, and that G.o.d must in some way let them know how to live in order to keep on the right road, and also that their lives must be peaceful and happy. But he felt that some great change would have to take place in one's life before this a.s.surance could come.

Thus, G.o.d again, when all men failed him, became Edwin's teacher, for these thoughts were in accordance with the Bible, and in wisdom and love his heavenly Father helped him to comprehend the very principles of a true Christian life. The truths he thus learned were so deeply stamped upon his mind with the divine seal that they could never be erased. Still within his heart there was another question that had not been answered: "How can I get this a.s.surance within my own heart?" Nothing could ever bring satisfaction until he knew without a doubt that he was going aright, and nothing but facts would ever dispel his doubts.

"G.o.d," he reasoned, "is the only one who knows, and the only way for me to understand is for G.o.d to let me know just what he thinks about me. G.o.d will not deal with me according to what the people may think of me, or by what they may say. Some say that I am all right now; but if I were all right, I should be the first to know it, and I do not feel that I am fit now for heaven if I should die."

The knowledge that he had always tried to do the best that he could and that he had endeavored to treat every creature living as fairly as he knew how was not enough to satisfy him, and he said: "There is something still of which I have never heard or dreamed. If only I could find out what it is or by what means I could get it, how glad I should be! Can it be that I must die before I know what it is?"

"Shall not G.o.d search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart"

(Psa. 44:21).

CHAPTER XII

A REVELATION ON ETERNITY

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

--Longfellow.

While Edwin was still laboring among the stones in the field of gra.s.s, this thought came suddenly to his mind:

"If I should be so unfortunate as to die before I receive the a.s.surance that I am going to heaven and I should happen to find myself in h.e.l.l, how long would I have to be there? And how hot would be that fire that I have heard so much about from profane tongues? Would there be any ending or wearing away of eternity? and would the suffering after a while be less severe? or would it go right on just the same forever and ever?"

As his desire to know these things increased, he was willing to lay aside his thoughts concerning how he was to get the a.s.surance that he was going to heaven, and as he pa.s.sed from one heap of stones to another, he became sorely troubled. He longed for a friend to whom he could go for help, but no one was suggested to his mind. Even his friend Frank Kauffman, he was sure, could not enlighten him; for to none of the questions he already asked upon these subjects had he received satisfactory answers.

Then suddenly, as though he had pa.s.sed into the great beyond, everything about him appeared to be changed. He seemed to have died and pa.s.sed into h.e.l.l, and the flames, as they rose in imagination about him, were penetrating every fiber of his being, and he cried out in his distress. But as though the vision had been only to teach him of the reality of that place of torment, Edwin felt himself caught up, as it were, and he was seemingly suspended in an endless s.p.a.ce with the eternal realities of life opened up for him to view. For miles and miles nothing but s.p.a.ce appeared to stretch before, above, and around him, with the glaring flames that he had just left but a short distance behind him.

Then the scene was changed, and he saw before him a great and high mountain of sand, and the thought of the impossibility of counting the grains was suggested to his mind. Again the scene changed, and each grain in the mountain seemed to be a year, and the grains as years began to form themselves into one continuous straight line, so long that the distance could not be measured by the human eye, for there was no end. Once more there was a change. The line of years took the form of a great measuring-rod, and strength was given Edwin to grasp the rod and to try to measure the duration of h.e.l.l-fire; and he tried to see if in eternity there could be any possible way of forgetting the past. Twice with the immense rod he measured into the sea of Forgetfulness, but before the third measurement was taken, he saw from a backward glance that h.e.l.l was no farther away from him than it had been at the first. In great distress Edwin dropped the rod, and the vision pa.s.sed away.

When he realized that he was still in the field of gra.s.s and was on time's side of eternity, he was very glad indeed. Through the vision he was convinced of two things--that h.e.l.l and its torments were certain, and that eternity was without end--and he was filled with a new determination and zeal to do everything in his power to obtain an a.s.surance within himself that he was really on the road to the better world.

How sad that Edwin could not have gone directly to Jesus as some did in olden time and have heard him explain that to enter heaven one must be born again.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of G.o.d." (John 3:8,3).

CHAPTER XIII

PUZZLED ABOUT PRAYER

Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels, And all is holy where devotion kneels.

--Holmes.