Chapter 13

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

IT was in the waning afternoon that Gilderman let himself into the house. He looked about him. The hall servant was not there, and Gilderman began stripping off his own overcoat. He felt an unusual irritation that the man should at this time be neglecting his duties. He wondered where his wife was; the house appeared to be strangely silent. There was a lot of letters lying upon the tray on the hall table. Why had the man left them there instead of taking them up to the study? He gathered up the packet and began shifting the letters over. There were two from the capital and one from the Western metropolis. There was one from Rome�that must be from Kitty Van Tassle.

Suddenly Mrs. Caiaphas came out from the dining-room. Gilderman had not expected to see her. Then instantly he saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and her face was tremulous. "Oh, Henry," she cried out, "where have you been? We have been sending everywhere for you." She came quickly forward as she spoke and caught him by the hands, holding them strenuously, almost convulsively.

Gilderman stood as though turned to stone; the silence of the house had become suddenly leaden. His wife! What had happened? He stood still, holding the packet of letters unthinkingly in his hand. "What is it, mother?" he said, forcing himself to speak.

"Oh, Henry," said Mrs. Caiaphas, "do you know that you are a father? It is a little son. But poor, poor Florence. It was terrible!"

"And she?" said Gilderman. He dared hardly whisper the words.

"She is well. She has been asking for you all the while."

Gilderman's heart leaped with a sudden poignant relief that was almost an agony. The time had come�had passed, and all was well; but to think that he should have been away at such a time! His mind flew back to what he had seen and done that day, and now he suddenly saw, as in a clear light, how mad had been the folly that had led him away from home at such a time and for such a purpose. Again he told himself that he would certainly go crazy if he tampered any more with such monstrous things, and once more he registered a vow that he would never again make such a fool of himself. Oh, what a fool he had been! He had crossed the hallway with Mrs. Caiaphas and they were going up the stairs together. "Where have you been, Henry?" she said.

"Oh, I was called out of town unexpectedly," he replied.

Dr. Willington was drinking a glass of Maderia in the anteroom at the head of the stairs. There was a crumbled biscuit upon a plate on the table. The doctor turned to Gilderman with a beaming face. He reached out his hand, and Gilderman took it and pressed it almost convulsively. As he was about to loosen his hand he caught it again and pressed it, almost clinging to it. The doctor laughed.

"May I see her?" said Gilderman.

Again Dr. Willington laughed. "Not just yet," he said; "the nurse is with her now. You may see her presently."

Gilderman heard a sharp, piping wail somewhere in the distance. It was the voice of a newborn child. Mrs. Caiaphas had left him, going into the room beyond with the doctor, and he was left alone. He looked down and saw that he still held the packet of letters, and then again he ran them over. The Roman letter was for his wife. As he stood there he heard the bishop's voice down in the hall. At the same moment Mrs. Caiaphas came out of the room again. She was followed by the nurse. "You may go in now, Henry, and see her," she said. The white-capped, white-aproned nurse stood at the door. She was strange to Gilderman, but she smiled pleasantly at him, and he bowed to her as he entered.

The room, partly darkened, was singularly quiet, singularly in order. It had a look as though no one was there. Then Gilderman saw his wife. The coverlet was spread smoothly over her, and her arms were lying passively upon it, the hands still and inert. Her eyes were turned towards him and she was smiling. There was a bundle lying on the bed beside her and a murmur came from it. Gilderman walked silently across the room. He knelt down beside the bed and took her hand in his and kissed it. Then he leaned over and kissed the soft lips. The assistant nurse, who had been standing silently with folded hands beside the window, passed noiselessly out of the room.

"We have been sending everywhere for you," the invalid said, in a low, weak voice. "I wanted you�oh, so much, but now I am glad you were not here."

Gilderman did not reply; again his mind flew back to what he had seen that afternoon and the day before, but now it did not cling to it but left it instantly. This was the only reality, this was his life�the other was not. He was still kneeling beside the bed holding her hand.

Mrs. Gilderman reached out the other hand and softly raised the silk wrapping of the bundle beside her. Gilderman saw the strange, congested, shapeless little face, but it did not arouse any distinct emotion in him.

The next morning Gilderman awakened very early, but with a sweet and tepid sense of renewed nervous vitality. Even before he was awake he felt the keen straining of a great delight and joy, and almost instantly he realized what it was. Everything seemed illuminated with the light of that joy. He lay in bed motionless, listening to the distant sounds of the noises of the street�not moving, but just living. The day was very bright and the sun was already shining aslant in at the windows of the dressing-room beyond. A son; his very own. His bosom filled full of joy as he lay there sunk in its delight. Then he began to think about it. He seemed to look down through a long perspective of years to come in which the child grew to boyhood, the boy to manhood, and into all the glory of life and wealth and happiness. He saw him at college�a fine, dashing fellow, a popular hero. Then it suddenly came to him to wonder�what if the child grew up differently from that�a poor, puny lad, for instance�or, worse, if he grew up vicious or unruly? And then there was the possibility of death�always the looming possibility of death. He tore his mind away from these vague discomforts and drifted back again into the illumination of that first awakening joy. Suddenly the thought of the Man whom he had seen the day before intruded itself into his balmy meditations. He thrust it quickly away from him and it was gone, leaving only a shadowy spot of lingering darkness; once more the joy was there. His wife had admired that necklace down at Brock's. He would go down that morning and get it. He would have that big ruby added to it as a pendant; the colors would be beautiful. It was a magnificent set of stones, and it would make a fine family piece to be handed down to future generations. He laid a plan that he would put the necklace into a bon-bon box. He would give it to Florence and she would say, "But, my dear boy, I can't eat bon-bons." Then she would open the box and find the necklace. What a beautiful morning it was out-of-doors. It seemed to him that he had never felt so happy in all his life. He raised himself upon his elbow and pushed aside the curtains and looked at the clock. It was not yet eight o'clock, but he felt that he could not sleep any more. He was restless to get up and enter into this new joy of his life, and most of all he wanted to go down to Brock's and buy that necklace.

He arose without ringing for his man and began dressing himself. He did not know where the man kept his clothes. He opened one drawer after another, finding his garments piece by piece. It seemed very droll that he should not know where his own clothes were. He laughed; he was very elated; he was very foolish. He did not even know where his bath-towels were. As soon as he was dressed he went across to his wife's room. He stood there at the door for a long time. There was no sound. While he stood there the adjoining door of the dressing-room opened and the nurse came out swiftly and silently. She smiled at him.

"How is Mrs. Gilderman?" he said, whispering.

"She's asleep," whispered the nurse, in answer.

Then he went down-stairs into the library. Everything was unprepared for his coming. The morning newspapers lay in a pile upon the table. He gathered them up and went out into his study, and there settled himself comfortably in his great leather chair by the window that looked out across the street to the leafless vistas of the park beyond. How happy he was! Then he opened the papers and tried to read, and recognized delightfully that he could not detach himself from the joy that possessed him. He was unable to follow the printed words.

Suddenly his man came into the room. He started when he saw Gilderman. "I didn't know you were up yet, Mr. Gilderman," he said. "You didn't ring for me."

Gilderman burst out laughing. "No," he said, "it was very early, and it wasn't worth while. I couldn't sleep, and so I just got up."

"Is there anything that I can do, if you please, sir?"

"Nothing, except to fetch me a cup of coffee," said Gilderman. "I'll not get shaved now until I dress again after breakfast."

The man lingered for an instant to arrange something on the table and then went out of the room.

Gilderman ate his breakfast alone. As soon as he had finished he went up-stairs again. The door of his wife's room was open, and the nurse came to tell him that he might come in. Her morning toilet was over; her face looked singularly sweet and pure and cool lying in the half shade of the pillow. She welcomed him with a smile. As Gilderman came up to the bedside, she softly opened the cover that hid the child's face. Gilderman bent over and looked at it. Again he wondered that he should be no more sensible to the fact of paternity. The joy was there, but it did not seem to attach itself to its object. He kissed his wife, and then sat down in a chair beside the bed. She held his hand. The only piece of jewelry he wore was a plain gold ring upon his little finger. She had a habit of turning this ring around and around upon the finger, and she did so now. "Where were you yesterday, Henry?" she said, after a while. "Oh, I did so long for you. I kept calling for you all the time. Afterwards I was glad you weren't here. But where were you? They sent everywhere for you�to the club and up to the riding-school, and they even telegraphed out to De Witt's."

Gilderman leaned very tenderly over her. His heart filled at the soft touch of her hand upon his. Then he suddenly determined to tell her all.

"I went out to Brookfield," he said. And then, without giving himself time to draw back from his determination, he continued: "The fact is, Florence, I didn't want to trouble you about it lately, and so I didn't say anything about it, but�er�the fact is, I have become extremely interested in the doings of that Man whom people are talking so much about, and I went to Brookfield to see Him."

"Oh, Henry!" exclaimed Mrs. Gilderman.

"Yes. I dare say you think it is foolish. I think it was foolish myself now; but I was led into it all. Day before yesterday I was down at Brookfield with the De Witts, you know. Well, while I was there I was curious to see Him. I saw Him do something; I could not get away from it, and I kept thinking about it all the time."

"Was that what made you so strange and absent?"

"Yes."

"What was it you saw?"

Then he told her about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. She listened in silence. After he was done she lay still and silent for a moment or two. "Oh, Henry," she said, "how perfectly horrid! Isn't it dreadful! I don't see how you could bear to see it. I don't see why He's allowed to do such things. You don't really think He did bring a dead man back to life, do you?"

Gilderman was silent for a moment or two. "No," he said, "of course I couldn't believe such a thing as that. But I can't understand it at all. There were things about it I can't fathom at all. It was very terrible. I don't see how it could have been a trick."

"But you don't believe any man could bring another man back to life after he had been dead four days, do you?"

Gilderman did not reply. He did not know what to reply. "No," said he, helplessly, "I don't."

"And did you see Him yesterday?" she said.

"Yes, I did."

"And did He do anything more?"

"No; I only spoke to Him and He spoke to me."

"What did He speak to you about?"

Again Gilderman thought. It all seemed to him now very foolish and very remote. He felt ashamed to tell her. He laughed. "I dare say you'll think me awfully ridiculous, Florence," he said. "Well, I'll tell you all about it." And so he did.

She listened to him without saying a word until he ended. Then she pressed his hand. "Dear Henry," she said, smiling faintly, "you are so enthusiastic and so impulsive. And then you're so given to thinking about such things as this. But you oughtn't to let yourself be so led away." And then, after a moment of silent thinking, she said: "Of course you don't believe any such thing as that, do you? You don't believe that a man ought really to give away everything he has?"

"Why, no," said Gilderman, "I don't think that. Indeed, I know a man shouldn't give away everything that belongs to him." And then he added: "For the matter of that, I couldn't give away everything I have, even if I wanted to do so."

Mrs. Gilderman lay thinking for a while. "You don't think anybody saw you down there, do you?"

"Why, no," said Gilderman; "at least, I think not."

"It would be dreadful, you know, if anybody knew what you had been doing. Just think how everybody would talk and laugh. You oughtn't to give way to your impulses as you do, Henry. Some time you'll get into trouble by it."

"Oh, I'm sure nobody saw me," said Gilderman, and then he was uncomfortably silent. It would, indeed, be very disagreeable to be guyed about such a thing.

"I want you to promise something, Henry," said Mrs. Gilderman, suddenly.

"What is it?" said Gilderman.

"I want you to promise that you'll never undertake to do as that Man told you�to sell all that you have and give it to the poor."

Gilderman laughed. "I think you can set your mind at rest as to that, Florence," he said.

"But I want you to promise me�think of Reginald."

Reginald, by-the-way, was the name into which the baby had been born. It was the name of Gilderman's baby brother, who had died almost in infancy and whom he could just remember. "Very well, my dear," said Gilderman, "I promise."

"We must think always of little Reginald now," said Mrs. Gilderman; "we must remember that all we have is in trust for him. I want you to promise me, dear, because I don't want you to do anything rash. You are so impulsive�you poor, dear boy."

Gilderman laughed. "Very well, my dear," he said; "I promise you faithfully that I won't try to sell a cent's worth, nor give away a dime to the poor more than I have to."

Just then the nurse came in to say that Mrs. Caiaphas was down-stairs.

"Go down and see her, Henry, won't you?" said Mrs. Gilderman, and Gilderman went, though reluctantly.

Gilderman made another confidant during the day. He was led rather inadvertently into doing so. It was Stirling West. There had been many visitors in the morning, and West had come around from the club a little before noon to congratulate his friend. The two were sitting together comfortably in the library smoking and looking out into the street. The newspapers lay in a pile upon the floor, and upon the uppermost sheet was a big pen-and-ink portrait of the Man of whom so many were now talking. West pointed to it and made some comment upon it. Gilderman looked down at the paper through the blue mist of tobacco smoke. "It doesn't look at all like Him," said he.

"Doesn't it?" said West, and then he suddenly looked up at Gilderman. "Eh!" said he, "by Jove! How do you know it doesn't look like Him? Did you ever see Him?"

Gilderman had spoken without thinking. His first impulse was to equivocate, but he did not. It was easier to tell about it now that he had already spoken of it to his wife. He made a sudden determination to take West into his confidence and see what he said about it all. "Yes," he said, "I have seen Him."

"The deuce you say! When did you see Him?"

"Not long ago. Yesterday and day before yesterday."

"Where?"

And Gilderman told him.

"The deuce you did! Well! Well! Well! You've kept yourself mighty close about it."

"I didn't want to tell about it," said Gilderman.

"Why not?" said West.

Gilderman considered for just one lingering moment. "Look here, Stirling," he said, suddenly, "I'll tell you about it, if you'll promise not to say anything about it to the other fellows."

"All right," said West. "I'll promise."

"The fact is," said Gilderman, "I let it out a moment ago without thinking what I was saying. I'm afraid I've been making rather a fool of myself, Stirling. You know I've been always more or less interested in that sort of thing. (West nodded his head.) Well, I went down to Brookfield with the De Witts to see their new house. While I was there I hunted up this Man, who was in the neighborhood at the time. I saw Him bring that other man back to life," he added.

"By Jove!" commented West; "the mischief you did!" He smoked a little while in silence. "But the newspapers say it was all a fake," he said, presently.

"It wasn't a fake," said Gilderman. "I don't know what it was, but I don't believe it was a fake. It was a horrible thing. I can't make head nor tail of it even yet."

Then, in a more consecutive way, he told West all about what he had seen. West listened in silence, and for the third time he commented "By Jove!" when Gilderman had ended. He paused for a moment and then said, "And you saw all that, did you?"

Gilderman nodded his head. He did not say anything about his having seen the Man again�of having searched for Him for that special purpose, and he suddenly determined that he would not do so. "I don't want you to say anything about all this," he said; "I feel as though I had been making an ass of myself."

"Well, I don't know about that," said West. "That's putting it rather strong. You were always fond of that sort of thing, and everybody knows that that's your peculiar lay. I don't see what you like about it, for my part, nor why you want to go hunting around in the cemeteries that way."

"Well, I have had a dose of it this time," said Gilderman, "and I don't think I shall ever tamper with that sort of thing again."

Stirling West puffed out a cloud of smoke and said nothing further.

AN INTERLUDE

WHEN a man conceives within his own mind an image of God with the intent to worship it, he does not, in worshipping it, really worship a God who is alive; he does not worship a God who made him and all mankind. That which he worships is only an image of God which he himself has created.

Let any man think of this fact for a little moment and he will see that it is true.

Suppose, for an instance, that, instead of an idea of God, you form in your mind an idea, say, of Cromwell, or of Washington, or of Napoleon, or of Lincoln. Is it not perfectly clear that that image is not the real living Cromwell, Washington, Napoleon, Lincoln, but only a mental picture of one of those men? You may cause that image�that mental picture�to seem to move and to speak and to assume different aspects; you may cause it apparently to will and to act, but it is not the real hero-man who so moves and speaks, wills and acts. It is only an imaginary speech and action of an imagined hero.

The real man is exactly a different thing. He is of real flesh and blood, and his speech and action depend upon his own volition and not upon your imagination. You may, if you choose, decorate the image in your mind with the laurel wreath of hero-worship, and you may cause the most noble and exalted thoughts to seem to pass through the imagined hero's mind. But it is not the living man whom you crown, nor do those thoughts really pass through the brain of the living man. That which you crown is only your own idea�your own created image of the man; and the thoughts which seem to pass through his mind are, in reality, only your own thoughts which you cause to pass through your own mind.

So it is exactly with the worship of God.

For let the mind form ever so exalted an image of God, that image is, after all, only the creation of the mind; it is only a dead thing, and not the living fact.

When a man prays to such an image of God, he prays not to the actual living Heavenly Father who created him, but to an image of God which he himself has created.

For that image of God is no more really alive than the imagined hero is really a living man.

And as it is in the case of an imagined hero, so it is with that image of God. For let that image seem to move and to act ever so gigantically, it is, after all, only an idea in your own mind�a thing thinner and more unsubstantial than the thinnest ether�a thought without any real potency or any real life.

The actual and living God is exactly and perfectly different from such an ideal image. He is infinite, the idea in the mind is definite; He is omnipotent, the idea in the mind is impotent to create so much as a single grain of dust; He is omniscient, the idea in the mind knows nothing and thinks nothing excepting such knowledges and thoughts that the man's imagination is pleased to place within its empty skull. He, the Ancient of Days, exists forever and forever; the idea in the mind continues to live only so long as we kneel to pray, and it vanishes instantly we arise from our knees and go about our earthly business. He is the fountain-head of all human intelligence, and has Himself created the rationality of man; that idea of Him�it crumbles and dissolves away before a five-minute argument with any clever sceptic or agnostic who chooses to assault it with the hard, round stones of reasoning and of fact. He, the Heavenly Father, is the fountain of all life; that idea of Him�what power has it to give life to anything? Can it�such an ethereal nothing, the creation of the mind itself�lift up the soul into a resurrection of life when the body of flesh shall grow cold and die? Can it illuminate that black and empty abyss of death with any radiance of life? What power has it to turn aside those floods of doubt which, now and then, bursting their bonds, sweep down upon and overflow the soul, drowning out even the faint little spark of hope which we all so carefully cherish. That image, like the image of the man-hero, is dead and impotent excepting as the man's own imagination makes it living and potential. Pray to your imaginary God in such times of black terror, and see how little that empty image can help and aid you. It is as powerless to save you from that flood of doubt as the African's fetich of wood is impotent to save him from the deluge of water that bursts upon and overflows the world about him. When that black and awful torrent�the fear of annihilation�sweeps down upon the man, it, the image, is torn away from his grasp like a dead fragment of wood and is swept away and gone, leaving him to struggle alone and unaided in the overwhelming flood.

And yet man continues to worship this dead, self-created image. He says that God has this imagined attribute and that imagined attribute; that He thinks and feels thus and so, and does this and the other thing, now being angry and now pleased. But, after all, these things belong only to the image in the mind. What God really thinks and feels and intends is beyond the understanding of the man whom He has created.

Why does man worship an image instead of the reality? It is easy to see why he does so. He worships that image, because in worshipping it he worships himself, it being a part of himself. He loves that image because he himself has made it, and because he loves all the things of his own creation. He is willing to do the supposed mandates of that self-created fetich (provided they are not too difficult of performance), because those mandates spring fundamentally from his own imagination, and because he likes to do as he himself wills to do.

Just so we worship, not the real Christ, but an imagined Christ that is not alive.

Christ entered into the city upon Palm Sunday.

This is the way we love to imagine that vast and tremendous fact�the final entrance of divinely human truth into the citadel of life.

We love to think of Him as a white-robed, majestic figure crowned with glory, with smooth hair and shining face�mild, benignant, exalted. We love to picture to ourselves how young men and maidens and little children ran before His coming and spread their garments or fragrant branches of trees in His triumphal way, shouting with multitudinous cadence, "Hosannah in the highest!" How splendid it is to think thus of the King of Glory coming into His city of holiness. Thus imagined, it is a grand and beautiful picture, and we wonder how those scribes and pharisees, those priests and Levites, blinded with their own wickedness, should not have seen the splendor of it all�should have denied and crucified One who came thus gloriously into their city.

But in so depicting that divine coming we bow in submission, not to the living fact, but to a picture of that fact which we ourselves have created in the imagination. That is how we would have liked to see the Messiah of Jehovah-God come into His glory. That is how we would have arranged it if we had had the shaping of events, and we can bow before that image easily enough. But, alas! for us it is not the way in which He really comes. For God does not shape His events as we would have them shaped; He shapes them exactly different.

Read for yourself the truth as it stands written in the Divine Word of Jehovah-God, and then ask your own heart whether you would not have rejected Him as the scribes and pharisees of that day rejected Him.

For in the actuality of fact there could have been and there was no such glory of coming. That which the intelligent, thoughtful men of that day saw was, apparently, a common man, a journeyman carpenter, travel-stained, weary, footsore, riding upon a shaggy little ass, surrounded by a knot of rough fishermen and followed by a turbulent multitude gathered from the highways and the byways. For He had chosen for His associates, not the good and the virtuous, the reputable and the law-abiding citizen; He had chosen the harlot, the publican, the sinner, the outcast. For He proclaimed with His own lips that He was the Saviour of the sinners and not of the righteous. Read for yourself of the multitude that followed Him! How they stripped the clothes from their backs to throw in His path; how they rent and tore the branches from the trees, mutilating and dismembering God's created, shady things, they knew not why. That mob believed that He was coming to overthrow existing law and order, so that the rich and the powerful might be cast down, and that they, the poor and the destitute, might be set up in their stead. They believed (for He had demonstrated it to them) that He possessed a supernatural power to perform miracles, and that He could and would use that power to overturn existing order. For did He Himself not say with His own very lips that He could overturn the Temple of the Lord and could build it up again in three days. Such was the ignorant mob that shouted and raved when He entered the city riding on an ass. They expected to see something supernatural done, and, when He showed no miracles, they presently, in a day or two, turned against Him like wild beasts and gave Him over to mortal agony and death. Such as that was the crowd that really followed Him, and it was not beautiful and exalted.

There the story stands written in the Book of Books�a Gospel so divine that every single word�yea, every jot and tittle written within it�is holy. There it stands terrible and stern for us scribes and pharisees of intelligent respectability to read. We cannot accept it in its reality; for even now we would deny it as we, scribes and pharisees, priests and Levites, did of old. For, alas! we cannot accept Him in His reality.

We pharisees of old preferred to see their Messiah come according to their idea of order and of righteousness, and when He did not come thus, we could not acknowledge Him. We of to-day build up a beautiful picture of Him, but, in reality, we would deny and revile the living fact as we did before. It could not be otherwise, for God has made us as we are.

You of to-day ought not to blame us because we were afraid when we beheld that Christ of publicans and sinners bursting into our Temple, and, with fury in His voice and in His aspect, thrash those who sat there upon business doing no harm. What wonder when we heard Him say He could tear down our beautiful Temple (the fruit of so much reverential labor) and build it up again in three days�what wonder that we should have been afraid lest the mob, taking Him at His word, should rend and tear down all our sacred things with an insane fury. What wonder that Bishop Caiaphas, seeing all the terrors of violence that threatened the peace of the community, should have said: "It is better that this one Man should perish rather than all of us should die."

We scribes and pharisees�we are the bulwarks of law and order and of existing religion. Let Christ come to-day and we would crucify Him�if the law allowed us to do so�just as we scribes and pharisees did nineteen hundred years ago. For is it not better, indeed, that one man should die rather than that all existing order should be overturned, and that law and religion should perish?

Go ye down, scribes and pharisees, into the secret, hidden places of your city where the immortal and living image of God lies with its face in the dust of humility. There alone you will find the living Christ, and if you, finding Him in His rags and poverty, can truly take Him by the hand and lift Him up, then will He also raise you up into a life that shall be everlasting. For there is no other God of humanity than that poor and lowly image�no, not in heaven or on the earth or in the abyss beneath the earth.

For out of the dust of misery and of sin He lifts the lowly up and makes him new so that in a life hereafter he shall shine with a glory that is of God's creating, and not of man's.

He who has ears to hear let him hear, let him hear; only God be merciful to us poor hypocrites and sinners, who deny His living presence. Happy, indeed, is it for us that His mercy is infinite and endures forever, else we would perish in our own pride of lawfulness and virtue, and be forever lost to any hope of salvation.