Peradventure; or, The Silence of GodKeable, Robert
Religion
Peradventure; or, The Silence of God
Keable, Robert
Church of England -- Fiction; Religion -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
"That was not all He said," said Childers gravely.
And Paul, stricken by a host of texts, sat on very still.
"Do you yourself find God?" he asked at last.
"He is very far above us," replied Childers. "It is scarcely a
question of God."
"'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,'" returned the boy
eagerly.
"And what precisely does that mean?" asked Childers, rather tenderly.
Paul leapt to his feet. "Ah, what!" he cried. "I see that that's the
question. But I will not believe that God is far, Mr. Childers; He is
near, very near, in the Person of His Son."
After a moment, Childers, too, got up. He had decided not to speak.
He linked his arm in the other's affectionately. "Let us go," he said.
(3)
The month drew to its close; fair success attended the Mission; and one
day Dick and Paul said good-bye to the rest, and to a smiling, cheering
crowd of children on the station platform, setting off in the toy train
which steamed importantly by the fuchsia-hedges and the old tin mines,
to Douglas and civilisation. They were off to Keswick, for the great
Convention. Paul had long wanted to go, and was all eagerness for it.
His companion had been several times before, and, as always, was the
more steady and self-contained. At Liverpool they stayed a night with
friends, and were walking through the little Westmoreland town the
following evening.
The streets were fairly full. Clergymen in semi-clerical dress--black
coat and grey trousers, or vice versa--and moustaches abounded, but
still more, young earnest men in grey flannels and bright smiling young
women. Little parties moved up and down the street, frequently singing
or humming hymns. Fragments of hymn-tunes drifted out of open windows,
and a party leisurely rowing shorewards, were singing well in unison.
Paul began himself to sing. "'Oh that will be Glory for me,'" he
hummed, his head high, scenting the pine-woods.
"You old crow," said Dick.
"Well, if I can't sing," retorted Paul, "I can at least make a joyful
noise."
"Well, then, make it in company where it's drowned, and not alone,"
said Dick, grinning at him.
Next morning Paul did sing in company. The friends stayed at a house
taken regularly for the period of the Convention by an elderly lady,
and charitably filled with missionaries, ordinands, and young
clergymen. She called them all her "boys," and they took it in turns
to conduct family prayers. Moreover they went with her in a body
wherever she went, and, truth to tell, she was rather proud of them.
One carried her umbrella, another her Bible, a third her hymn-book, and
so on. This year two of them were coloured. Thus went Paul and Dick
to the big tent for the first morning's meeting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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