Robert Hardy's Seven Days: A Dream and Its Consequences — John Shaqi
Robert Hardy's Seven Days: A Dream and Its ConsequencesSheldon, Charles M.
Religion
Robert Hardy's Seven Days: A Dream and Its Consequences
Sheldon, Charles M.
Christian fiction
It seemed to him that he stepped at once from the room where he lay
into a place such as he had never seen before, where the one great idea
that filled his entire thought was that of the Present Moment. Spread
out before him as if reproduced by a phonograph and a magic lantern
combined was the moving panorama of the entire world. He thought he
saw into every home, every public place of business, every saloon and
place of amusement, every shop and every farm, every place of industry,
pleasure, and vice upon the face of the globe. And he thought he could
hear the world's conversation, catch its sobs of suffering--nay, even
catch the meaning of unspoken thoughts of the heart. With that absurd
rapidity peculiar to certain dreams, he fancied that over every city on
the globe was placed a glass cover through which he could look, and
through which the sounds of the city's industry came to him. But he
thought that he ascertained that by lifting off one of these covers he
could hear with greater distinctness the thoughts of the inhabitants,
and see all they were doing and suffering, with the most minute
exactness. He looked for the place of his own town--Barton. There it
lay in its geographical spot on the globe, and he thought that, moved
by an impulse he could not resist, he lifted off the cover and bent
down to see and hear.
The first thing he saw was his minister's home. It was just after the
Sunday evening service, the one which Mr. Hardy had thought so dull.
Mr. Jones was talking over the evening with his wife.
"My dear," he said, "I feel about discouraged. Of what use is all our
praying and longing for the Holy Spirit, when our own church members
are so cold and unspiritual that all His influence is destroyed? You
know I made a special plea to all the members to come out to-night, yet
only a handful were there. I feel like giving up the struggle. You
know I could make a better living in literary work, and the children
could be better cared for then."
"But, John, it was a bad night to get out: you must remember that."
"But only fifty out of a church membership of four hundred, most of
them living near by! It doesn't seem just right to me."
"Mr. Hardy was there. Did you see him?"
"Yes; after service I went and spoke to him, and he treated me very
coldly. And yet he is the most wealthy, and in some ways the most
gifted, church member we have. He could do great things for the good
of this community, if"--
Suddenly Mr. Hardy thought the minister changed into the Sunday-school
superintendent, and he was walking down the street thinking about his
classes in the school, and Mr. Hardy thought he could hear the
superintendent's thoughts, as if his ear were at a phonograph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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