Since he had returned to college and things of life had become more
real, Reason had returned to her throne and was crying out against his
"fancies." What was that experience in the hospital but the phantasy of
a sick brain? What was the Presence but a fevered imagination? He had
been growing ashamed of dwelling upon the thought, ashamed of liking to
feel that the Presence was near when he was falling asleep at night.
Most of all he had felt a shame and a land of perplexity in the
biblical-literature class where he faced "FACTS" as the professor called
them, spoken in capitals. SCIENCE was another force which
mocked his fancies. PHILOSOPHY cooled his mind and wakened him
from his dreams. In this atmosphere he was beginning to think that he
had been delirious, and was gradually returning to his normal state,
albeit with a restless dissatisfaction he had never known before.
But now in this calm, rose-decked room, with the quiet eyes of the
simple mother looking down upon him, the resolutions in their
chaplet-of-palm framing, the age-old Bible thumbed and beloved, he knew
he had been wrong. He knew he would never be the same. That Presence,
Whoever, Whatever it was, had entered into his life. He could never
forget it; never be convinced that it was not; never be entirely
satisfied without it! He believed it was the Christ! Stephen Marshall's
Christ!
By and by he lifted up his head and opened the little worn Bible,
reverently, curiously, just to touch it and think how the other boy had
done. The soft, much-turned leaves fell open of themselves to a heavily
marked verse. There were many marked verses all through the book.
Courtland's eyes followed the words:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in
himself.
Could it be that this strange new sense of the Presence was "the
witness" here mentioned? He knew it like his sense of rhythm, or the
look of his mother's face, or the joy of a summer morning. It was not
anything he could analyze. One might argue that there was no such thing,
science might prove there was not, but he _knew_ it, had _seen_ it,
_felt_ it! He had the witness in himself. Was that what it meant?
With troubled brow he turned over the leaves again:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God.
Ah! There was an offer, why not close with it?
He dropped his head on the open book with the old words of
self-surrender:
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
A moment later Pat McCluny opened the door, cautiously, quietly; then,
with a nod to Tennelly back of him, he entered with confidence.
Courtland rose. His face was white, but there was a light of something
in his eyes they did not understand.
They went over to him as if he had been a child who had been lost and
was found on some perilous height and needing to be coaxed gently away
from it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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