Kezia and the doctor

Contents

Chapter. Page.

I. KEZIA FLEETWOOD 5

II. DR. ARMSTRONG 12

Chapter I. Kezia Fleetwood

My name is Kezia Fleetwood, and I hope that none of my readers will be as much annoyed by it, as I have been. Even to this day, I cannot understand why I, the eldest daughter of Esquire Fleetwood, should have received such an undesirable cognomen, while my three sisters were named Laura, Helen and Alice. I have always imagined that my first name is much in fault for my last name remaining unchanged, for of four sisters, I, Kezia, am the only unmarried one. Whether my name is to blame for this or not, I have long since become reconciled to a single life.

I was always imagining something ; I had a way of letting my fancy run. I formed the habit in childhood, and I still dream on.

Perhaps there was a period in my life when I was particularly dreamy and absent-minded. When Dr. Armstrong, who had just settled in our town, seemed to pay Laura and myself an equal amount of attention, and finally chose kezia and the doctor.

Laura, I said nothing to any one ; but I often let my sewing fall into my lap while I sat staring at the wall, imagining, with silly innocence, Dr. Armstrong saying to himself, “Kezia, Kezia, my love. No, that will never do. Laura, my love. Ah ! that sounds more like it.’ 7 But before I realized that my hands were idle, my mother would say, somewhat sharply, “ Kezia, your hands are empty and you are dreaming again.” Well, it was hard enough that I had to answer to that name, and yet could not be left alone to vent my vexation upon it. Kezia Armstrong ! No, I don’t wonder the doctor did not like the sound.

That was years ago, and I have learned many things since then. Among others I have learned that husbands do not always say “ my love,” to their wives ; that they become chary of the words of endearment that fall so easily from their lips during the honey-moon. This is one reason that I am satisfied to be Kezia Fleetwood instead of being Mrs. Dr. Armstrong, or Mrs. anyone else. As a rule, I think I am better satisfied with things that have not changed than with those that have. Many things in and about my old home are changed, and I am changed too, though I still let my thoughts run on in the old way. And as I sit here day after day, I cannot but think ; and

KEZIA FLEETWOOD.

something whispers, “ W rite down your thoughts. Write how changes and sorrows and losses have affected you and your friends.”

I am known only as Miss Fleetwood now. My jet-black hair has turned white, and as I write I look, not through bright, laughing eyes, but through dim-sighted ones, helped by my gold-bowed glasses, which I must keep close at hand.

I am afraid if I do not leave the window where I am sitting I shall not tell my story in a clear and pleasing manner ; for many fond memories linger here ! Under this window my little sisters, Helen and Alice, played. Here stands the same clump of lilac trees that I loved when a girl, and the fragrance that the wind brings to me is the same too. To the left of the lilacs stands the same old maple, and in it the robins still build their nests. The summer winds sigh through it, and the winter winds moan, but even the sighs are more mournful now, because there are so few sounds to listen to. I must go and sit in the room that I still call mother’s. I can think more steadily there ; something like the calm of her own presence seems to pervade it. I feel very differently in different rooms. You may wonder that this is so, but this old home has been my world. It has less of sameness than most homes have.

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

From the back windows I look on the Catskills, on dim, dark forests, fronted with green fields smiling in the summer sunlight, or on unpretending farm houses nestling on the hill-sides. Looking upon all this, it is easy to believe that the world is young again, that the people living under the shadow of these everlasting hills are primitive in their tastes and habits. But to the front lies the busy town. The tall church spires rise before my eyes, and so does the smoke of the furnaces. The shrill whistle of the engine sounds in my ears, and omnibusses whirl by, filled with gay and fashionable people who have left their city homes to be accommodated at the mammoth hotels on the mountain. So quickly and so easily can I turn from looking on quiet, secluded nooks where a fox might make his den, to the bustling scenes of this ever changing world !

I love the rear of the house better. There my heart is less worldly, because I am led to reflect. Everything I look at makes me think. There is nothing to jar and jostle together thoughts that do not harmonize. It is good for us to have a place where we can stop and think.

Mother’s room has a different view from any I have described. It looks out on scenes that are midway between the seeming dead silence of the one, and the life and din and bustle of

KEZIA FLEETWOOD.

the other. Many of the flowers I look at were favorites and they seem to speak to me of her. This room is the pleasantest room in the house ; it was the home-room. Every house has its home-room, every home has its inner sanctuary. This room has been that to me. And although it is here that I most miss the dear absent ones till I often cry out, “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me,” it is here, too, that I have received my richest consolations. Although dear mother no longer sits here with me, looking at me through those kind, grave eyes that seemed to be the windows of her soul, I feel that she does not miss this pleasant place, nor me, her child. And I know that the absent living ones are as tenderly watched over by the great and good Father as they were at home. Beside, I am never lonely here, for the room is near the kitchen, and I can always hear Patty, my faithful housemaid at her work. Patty is one of those rare servants who become family friends as well. She seems in many ways to connect the past with the present, for she was mother’s servant as well as mine. But since it is with the past that I have to deal, it is not well to dwell longer on a description of my old home and its occupants.

I have already mentioned Dr. Armstrong, my sister Laura’s husband. Helen married Oliver

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

Williams, an earnest young minister, and they have been missionaries in China these many years. Alice married Wilfred Arthur, a young physician who had studied with Dr. Armstrong, and if he had learned nothing but a knowledge of medicine from the doctor, my story would be less sad. But Dr. Armstrong was an infidel, and like most of his kind, he sought to shake the foundations of our faith, sought to take away the soul’s hope without supplying anything else on which it could lean. I think now, that that man’s unbelief, and his persistent efforts to sow the evil seed has been the cause of our unhappiness as a family. I do not know that Laura knew the doctor’s views before her marriage. I like to think that she did not. Certain it is, that our parents did not, or he would never with their consent have come into our family. The Bible was to them, the Book of all books. Its teaching was their guide ; its promises their stay and comfort. Although they found many things hard to be understood, they were not dogmatic in their interpretation, lest they should wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. They felt that God would have us as obedient children, accept his testimony of himself ; accept his code of laws, his right to govern, and that it was their duty to be led. They knew that Paul meant this when he wrote

KEZIA FLEETWOOD.

“the just shall live by faith.” They were obliged to put trust in their fellow -mortals, and it did not seem unreasonable to trust God who has revealed himself to us as the great and loving Father of us all. Nor had God left himself without witnesses in this world, for his children are infinitely happier than those who are strangers to him. And I think with father and mother that the hardest belief to accept is unbelief, and that the hardest thing to believe about God is that he is not .

Chapter II

DR. ARMSTRONG.

Dr. Armstrong possessed a wonderful fascination which, gave him power over those he met. When with him, people were easily swayed ; but once away from him, the fallacy of his arguments was easily discerned ; so danger or safety seemed to depend on his presence and absence. It appears that the evil one chooses his emissaries very wisely. They are usually well fitted for their work, and of course the guile they use is borrowed directly from Satan himself, since he readily transforms himself “ into an angel of light.”

As I have intimated, Dr. Armstrong was very insinuating, and it was his boast that he could “ wind people around his finger.” Laura once replied, “If that is so, it places you in a very responsible position.” The doctor laughed carelessly and made no other answer. Five years afterward we had cause to remember both the warning and the laugh it provoked.

Wilfred Arthur, too, was a man of bright parts, and he was led in the wrong direction only becaue he was too proud to humble himself 12

DR. ARMSTRONG.

and accept the true and simple faith of his Christian parents. Pride blinds even our spiritual sight, else Wilfred might have seen that the Christian faith is as grand as simple, and as pure as grand. What manliness there was in believing in nothing, in recognizing no God, no hereafter, was a question that he did not pause to ask himself. Wilfully blinded, he rushed headlong into folly — worse than folly — believing anything that he might believe nothing. For, while a belief in God as a great first Cause will explain all that is otherwise inexplicable, a disbelief in him calls for numberless theories, which are held by one generation and set aside by the next, for new ones equally groundless and unsatisfactory. I often think that if I were a believer in chance, I would be crazed with apprehension and fear ! The troubles that I have passed through have been endurable only because I recognized a Father’s hand, and felt that in his own good time he would stay it. I admit that there are trials of our faith, and bitter ones, but better a tried faith than no faith. Beside, not unfrequently, trials prove great blessings, and they often strengthen the very points they seem to threaten.

But to return to Wilfred. This silly boy took great pains to parade his shameless views. We often heard of this, and we knew that he

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

was following in the wake of Dr. Armstrong when he took such trouble to deny the Lord that bought him ; and watched for opportunities to confound professing Christians who knew what they believed and why they believed, but were not gifted with argumentative powers.

Once and only once these brothers-in-law tried to talk infidelity under our roof. My father was reading the Bible, when some contemptuous remark concerning it caught his attention. He closed the book, and took off his glasses with great deliberation. We, who knew him so well, saw that he meant to have the matter settled once and for all.

“ Young men,” he said, “you offend me when, you speak in such a manner of this blessed book. For fifty years I have gone to it for guidance and comfort, and never has it failed me. If you could destroy my confidence in it and prevail upon me to hold it as lightly as you do, what would you offer me in place of it ? ”

There was no answer, and father continued, “ Would you rob an old man of a life-long hope without giving him the shadow of another? Would you take away the only lamp from a benighted traveler ? Then you are robbers, and not true men. Dr. Armstrong, I know not from what parentage you have sprung, whether or not you are sinning in the face of long years of

DR. ARMSTRONG.

religious training. But you, young man,” turning and fixing his eyes on Wilfred, “you, sir, are having a hard fight with your conscience, and are sinning against light and knowledge, I advise you to go to your gray-haired father and beg him to bow low with you and besiege the throne of grace for the forgiveness of your glaring sins.”

Turning again to Dr. Armstrong, father said, “ Tremble for the future, for there is a future, and at the judgment bar of the God whom you set at naught, the blood of this young man’s soul may be required of you. It is a fearful crime to take the life of a fellow being, but it is ten thousand times more fearful to rob the soul of eternal life. If I wonder at God’s dealings with men, it is because he does not strike down those who array themselves against him, and seek to destroy the souls for whom Christ died.”

I never before heard my father speak so sternly, and I assure you his words were felt. Even Dr. Armstrong flushed to his forehead, and Wilfred’s face was as pale as marble and nearly as fixed. Did the difference in their looks indicate a difference in their emotions, or were they both angry ? We could not tell.

Laura bent over her infant that she might hide the starting tears. But they could not be

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

hidden, they broke away and dropped from her cheek on the face of little Harry. Alice was sitting close beside mother, as was her habit ; for although she was Dr. Arthur’s wife, she never forgot that she was her mother’s baby. When she could no longer endure the conversation, she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and sobbed on her shoulder.

Mother was outwardly calm, but in her heart she wished that she had her children back under home influences. I was sorry for my sisters, but I did not regret one word of the reproof, and I could have hugged dear, grand old father for so bravely standing up for the truth.

Father put on his glasses, and resumed his reading like the Spartan he was, but he felt easier after Laura found the opportunity to say, “ Thank you, father, for your faithful words. They hurt, but some wounds must be probed if they are ever to be healed.”

The two doctors left the house as soon as they could, and when beyond hearing, Dr. Armstrong said, “ I could have out-talked the old man easily enough, but he is my wife’s father, and of course I was gentleman enough to allow him to think he had whipped.”

“ I am not so sure that you could have out-talked him. I confess I felt the force of some things he said.”

DR. ARMSTRONG.

“You did? Well, you are a great fellow 1 I thought you looked rather white. Well, well, I am ashamed of you. Afraid of the judgment day, I suppose,” he laughed.

“Your laugh is a forced one, Armstrong,” Wilfred replied, “ I say his talk was solemn and impressive. I know you felt it, you can’t cheat me.”

“ Tut, tut, man, I am as good as ever, not one bit scorched by his warnings of fire and brimstone. Laura, poor girl, felt badly, and I was sorry for her, I don’t wish to vex her. I think I don’t mind having her religious ; women make better wives for the notions they get through religion. But wait till Harry grows up, and won’t I train him to suit myself! ”

“ Perhaps you can’t ; some people are naturally religious,” said Wilfred.

“ Then I’ll get the religion out of him if I have to beat it out.”

“ Somehow I don’t enjoy your talk as usual, doctor.”

“All right, Wilfred, then I won’t talk any more till you come to your senses,” Dr. Armstrong returned, good naturedly.

As may be supposed, this wretched infidelity made us very unhappy. What a contrast between the husbands of my sisters ! There was Oliver, forsaking home, kindred and country .2

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

that he might carry the glad tidings of the gospel to the heathen ; while under the full blaze of the light of the same gospel Dr. Armstrong and Wilfred unblushingly sought to undo the work that had been done. Despite my father’s selfcommand, his hair whitened very fast. Once he said to mother, “ I fear that these sons-in-law of ours will bring down our ‘ gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.’ ”

Mother sighed and answered, “We can only pray for them, and especially must we pray for Laura and Alice.”

And they did pray ; we all prayed that they might be kept from evil influence, and that their faith might not fail. Blessed be God, they were kept 1 Somewhere I will relate the proof.

Chapter III. Blood And Soul Poisoning

A few years passed by without bringing any marked change; though now as I look back on them, it is easy to see that they were not without their effect on us all. As I have before intimated, our parents were fast hurrying toward that change that awaits all the living. My two sisters were growing very sad and quiet, and their husbands were growing more shamelessly and hopelessly infidel in principle and practice. Wilfred’s compunctions had been short-lived, and they left him harder than ever. As for myself, I felt that as a family, our prospects were fast being blighted. Only from the far distant mission-field came glimpses of hope and encouragement. Helen and Oliver lived and labored for the cause they loved. Between them there were no dividing lines. Together they walked one road, and they looked away across the darkness of heathendom with unspeakable pity upon those who had set up their little worldly wisdom in opposition to the wisdom of God as revealed in his word.

There were sad, sad events in our history

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

as a family and they belong to this part of my story. I am aware that I am about to attempt to describe the indescribable ; but how else can you know anything of the horror of Wilfred’s death ; how else can you be warned to escape a like unhappy end? So, much as I shrink from putting the terrible memory down in words, something within me whispers, “Write it down, Kezia, it may do good.”

Full of health and spirits Dr. Armstrong and our poor Wilfred stood over the dead body of one of our townspeople. The case had been very peculiar, and the doctors were holding a post-mortem examination in the hope of finding some clue to the disease.

“We shall understand all these things better some day,” said Wilfred, as they went on with their investigations.

“ Yes, indeed, there is nothing that science won’t do,” replied Dr. Armstrong.

They worked on without any feeling unless it was that of indifference, for they had become accustomed to similar scenes. At the close of the examination, Dr. Armstrong said, “ There, sir, I think we have made an important discovery.”

“ I am sure we have,” Wilfred replied, then lightly added, “ But this poor fellow is in a sorry plight to resurrect.”

“ Sorry enough at any time L The idea that any body will be resurrected is sheer nonsense,” responded Dr. Armstrong. “ Then think of that wonderful vision in the valley of dry bones — ” Wilfred had gotten thus far when the sudden turn of an uncleansed instrument pierced his hand. Unfortunately, he thought he had cleaned it with the other instruments, so he merely said, “ See, I cut myself with those deuced scissors. Lucky that I cleaned them, or we might have a case of blood poisoning on our hands.”

“ I should say as much,” said Dr. Armstrong.

So the opportunity passed for the amputation of the injured finger, or for any other measures that might have been taken to remove the danger.

It would be needless to dwell upon the physical suffering of poor Wilfred, terrible as it was ; for the mental agony far outweighed it. Nor did Dr. Armstrong retain his accustomed composure under the trying situation in which he found himself. For when the certainty of death was forced upon Wilfred, he turned to Dr. Armstrong, saying,

“ You have been my destroyer ! I came to you satisfied with the faith of my fathers ; more than that, I was a man of prayer, and I was hoping ere long to feel that I was a for-

KEZIA AND THE DOCTOR.

given sinner. You upset my faith, by various means, but mainly by ridicule. Kidicule is the devil’s own weapon, it is forged in the fires of hell, it bears the stamp of the prince of evil. You have wielded it right loyally, Dr. Armstrong.”

He ceased speaking, though he still looked at the doctor with eyes that seemed to question, “ What have you to say for yourself? ” “Don’t be too hard upon me, Wilfred, dear boy. You surely had a mind of your own.”

“ I had, but it was your boast that you could sway men’s minds at your will, and I mistake if many death -beds do not ring with curses called down upon your name — if hell itself does not resound with curses upon Dr. Armstrong ! ” During this terrible talk our dear Alice had settled down in a little heap in mother’s big chair. How small and frail and sad she looked ! Her eyes wandered from one face to another in search of hope, but finding no encouragement in the blank faces around her, she exclaimed, “Is there no one to hope? Is there no one to pray? ” A groan from Wilfred’s old father was the immediate response, and a moment after he said, “ Let us try to pray,” and slipping down upon his knees, he began in a voice, which was very broken at first, but gradually gained in strength. It seemed to us that he wrestled with that faith,

BLOOD AND SOUL POISONING.

that importunity that Jacob used at Peniel, and we silently joined him as he pleaded:

“0 God! say not to thine unworthy servant who beseeches thee in this, the last hour of hope for the salvation of his only son ; Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone! But say rather that our prayers have come up before thee, that our tears have been put in thy bottle and are remembered in thy book; that thou hast no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Oh, hide not thyself from my supplication, attend unto me, and hear me. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, my heart is overwhelmed ; hear me speedily for the sake of Jesus, the Friend of sinners. But for him we are all without hope, and though my son has set at naught thy counsels and would none of thy reproof; yea, even though he has sinned against thee with a high hand and an outstretched arm, yet is the salvation thou hast provided sufficient to cleanse him from all sin. Help him in these last moments to make humble confession of his wickedness before thee, and before us, and to cry mightily to thee for forgiveness, that our burdened hearts may have some ground for hope. He has wilfully lost the blessed privilege of glorifying thee in this life, of bearing witness to thy love and mercy. Let him not bear witness to thy just wrath.

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O God ! mercy, not justice; mercy, not justice. Mercy, mercy ”

The prayer suddenly ceased. We looked at the kneeling man. His chin rested on his breast and his face was ghastly pale. Wilfred caught sight of the limp figure and the bloodless cheek, and he cried,

“ My father’s heart is broke.n. He has died for me ; but, alas ! even that can’t save me.”

“ He is not dead, Wilfred,” said Dr. Armstrong, though his voice expressed the uncertainty that he tried to hide.

“ I tell you he is dead, and I have killed him,” Wilfred answered fiercely. Then turnto his wife, he said more calmly, “ Don’t you die too, Alice. Live to do as much good as I have done evil. It is a comfort to me, even now, that you have never given up your faith in the gospel of Christ.”

In the meantime, Dr. Armstrong was trying, though without success, to restore Mr. Arthur to consciousness.

“ I told you so, I told you he was dead,” said Wilfred.

“ Is he really gone ? ” asked my father of Dr. Armstrong.

“ I am afraid he is,” was the meek reply.

Wilfred spoke again: “ Bury us side by side, so that at the resurrection morn — ” he paused,

BLOOD AND SOUL POISONING.

and looked at Dr. Armstrong. Their eyes met, and Wilfred continued, “How lately we jeered at the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead l But now all these cob- web delusions are laid bare before these eyes of mine that already begin to pierce the confines of the other world. We have been fools, doctor ! W e belong to those of whom Paul speaks when he said, 4 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. 7 The Psalmist, too, has given us a text : 1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 7 This, then, has been our folly, our madness, and it will be our damnation.”

He turned to father and said, “ You were faithful to me, in that you set the truth before me. It was good seed and might have taken root even by the wayside, but for evil influence. 0 Dr. Armstrong ! I have reason to curse the day I saw you.”

Father did not reply at once, but he soon said, “ Try to believe ; God’s mercy is very great.”

“ Do try to believe even now, dear Wilfred,” pleaded Alice.

“ 0 Alice ! God’s Spirit shall not always strive with man. I had my offers of mercy and I persistently refused them. No, Alice, no. Hard as it is for you to hear, and hard as it is for me to know, we part here and forever. It would be wrong to try to deceive ourselves ; for I would soon know tbe fallacy of such a hope, and you, you would look in vain throughout eternity to find Wilfred among the saved.”

Alice did not reply, but we all knew that her unspoken desires were constantly ascending to God.

“ What did you say about your burial, Wilfred ? ” asked father, presently.

“ I said bury me by my father that we may sleep together till the waking of the dead. The wish came of a foolish hope that' it would be well with me for his sake. But j.10, one would be taken and the other left. No man’s righteousness but the God-man’s can be appropriated for another, and his I shunned, despised, rejected. Dr. Armstrong, I charge you on your

honor as a what shall I say ? I can’t say

as a Christian, for you are far from that ; I can’t say as a truthful man, for you have exerted yourself both to believe and to teach falsehood ; I can’t say as my friend, for had you taken my life ten times you were less my enemy than now. SoT can only request you not to disguise the misery of my last hours to those who like myself, have through your influence forsaken the paths of truth, and revelled in unbelief.”

Turning to me, he said, “ Kezia, you and I have had many a battle over the Bible. To-day,

I pronounce you victor, and if that pen to which you so often turn in your dreamy moods, should ever write for other eyes than your own, don’t write as some books for the young are written, that bad men always become good even if it is on their death-beds. But write true to life. Write that death often comes suddenly, that often there is no chance for thought, that oftener still, the sinner’s chance is past ere he is called to his death-bed. Almost as well might it be said to him, ' He that is unjust, let him be unjust still.’”

I cannot go forward with Wilfred’s death scene without stopping to say that I think he is wrong, and although I believe with him that too often repentance is left for the eleventh hour, yet I also believe that God has graciously received many in the last hours of their lives. However, it may be safer to believe what Wilfred said. It surely is next to no salvation to cutoff all possibility of hearing, “ Well done, good and faithful servant,” from our Redeemer's lips, to stand empty-handed before him who laid down his life for us. The Bible tells of an “ abundant entrance,” it also tells of those that are saved “ so as by fire.” How shall we be saved ? 0, let