Timely aid

Preface

This book briefly tells its office, or mission, fn the following lines :

Teach me to soothe the .helpless orphan's grief, With timely aid the widow's woes assuage,

To Misery's moaning cries yield relief, And be the sure resource of drooping age.

It would keep before the mind of the reader these words of St. James ; "Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

This book is most hopefully addressed to the reader who will say :

Let me be free to scan the universe of life; Free from all creeds, church rules and strife ; Free to seek in nature's realms of light, For truth to guide my wandering steps aright.

Foreword

IF THE REx\DER of this book is searching only for the loftiest thought and noblest sentiment, expressed in faultless diction and colored by the artistic play of the imagination, he will be disappointed in the work. There is little or no attempt on the part of the author to display her descriptive powers, indulge in word-painting, or rise into lofty themes of philosophy and speculation.

The story is a plain narrative taken from the "short an,d simple annals of the poor" ; but it is permeated throughout with human interest, disclosing, as it does, the ever-recurring struggle of human minds and hearts against adverse conditions, and weaving into the thread of the narration, with deftness and skill, the Charm of Romance, the Pathos of Sorrow, the Tragedy of Death, the Problem of the After-Life, the Intercommunion of mortals and spirits, and the subject of magnetic and spiritual healing, as re-discovered, practised and proclaimed by modern Spiritualism.

On the historic and logical relations between modern Spiritualism and Christian Science, the discussions between the leading characters of the book are very full, interesting and instructive. In fact, in the whole realm of present-day literature the writer knows no other work which contains so much of real instructive fact and argument on the relations between Christian Science and Spiritualism as is presented in this story.

The narrative is a most valuable one in that it is descriptive of the mental evolution through w T hich all thinkers of to-day are passing — the slow but sure emergence of the human mind to-day from Traditionalism into the wider thought and hope of our times.

This change from the old-time conceptions of life, death and the future state to the clearer, wider and more scientific views of to-day — from Faith to Knowledge — is here witnessed in the principal characters of the story.

This book will stimulate thought, promote investigation and prove, indeed, a "Timely Aid" to multitudes in this age of mental unrest.

Its testimony to the fact and power of metaphysical healing is strong and convincing.

B. F. Austin.

CHAPTER I. "There Is No Death."

All that's bright must fade,

The brightest still the fleetest : All that's sweet was made To be lost when sweetest.

THESE were the words most bitterly murmured by the Rev. John Bell as he stood looking out on the fading day. The young man's pale face and trembling, clenched hands told plainly that something very precious indeed had gone out of his life.

On this damp, cold, dark day his beautiful accomplished and Christian wife had been carried to the cemetery on the hill, not far away, and there, by the side of father and mother, consigned to her last, long resting place. Their many friends had stood sympathetically and helpfully by in this hour of trial, regardless of creed.

John Bell was a Methodist clergyman, and his wife had acted as organist and was one of the shining lights in the Church. A brother minister had addressed them from the text, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away;" often repeating, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." And the white casket bearing within God's beautiful, spotless lily had been lowered, never more to be seen by those who had adored the still, cold, white form within.

Our young friend had returned, with a few of the loving floral gifts, to his desolate home where for two happy, cloudless years his girl wife had ever met him with sunny smiles.

His tears ceased to flow, but oh, the pain of that heart !

"Home! must I call this home?" he resentfully moaned. "Everything here speaks of Alice."

He ceased pacing the floor, and stepped to the piano — a reminder of her pretty hand and her birdlike voice. Then he gently closed the instrument, thinking "O My God ! I cannot get away from Alice. I do not know that I want to. Here upon my feet are the slippers her little white hands embroidered for me. Kind Clara — God bless the child — sees that I prefer to be alone ; so she has placed my supper upon this stand. But it's all Alice's hand-painted china and hemstitched linen. Even these preserves were prepared by her."

With the lump in his throat, tea must remain untouched. He turned to the sofa and reverently took in his hands the satin pillow with its' wreath of blue forget-me-nots — so delicate, so characteristic, of the wife now sleeping up there in the churchyard.

"Forget-me-nots ! Sweet Alice, I need no such reminder — never, never can I forget you, dear, though I live to be three-score and ten. You were my first love — my all. I don't know how I am going to live without you.

"They tell me my loss is your gain. Yes ; you have gone to be with Jesus — you are now with those many dear ones who came beckoning to you in your last, hours promising to accompany and to row your frail bark over Jordan. But, O Alice, you have left me !

Those who have passed through similar experiences try to assure me that Time will heal. I wish I could believe it."

Thousands have gone through the same heart-breaking that John Bell was suffering. How long, O my Heavenly Father, — how long e're this prophecy shall be fulfilled: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

When may we look for the Millennial Dawn, when "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things have passed away."

Rev. John Bell had preached to others and had. quoted the words, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Xow he realized the truth of the maxim, "It is easier to preach than to practice." Could he in this hour say, "God's will be done"?

Grief had spent itself somewhat and the pastor felt it his duty, as had been his custom, to read a passage of Scripture and kneel in prayer.

His head ached. The weary man faintly hoped that he might realize the promise, "God giveth His" beloved sleep," and he opened the Book at random, trusting to meet with something comforting and fitting to the occasion.

Then his eyes fell upon these strange words — and they were new to him — "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." They were to turn the reader's thoughts into a new channel.

John had always supposed that one must die in order to* reach God and Heaven. Yet here it sounded as though He were not the God of those who passed through death's gateway, but the God of the living.

It was now morning, and John, in the grip of that depression that follows acute suffering, felt too depressed to reason the point. He rested his aching head upon his hands, closed his eyes and seemingly fell asleep.

Was he asleep ? How vivid, how real was his dream !

He seemed to hear gentle footsteps. Then some one came near and bent over him. A sweet, low voice — strangely familiar — said, "John, you need not be so heavy laden. I have this message for you. A little while ago you were somewhat puzzled over a verse of Scripture. Dear, it has been demonstrated to me that these words of Longfellow are true: 'There is no death.'

"It is just as the Bible declares : 'All live unto Him ;' and the words we heard at the grave this afternoon are indeed true — 'Death is swallowed up in victory/

Then there w r as the rustle of a dress, the door closed, and John was alone.

He opened his eyes and looked about him. Had he heard a 'ghost' ? How preposterous ! But the voice he had heard; it was a familiar voice — very familiar; but it was not, he decided, that of his wife or any other departed loved one.

He knew, of course, that all the dead were silent. Yet he could not consider the experience a dream. His sister-in-law must have been in the room, essaying to comfort him. The voice was, somehow, much like Tiers.

Whether real or imaginary, something had exerted its consoling, quieting influence upon him ; and for this John gave thanks. "The maid is not dead, but sleep- •eth," he murmured ; and he no longer mourned as one without hope. Timely aid had lifted him where he could say and feel, "The kingdom of Heaven is neither lo here nor lo there ; the kingdom of Heaven is within you."

But who could have been his consoler? On second thought he knew that it could not have been Edward's wife he had heard quoting Scripture ; for according to report, Anna was not a Christian but a woman of the world — a skeptic — as was his poor unsaved brother !

Brief had been his acquaintance with Anna. Edward and she had come from their distant home in Rochester, N. Y., to attend the funeral of John's wife, whom they had never seen in life. Over the form of this faded flower they had offered the bereaved brother and his motherless babe a home with them.

The welcome was so earnest and genuine that he had accepted it. There seemed to be no alternative. Brother Edward was his only near relative. Alone he might have fought life's battles without a place to call home; but Alice had left this charge — the baby that had been the pride and joy of their young lives. The baby must have a home ; and so it was decided that Anna should be its foster mother.

Tears of joy and grief had saddened her eyes as, clasping the little girl to her heart, she looked back to her own home, where she had left a little empty cradle and a drawer of carefully folded, dainty garments that were once worn by her own baby now dwelling in the Summer Land. She lifted her heart in thankfulness to God that He had so ordained that supply and demand ever wait upon each other.

Could our young clergyman have read the thoughts of his guest, as even his Master read the thoughts of the woman he met at the well, his verdict would not have been, "She is net a Christian." On the contrary, he would have esteemed her as "One who possesses a comforting, satisfying religion ; one who continually walks out on the promises and sees a silver lining to every cloud.''

But John Bell was in great ignorance. He was reluctant to acknowledge, even to himself, that his brother and sister were Atheists, and yet he felt that they were. As is often the case, he was entertaining angels unawares.

Was the voice he had heard only a dream? If so, from whence had come the clipping he found lying on the table? He had never seen it before. It contained these words, written by Margaret Richard:

Two cold hands folded on a breast;

A silent form laid away to rest;

A sob, a prayer; God, is it best?

This is not death.

A heart toward things it loved grown cold; A soul with not the faith of old ; A life with worthiness all told.

This I count death.

Now did John begin to understand the sense of the words — u God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." It came to him as a new thought, that it was not the death of organic matter that was precious in the sight of the Lord ; but that when a man obeyed the Scriptural admonition and was found "Dead unto sin and alive unto righteousness/' there was the one who had experienced a death precious in God's sight. And ^'precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," was not, when taken figuratively, a direct contradiction to that other verse, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore turn yourselves and live ye."

Not one hour ago we found John wishing that he might die and take his place by the side of the dear companion. But timely aid has wrought a change ; and now he is repeating, in the words of a prophet of old, "I shall not die, but live to declare the works of the Lord."

Feeling that his was not a life with the worthiness all told, but that God still had a work for him to do, he carefully moved toward the cradle where lay innocently and peacefully sleeping the motherless child ; and there he tenderly whispered, "Baby, I fancy I hear your mamma singing, as I so often have in time past, her favorite lullaby:

Hush, my babe. Lie still and slumber ; Holy angels guard thy bed.

Yes ; someone had sung this little one to sleep that very night, not looking upon the words of the song as mere sentiment, or as having therein more than a blind faith : but trusting with absolute certainty born of knowledge and understanding, that holy angels did guard that bed.

The singer had pressed the child to her heart and whispered, in accents vibrating with peace, "Little one, your Mamma sleeps. But have no fear ; she will — she has awakened — from out that strange, deep sleep called death. Spirit — the all of man — is immortal ; it can never be blotted out of being, or taste one drop of bitter death.

"And, Little Girl, heed what Auntie now tells you. Do not grow up repeating the story of life-everlasting, simply because others, those in whom you have confidence — no wiser, perhaps, than yourself on the subject — have told it. But 'Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good/ Many are ready to say, 'Man lives after death/ but few can do as the Bible admonishes: *Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you/

"We may say we believe in everlasting life ; but how are we to know? 'Seeing is believing'; there is no other way.

"There is no death ; what is so called is but an event in our eternal life. Some day all the world will know this blessed truth."

CHAPTER II. Bereft of Home

ABOUT twenty years before this story opens William Bell, an educated and good though not a pious man, and the father of the brothers, John and Edward, had seen the advantage of possessing timber land in northern Michigan, where resided his only sister and her family.

Accordingly, with his wife and two sons, Edward, the black-eyed picture of his father, and John, the blueeyed picture of his mother, aged respectively ten and fourteen years, Mr. Bell left his home, near Rochester, N. Y., for what was then considered "out west."

One evening the two lads w 7 ere sitting outside the door of their rude home. It was a hot, smoky, breezy night; no pan of coals was needed to keep away the tormenting mosquitoes, for the woods were on fire, furnishing plenty of smoke.

The boys had been assured that the clearing surrounding them was so large that, with the river between, no immediate danger from the raging flames need be anticipated. Naturally sympathetic, they felt the troubles of others ; and their little hearts weighed heavily.

It was something more to-night than the song of the frog or th^ after-effects of ague, that made them feel so sad and homesick. At first the burning forest had impressed them as something most beautiful to gaze upon ; but now, for days the sun had been darkened, almost hidden, and the blood-red glare of the moon seemed to tell a pitiful story of the destruction being wrought about them.

The whole neighborhood was in excitement. Within a few miles, men, women and children were perishing, and whole families were being swept off the earth; nothing could be done to save them. A few of the settlers were fortunate enough to escape through the blinding smoke and over the blistering earth, to find refuge in the lakes ; and blood-curdling were the stories told of the fate of thousands of animals which had been left disfigured and maimed, suffering agonies worse than death. To-night the boys were more than ever impressed with the unhappiness so near them, for they had attended a funeral that afternoon.

Homes were few and far between, and people living five, eight, and even ten miles away were considered neighbors.

One of these neighbors had brought the bones of his family in a little box, all that remained of his wife and four children, to the church down at the "Corners." And the boys had listened to a sermon from the text: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." They could not drive the man's sad, tearless face from their thoughts.

Although their parents had many times reassured them with the words, "There is no danger here," the father and mother thought well to take precautions, and the observing children could see they were always busy doing something that might act as a preventive ; such as tearing down fences and covering the haystack with wet blankets.

After a long time of silent meditation, Edward broke the spell by saving something that was not intended to sound irreverent or funny. It came out in his quick, impulsive manner: "I believe God is an Indian !" Then John, astounded at his brother's ignorance, thought he would enlighten him, and he replied :

"Why, you know the Bible says God was a 'Sheeny.' "

"Do you mean a Jew?" questioned Edward. "Yes."

"That was Jesus — a man of Jerusalem," Edward asserted.

"Well he was God, was'nt he?"

"Ma thinks so, but Pa says he was'nt ? " Edward replied. "He did'nt claim to be ; but told the people not to bow down to him : 'Why call ye me good ? there is none good but one, and that is God.' He often spoke of himself as 'The son of man. 7 Pa says he certainly was a good example of perfect manhood. Yet when men pray to him and say, 'Dear Lord Jesus, do this, and do that for us/ they forget that he told us, 'When ye pray say : Our Father which art in Heaven/ He says they are no nearer right than the Catholics are when they pray to the Virgin Mary and the other saints. And say! while we're talking; now maybe the Catholics do give this woman an awful lot of adoration. Probably it is'nt right to worship her ; but on the other hand, while Protestants seem to have nothing against her, when do we ever go into a Protestant church and hear her spoken of? How many of their books refer to her? They are all carried away with her son — I often think of how the angels came to Mary and foretold his birth. God must have deemed her most worthy. And it may be, if she and Joseph had'nt set a good example, and brought him up in the way he should go, that boy would'nt have been quite so perfect ; though he was without sin, it is written. 'He was tempted like as we are/ I love the holy mother of Jesus ; but Til never worship either.

"Pa says he rather admires the Jews for their obedience to the first command : 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me/ "

"That's all right," agreed John. "But we can pray to Jesus. He tells us, 'Whatsoever things ye ask in my name, that shall ye receive/ "

"Yes ;" said Edward. "One of the names Jesus took upon himself was the 'Son of God ;' but he always declared he was our elder brother, and that we were jointheirs with him. So I, too, am a child of a King. Jesus seemed even to have come back from the grave to repeat the fact that he was just a man among men, that all men were God's children. Telling Mary Magdalene, 'Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father ; and to my God and your God/

"If you and I were to approach God in the name of sons of God, naturally we should expect to receive because of this very relationship and 'According to your faith be it unto you/ "

John could see no way of arguing against his brother's points, and so, wisely, did not try.

Then changing the tenor of the conversation, John went back, and asked him what he meant by likening God to an Indian.

"'Well/' said Edward, "I thought of it all the while the preacher was talking. You remember that squaw that came here, and after mother had given her dinner, and purchased some of her bead-work, she held out a pretty basket and said : 'Here take this, pale face squaw, always good and kind to redman's tribe/

"Mother was delighted and filled it with her needlework; but the next time the old woman called, right before her face and eyes she deliberately emptied that basket and took it away.

"Hannah Bailey was there at the time, and how she laughed at poor mother's chagrin ! I remember she said : 'Well, Susan Bell, when you have lived among the Indians as long as we have you will know their ways better. They think nothing of taking back a gift.

One of these good redmen gave my husband a pony last summer; but it was only a brief time until the giver came and took it away/ "

Johnny's thoughtful face looked away at the burning timber ; he did not like this comparison, and felt it imperative to say something in defense of his God. Suddenly his face brightened, and with a quick note of delight in his voice he exclaimed :

"I have it ! We would get the exact meaning if it read: 'God gave the good and took away the evil." Was'nt it St. James who said, 'Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning/ God gave that poor man life and happiness. He did not take away his treasures ; but will take from him the sting of death. If God is love, He must be ever ready to take sin and suffering out of our lives ; but nothing else."

Compared with that of a child, man's philosophy is often very lame. "Verily, a little child shall lead them."

While Edward never forgot John Bell in after years, we regret that he lost sight of the fact that God was the author of peace only.

"If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." The church has blinded many.

Our little boys were at last weary enough to accept of their bed and sleep. Early next morning they heard their mother's cheerful voice calling, "Wake up, children, and see it rain. God has answered our prayers at last; and if only this rain keeps on pouring, this fearful destruction of. life and property will soon end."

A few minutes later they were blinded by a chain of lightning and deafened by a clap of most terrific thunder.

The father was out attending to the chores, and when the first awful shock was over and they found voice, some one tremblingly exclaimed, "Oh, we must look and see if the barn was struck!"

The mother sprang through the door, only to fall by the side of her husband's prostrate form at the foot of the steps.

The lightning had not harmed either the house or barn, but it had done its deadly work on the mortal form of this most kind and indulgent father.

Whether it was lightning which also killed the mother, or whether the sudden shock of her loss caused the frail, delicate woman's heart to cease beating, no one ever knew.

As no answer came from either and both were deaf to the appeals of their crying children, hope left them at last and the bitter fact dawned upon them that their parents were dead.

The children's fears were confirmed ; the hearts had ceased their beating, and the forms were growing cold.

For days they had prayed for rain. Tell us, was this answer to prayer? The rainbow with its seven beautiful colors spanned the sky ; but it seemed only to mock them. They could not accept it as the "bow of promise."

Never was there a truer saying, "We do not miss the water until the well runs dry." These thoughtless boys, who, like other children, had at times shown dispositions headstrong, selfish and quarrelsome, never until this hour had realized how much their parents were to them. To say which was the dearer to them would have been impossible — the father, to whom they had looked up with feelings of admiration and pride — and he merited it — or the precious mother at whose knee they had been taught to repeat the psalms, prayers and hymns.

This mother "who had kissed away all their little hurts and cared for their every want so uncomplainingly, was soon to be put out of their sight where they could never see her again. What a dreadful thought.

As they sat on the ground by their dead, the old black cat came and rubbed against them, and mournfully purred as though she would speak her sympathy.

At last the boys bethought themselves to arise, go through the wood-path, to the nearest neighbor's, a mile away, and inform these kind people of what had happened.

CHAPTER III. The Funeral

THE greenhouse carnations, ferns and roses that in later years adorned the white velvet, satinlined casket of John Bell's wife were no more beautiful, nor did they voice one particle more of heart-felt love than did the wildflowers and woodferns gathered and arranged by the women and children of that wild country for the plain black coffin of John Bell's mother. Every flower was wet with tears.

A neighbor's wagon, drawn by oxen, carried the rough-boxes made by loving hands, over the corduroy road to the new church three miles away, at Stafford's Corners, where there was a community that could not boast of an undertaker, a doctor or a lawyer.

There were just two men of importance living at the Corners — the minister and the storekeeper.

The storekeeper, Joe Stafford, was the children's uncle by marriage. He was the superintendent of the Sunday-school, the class-leader, and had great influence in any thing pertaining to the church or to the Corners.

Uncle Joe, either for his own comfort or for that of some one present, kept quoting Scripture : "All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned : in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, and in them shall he die." And then he would comment, "This man's sudden call should be a warning to the unsaved in this community." And when the church was reached, the minister seemed to take up the refrain. Every word of the long sermon was lost to the ears of John, who sat throughout the service bitterly weeping ; and had it' been likewise unheeded by the elder brother, who sat so still, cold and motionless, perhaps it would have been better. But down throughout all the coming years, there came resounding, whenever Edward would allow it, the thundering voice of the preacher of that day as he stood and expounded the awful doctrine of an endless punishment and a burning hell.

"Although,'' said the man of God, "this is the sad occasion of a double funeral, as the paths of this father and mother now lead in separate directions it is but fitting that we should choose two texts — one applying to the sister whose loss we all deplore, and the other t£> the man to whom she was united. Every Christian here hopes and prays that these children will ever remember the precepts and example of their saintly mother, who, we are proud to say, was a member of our church.

"We hope that in this case 'the sins of the father will not be visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation.'

"As said before ? the Lord directs me to the choosing of two texts. Why? Sister Bell was a member of our church, and had accepted Jesus ; while her companion, we are grieved to say, rejected Him who had died upon the Cross.' 1