“It has everything to do with him. We must forgive those who injure us whether or not they ever acknowledge their wrongs. There is no other way to move on in life. Your father forgave you, Amanda. He forgave you the minute these things happened. He forgave you for the letter you wrote before the ink on it was dry. He forgave every unkind thing you ever said to him the moment they fell upon his ears. The words hurt him, because it pained him to see you living in rebellion to the life and truth within you. But that pain did not prevent his forgiveness. Forgiveness flowed out to you from his heart long before you wanted forgiving. Forgiveness is what love does. God’s complete forgiveness of all sin is what the cross is all about.”
Amanda was quiet. The car bounced along more slowly now in thoughtful silence.
“There is something even more important,” said Catharine, breaking the silence.
Amanda looked at her sister with glistening eyes.
“You have asked God’s forgiveness,” Catharine went on. “I have heard you. You have asked Mother’s forgiveness, and Timothy’s, all of ours. And Timothy is right, Amanda—Father forgave you long ago. You know that. We all know it. He forgave you. Mother forgives you. God forgives you.”
She paused and gazed intently into Amanda’s eyes.
“Everyone forgives you,” she added seriously. “Now you have to forgive yourself.”
At the words, Amanda burst into a wail.
“I can never forgive myself!” she cried.
“Your dear sister is right, Amanda,” said Timothy, speaking again. “The only way to move on and do what God put you on this earth to do is to forgive yourself. It is the one final door that will complete the healing God is carrying out within you.”
“But how . . . how can I possibly forgive myself!”
“That doesn’t mean you won’t always feel pain at the memory,” said Timothy. “That may continue all your life. The consequences of your actions, even past words, will not disappear. That is why forgiveness of oneself is the most difficult forgiveness in the world. Difficult but necessary if God’s work is to be complete in our hearts. He forgives, always forgives, and forgives completely . . . but we must take that forgiveness from his offered hand and receive its full measure. The cross is our constant reminder of God’s forgiveness. Because of the cross, that forgiveness is offered to all men, but each must reach out and receive that work of Christ’s death into his and her own heart. Forgiveness allows us to shed our tears, then stand up and move forward.”
Again the car fell silent and continued so for several long minutes.
14
For God So Loved the World
Betsy listened intrigued but could hardly make sense of it all. She had never heard such talk in her life. She had heard the words “Jesus Christ,” of course, but only on the lips of an occasional friend of her father’s as an exclamation or curse. As she heard them now, they scarcely conveyed an inkling to her brain of an actual man who had actually lived, whom these people spoke of with loving respect.
And as she heard the word forgiveness, neither was any idea conveyed to her that remotely suggested any concept within the orbit of her existence. Nor did the word cause any connection to rise within her of the Jesus Christ to whom they had referred. A subconscious association with the word, however, caused her to think briefly of the men who had killed her father, sending a new wave of hatred through her.
Even as Timothy had been speaking, turning occasionally toward Jocelyn where she sat, and Catharine and Amanda in the rear seat, he sensed a perking up of the inner ears of the girl beside them.
“Do you know who Jesus Christ is, Elsbet?” he asked at length, turning around toward her.
“No,” she answered simply.
“He was a man who lived a long time ago,” Timothy went on. “He is the most unusual man who ever walked on the earth, because though he was a man who lived and died like the rest of us, he was also the Son of God. Do you know what that means?”
She shook her head.
“It is another way of saying that he was actually God himself. And because he was God, when he died he did not stay dead but actually rose up again and walked right out of his grave. That probably seems hard to imagine, but he did. And he kept on living, and he still lives right now. But his life today is very different than the life of other people. It is an invisible life because he lives in a very special place. Do you know where that is, Elsbet?”
“No, Mr. Diggorsfeld,” answered Betsy.
“It is inside our hearts. The spirit of Jesus Christ himself lives inside my heart right now, even though neither you nor I can see him. Does that seem hard to believe?”
“Yes. How can a man live inside someone else?”
“I agree with you, it is very difficult to believe,” said Timothy. “But that does not mean it is not true. He can live there because he no longer has a body, only a spirit. And that spirit takes up no space. It can live inside a person, or fill up the whole earth. That’s how Jesus and God, who is his Father, are. And do you know a wonderful thing—Jesus will come to live inside the heart of anyone who invites him to. He wants to come live inside your heart too, Elsbet. He is only waiting for you to ask him.”
“Why do you want someone else living inside you, Mr. Diggorsfeld?”
“Because Jesus is God himself,” answered Timothy. “Think what a marvelous thing it is for God to be with us all the time. He loves us so much he wants to be a close and special Father to us. I cannot tell you how glad I am that God lives in my heart. He is helping me all the time to become a better man. He is not only God, he is also my special friend. I can talk to him and ask him what he wants me to do. Then I try to do what he tells me. That is how I become a better man. But there is something even more marvelous than that. Would you like me to tell you what?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember I told you that Jesus Christ lived and died like other men?”
Betsy nodded.
“Well, his death was not quite like any other man’s. You see, because he was God he didn’t have to die. He could have just kept living forever without dying. But he chose to die so that we wouldn’t have to.”
“My father died,” said Betsy.
“Yes, Elsbet, I know he did,” said Timothy tenderly. “I am very sorry. Did you love your father?”
“Oh yes. He was such a good man.”
“But he died, didn’t he? All men and women die eventually, don’t they? Do you know why?”
“Because they get old, or because someone kills them.”
The words momentarily shocked Timothy, but he did his best not to show it. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “But that isn’t the real reason people die. They only get old, and bad people kill other people, for another reason. Do you know what sins are, Elsbet?”
“No.”
“Sins are the things we do that displease God. Everybody sins. Even good people like Lady Rutherford and your father, and even you and me, Elsbet—we all sin. We don’t live the way God wants us to. That’s why we die. It is sin that causes death. But because Jesus was God, and because he didn’t sin, he didn’t have to die at all. But he chose to die.”
“Why?”
“That is the most important question in all the world, Elsbet,” said Timothy. “He chose to die because of how greatly both his Father and Jesus loved us. Jesus loved us all—everyone in the whole world!—so much, that he gathered all the sins of all the people who have ever lived—my sins and yours and your papa’s and everyone’s—he gathered them into his heart, and he took them into the grave with him when he died. But then when he rose back to life again, he left all those sins there in the grave. They didn’t come back to life with him. They stayed dead. So you see, our sins were put to death and got buried away forever so that they would never be able to bother us again. Then Jesus came out of the grave and said, ‘You are all free from your sins. Now you do not have to die.’”
“But my father died,” persisted Elsbet.
“Yes, his body died,” replied Timothy. “Just like the body of Jesus Christ died and was buried. But do you remember that I said the spirit of Jesus still lives. That is the invisible life that was inside him that didn’t die at all. Your father had a spirit like that too, Elsbet. That was the inside part of your father, not just his hands and his hair and his skin and his legs. That was the part of him that you loved. And that part of your father, his spirit, is still alive.”
“My father . . . he is still alive,” said Betsy, her eyes growing wider. Her interest had been slowly mounting as Timothy spoke. Now she began to sit forward in the seat.
“Yes he is, Elsbet,” Timothy went on. “But you cannot see him, just like we cannot see Jesus, even though his spirit lives in our hearts. You see, Jesus died for your father’s sins too, and your mother’s, just like for yours and mine and for the whole world’s.”
“When will I see him again?”
“I don’t know, Elsbet,” replied Timothy. “We don’t know very much about the kind of life that is on the other side of what we call death.”
“Will I see my mother too?”
“I believe you will, Elsbet. But I cannot tell you when or where. All we know is that because of Jesus’ death, people don’t have to die—their spirits can keep living. We don’t know what that new life is like, though. That is why we must be content with making sure we will see Jesus one day ourselves by inviting him to live inside our own hearts and doing what he tells us to do.”
Timothy stopped. He could see that Elsbet had had enough to absorb for one day. Slowly she sat back in the seat, her expression full of many new things to ponder.
He turned back toward the front in quiet prayer, thankful for the opportunity to occupy his heart with someone other than himself. The silence in the car this time lasted until Jocelyn pulled into the drive of Heathersleigh Hall.
Timothy Diggorsfeld had been a pastor long enough to see that had he pressed, he could have easily extracted a certain recited prayer from young Elsbet’s lips, of the type with which many of his clerical colleagues were highly enamored. But he recognized that such prayers, though easily enough induced by the evangelistically impatient, were difficult to deeply root in the soil of experience. If salvation were to come to any man or woman, he would rather see that salvation blossom slowly of their own volition and thrive in reality, rather than be force-germinated in an artificial spiritual hothouse, only to wither when subjected to the winds and rains of real life.
Nor would he take advantage of a moment of heightened emotion to bolster his own spiritual ego. He knew, with the ground thus tilled, that the seeds planted in Elsbet’s mind and heart would receive careful watering and nurturing by the motherly compassion of Jocelyn Rutherford. Unless he was badly mistaken, by week’s end Jocelyn would be opening one of the several Bibles at the Hall every night before bed, Elsbet at her side, teaching her that which she loved, not that which she had been taught, reading to the waif who had been sent to them as surely as had the Lord himself knocked on the door, telling her of Jesus and his deeds and his words, his thoughts and his life.
Timothy had seen sufficient from the vantage point of his London pulpit through the years to care no longer, as he had in his younger days, for the urgency of its opening or the shape of the door by which the Lord entered into the house of a man’s or woman’s heart and took possession of it. Nor did he take any pride in that most false of ecclesiastical measuring sticks, his own personal tally of “souls” won.
He had learned well from his literary mentor, he whom he called simply the Scotsman, whose words concerning the matter Timothy had never forgotten. Like the fictional Janet Grant, Timothy had no inclination to trouble his own head, or Elsbet’s heart, with what men called the plan of salvation.
It was enough for him to know that she would one day follow his Master.
————
That evening, after they arrived home and were told of the vicar’s call to the Hall, Jocelyn and Timothy drove into the village. Vicar Coleridge invited them warmly into the parsonage, and as soon as they were seated with tea, he told Jocelyn of the strange visitor he had had earlier in the day.
“I have no idea whether it concerned you or Charles or Heathersleigh in any way,” said Coleridge. “But an inner sense told me that you should know about it. I did not like the man’s look.”
“Thank you, Stuart,” replied Jocelyn. “But I don’t know what is to be done. I’m sure it had nothing to do with us.”
“How did the interview conclude?” asked Timothy.
“I showed him what he asked for,” replied the vicar. “He perused the books for a few minutes, then left with no expression on his face that indicated anything one way or another.”
“What do you think it means, Stuart?” asked Jocelyn.
“I don’t know, Lady Jocelyn. But I will keep you informed if I learn anything further.—Tell me, Timothy,” he went on in a different vein, turning toward Timothy, “how long are you down for?”
“Only a couple of days.”
“I would be honored if you would take my pulpit on Sunday.”
“The honor would be mine,” returned Timothy. “But I am afraid I must return to occupy my own,” he added almost sadly. “I would, however, appreciate an hour of your time tomorrow. I have been sharing some of my pastoral difficulties with Jocelyn and the girls, and I am hungry also for the insight of a brother clergyman. Perhaps we could pray together as well.”
“Nothing could delight me more, Timothy,” rejoined Vicar Coleridge. “My morning is yours.”
15
Surprise Visitor
An expensive roadster pulled to the front of Heathersleigh Hall one day in early July. The officially clad young man at the wheel got out and walked with confident bearing to the front door and sounded the knocker.
Sarah Minsterly appeared a few moments later.
“Good morning, ma’am,” said the visitor. “I am here to see Lady Rutherford and Miss Catharine and Miss Amanda.”
“I am afraid they are not at home,” replied the housekeeper.
“When do you expect them? I have come quite some distance.”
“I really could not say, sir. They went to the cottage for the afternoon.”
“The cottage?”
“Heathersleigh Cottage, just across the meadow and through the wood north of the house.”
“Perhaps I shall go see them there.”
“There is no road, sir—only a wagon road, that is.”
“Then I shall walk, if you would be good enough to point the way out for me.”
Forty minutes later, Maggie, Jocelyn, and the girls were on their hands and knees in the soft, moist earth of her tulip bed carefully digging up the spring bulbs for drying in the barn. Several geese were making a racket, distracting them at the moment from hearing the footsteps coming through the wood.
Maggie herself was the first to observe the approach of a tall white-uniformed stranger who had just emerged from the wood and was now striding toward the cottage. She rose, wiping the dirt from her hands on her apron, assuming his business to be with her. The most belligerent goose, an elderly though vigorous male who considered himself proprietor and bodyguard of the place, had spotted him seconds before Maggie. He now scurried toward the newcomer in a screeching wrath of flapping flurry.
“Get back, you fool creature!” shouted Maggie, hurrying after him.
But nothing would stop the charge of the protective watch-bird now.
“He’ll take a chunk of your flesh if you let him close to you, sir!” she cried. “If you value your leg, give him a swift kick with your foot!”
The newcomer did not require being told twice. He had grown up around just such pesky animals and knew their danger well enough. A well-aimed blow from his boot sent the unsuspecting fat white ball skidding backward. Its honking increased to a shrill frenzy, though it called off the attack and now waddled furiously in the opposite direction in fier
ce dudgeon, shrieking and honking to his comrades to join in the battle. Betsy had just emerged from the cottage, leaving the door open, and toward it the irate goose now bore, neck outstretched to at least double its normal length.
“Stop him!” cried Maggie. “He’ll be the end of my quilt that’s all laid out!”
She turned and made for the house as fast as her legs would carry her. Catherine, however, closer by half, jumped up and bolted after the white marauder.
“I’ll get him!” cried the masculine voice whose owner had sent the bird on its present course. But Catharine’s eyes were on the danger. Once on her feet and up to speed, she neither slowed nor glanced toward the sound.
Suddenly a white form dashed in front of her, intercepting the goose and moving to block the doorway. At full speed, Catharine crashed into him and sent both of them tumbling over one another into a bed of pansies bordering the walkway.
The stranger was first to regain his feet. He offered Catharine his hand.
“Thank you . . . Lieutenant Langham!” Catharine now suddenly exclaimed as for the first time she set eyes on his face. “I didn’t recognize you at first. All I saw was a blur run in front of me.”
“I am sorry for my clumsiness,” the lieutenant laughed, pulling Catharine to her feet.
“But what are you doing here!” smiled Catharine exuberantly as her mother and Amanda came forward and greeted their visitor.
“I drove out for a visit,” he replied, shaking each of the other’s hands. “Hello, Lady Rutherford, Hello, Miss Rutherford.—Hello,” he added to Maggie, extending his hand as she now walked up puffing. “You can be none other than the Mrs. McFee of whom I have heard so many loving reports. I am Terrill Langham. I hope I did not injure your goose.”
“I hope perhaps you did, Mr. Langham!” rejoined Maggie. “Nothing could please me more than to roast him for my supper. I don’t know why I put up with the cantankerous thing.”
Lieutenant Langham laughed with delight.
“To what do we owe this unexpected appearance, Lieutenant?” said Jocelyn.
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