“My spiritual journey, like yours, contains pain,” he said at length. “I don’t talk about it because it’s private. I’ve grown as you have, but some pains never completely go away. It still hurts to remember.”
“I know what you mean.”
“The short explanation, I suppose, is simply to say that journey toward truth, if you want to call it that, was sidetracked and dealt a serious blow when I was a boy. I have not told you about the American couple who was here for a time, teaching a corrupt form of experientialism that created much havoc in our community. My best friend died as a result of the divisiveness they caused.”
“That’s awful. I had no idea.”
“It still hurts to remember,” said David with a sigh. “The church here was directly involved. Because of that, for many years I refused to have anything to do with organized Christianity. But over the years God softened my heart and turned me toward Him rather than any teaching about Him. Thus, as I grew into manhood my spiritual quest has not involved the doctrine of any man or church, or any system of dogma, though I hope I have been receptive along the way to the quiet influences of honorable men who have pointed to truth. And with that has come a love for the church—the true church, God’s people. Mine has been a quest to discover who God is and how He works in human hearts, free from the corruptions which man seems often to bring into it.”
David paused. The ferry was approaching the landing.
“You are obviously a man at peace,” said Loni. “Wherever and however you found it, your quest for truth must have borne fruit. Have you found, as you say, who God is and how He works?”
David smiled. “The quest continues, of course. But I think I have discovered a few things.”
“In a nutshell?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer. If you asked me I could go on for an hour about Scotland’s religious history. But reducing the results of my own spiritual odyssey to twenty-five words or less—that is a greater challenge.”
“How about if I give you fifty words?” said Loni. “I might even agree to a hundred.”
David smiled. “Very open-minded of you. All right, let me see . . . I think I would say that God is a good Father whom we can know through His Son Jesus—by listening to what He said about God and obeying His commands. I would say that we learn about God, and come to understand Him, by living His principles. Fatherhood is the greatest truth in the universe. We understand God’s Fatherhood by being His obedient children. How’s that?”
“Well done!”
“I’m probably pushing my luck and going over the hundred words, but I would also add that in some ways my spiritual outlook is summarized by a prayer I try to live by from Kempis’s Imitation of Christ.”
“There is a copy of that in Ernest’s study.”
“I am not surprised.”
“I would like to hear it.”
David paused and glanced away.
“‘Thou knowest what is expedient for my spiritual growth,’” he said in a quiet voice. “‘Let Thy will be mine, and let my will ever follow Thine. Breathe knowledge of your will into my spirit, and give me courage, humility, and good cheer to do it. Make me your pure, dutiful, and humble disciple and your obedient son.’”
“It is a beautiful prayer,” said Loni. “My grandfather would like you. You and he are amazingly alike. He might even make a Quaker of you.”
“No labels or affiliations for me!” laughed David. “I am simply a man who is trying to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Anyway, to answer your question,” he added as they drove off the ferry onto the landing of Whales Reef, “I would be pleased to go to church with you tomorrow.”
They parted a few minutes later, agreeing that David would come by the Cottage at ten o’clock the following morning.
34
A Request
David walked into the Auld Hoose about four o’clock. Isobel was in the kitchen preparing supper for the small household.
“Did you have a pleasant time in da toon, Mr. David?” she asked.
“Very nice, Isobel. Our Miss Ford has big decisions to make. But I sense that the islands are beginning to work their magic on her.”
“Will she stay, Mr. David?”
“I don’t know, Isobel,” replied David thoughtfully. “There is more to her than people realize. She will fit in here nicely. About the future, who can say? But I believe she enjoyed herself today.”
“Rev. Yates came by when you were gone. He asked if you would telephone or go by the parsonage when you returned. He said he needed to talk to you today.”
Fifteen minutes later David knocked on the door of the manse, which sat across the road near the western edge of the village.
“Hello, David,” said Rev. Yates, opening the door. “Thank you for coming. Please come in. Tea? The kettle is already on.”
“Actually, that does sound good,” said David. “I only just returned from the city.”
They chatted easily during tea preparations.
When the two men were seated a few minutes later, the minister began in a serious vein. “Do you recall when we met on the Muckle Hill and you told me of the chief’s prayer?” he said.
David nodded.
“Your words lodged powerfully in my mind. I have been praying a similar prayer myself—that as their minister, I will know what is best for the people of this island.”
Yates paused a moment.
“I have what may strike you as an unusual request,” he went on. “I am facing a big decision. I suppose it would not be going too far to call it a personal crisis, though that may convey an erroneous impression. I am not dying of cancer or anything like that. I might even call it a good crisis. Yet it is one I do not want to face alone. And truth be told, in the short time I have been on Whales Reef, I have made no close friends. A minister is looked upon differently than others. It can be difficult to get close to people. You and I have enjoyed occasional stimulating conversations, but mostly a minister’s pulpit seems to be a barrier to getting close to his people.
“Therefore, what I want to ask is this,” Yates said. “I would like to submit the decision before me to the guidance of God’s Spirit. Obviously I have already done so. But we are told when two or three are gathered together in His name, that the Lord is in the midst of them. I would like to ask you to pray with me, and further if you know of another man or two of prayer who could join us who you trust and who could seek the Lord with you on my behalf. I would like to pray with other men of faith to be certain I am hearing from God. I am thinking of Alexander Innes as one. I know from conversations he and I have had that he understands God’s ways.”
“I would be happy to,” said David. “But if you do not mind my asking, why me? We have not spent a great deal of time together.”
“I think I may know you better than you may suspect,” Yates said. “It is more than clear to me that you are a man of faith.”
“I hope you are right,” David said, smiling. “However, I do not equate churchgoing with practical essential Christianity, so how much help I can be in a decision involving the church, I don’t know, although one in your profession witnesses evidence of that dichotomy every week in your congregation.”
Yates laughed lightly. “Sad but insightful,” he said. “You are closer to hitting the nail on the head than you have any idea—as I hope I will have the opportunity to explain later. I would love to hear the story of your spiritual journey?”
“And I would love to share it,” rejoined David. “However, it is not something I am quick to divulge. One must be careful to whom one opens one’s heart. Timing is as important as receptivity. And as you called this particular meeting, I defer to your agenda today.”
“I see I did not misjudge my man!” Yates laughed again. “You are kind as well as sensitive. And you are right. As interested as I am in your story, I did have my own reasons for asking you here.”
“What about the church people, your elders?”
/> “I am not as close to them as I might like. Most of them tend to see spirituality through the lens of church services and functions. I need a small circle of advisors, as it were, from outside the church leadership.”
“Then as I say, I would be honored,” said David. “And yes, I have just the man. He is one who has been purified by fire, as they say, and has been through some spiritual crises of his own. I know he would be honored to pray with you.”
35
Profession or Calling
About eight o’clock that same evening, David returned to the parsonage with Noak Muir. Stirling Yates had no idea of the history that existed between the two men. He had received scattered and inconclusive reports about the Fountain of Light and the turmoil it had caused. About Noak Muir’s involvement, and the subsequent reconciliation between himself and his younger chief, he knew nothing. Sandy Innes, who of course knew the story well, was already on hand with the minister.
Tea prepared, the four men sat down in the small sitting room. A comfortable peat fire blazed away in the fireplace. They were soon talking freely and openly.
“The crux of my quandary,” said Rev. Yates after a few minutes, “bluntly put, is whether I am to continue in the church.”
If the men listening were shocked by his statement, they showed no sign of it. All three took in his words thoughtfully and seriously.
“By that, I’m sure you understand, I mean specifically the ministry,” Yates went on. “Of course, we are all part of the church universal, the body of Christ. I am speaking of the organized church, the outward form, the administrative infrastructure, the buildings and services and bureaucracy that make up the Church of Scotland. It is not a question of losing my faith, or even of losing my belief in the veracity and importance of the visible church. I love the Church of Scotland. But am I to continue as one of its clergymen? That is the question before me for which I covet your prayers.
“I am a relatively young man—forty-four to be exact. However, I am approaching the age where, to wait many more years, would make it difficult to alter life directions. If a change is on my horizon, I need to make it. If I am to remain serving God’s people in my present capacity, then I need confirmation that such is indeed the case.”
Yates paused. His three companions felt no need to fill the silence with their thoughts. Their responsibility was to listen with prayerful attentiveness. They waited patiently.
“In order that you will be able to pray with understanding,” the minister went on, “I would like to give you a brief summary of my spiritual history.”
He drew in a deep breath, then began again.
“I come from several generations of ministers,” Yates said. “Strange as it may sound, the pulpit or clergy or ministry—however you want to describe it—has been our family business, so to speak. My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather were all ministers, curates, rectors, vicars, and the like, along with one brother, two uncles, and a cousin or two that I know of. I’m not sure why this blessing, or blight, was visited upon my family, but I grew up from the cradle knowing that the ministry was expected of me. I was set early on a course that would land me squarely in the pulpit.
“One more singularly unequipped for the ministry it would be difficult to imagine. I had no depth of faith. The ministry was a profession not a calling, which must certainly be one of the most grievous things that could be said of any man in any profession. Honestly, I do not know if I was a Christian at all.
“But I dutifully learned my trade, learned to conduct business meetings and call on the sick and administer communion and dish out platitudes. Most vital to the profession, I learned to write socially relevant but spiritually useless sermons that did no one an ounce of good, and certainly turned no hearts in humble obedience to God. But I became a good minister. I was sent to several churches in succession, each larger than the previous.
“I continued to hone and refine my secularly religious craft. With much practice, I began to be seen as one of Edinburgh’s up-and-coming young clergymen—a man to watch, as they say. Yet I was completely void of spiritual life in my soul. No more perfect image of the blind leading the blind could be found than to watch me in action every Sunday morning as I solemnly, humorously, energetically, and with such imagined wisdom intoned the empty words of my faithless religiosity.”
Yates turned away and wiped his eyes. Sandy reached over and laid a gentle arm on his arm. David and Noak waited as he regained his composure.
He drew a steadying breath. “I tell you these things with a heart full of shame. Yet it is my story, and I do not shrink from it. Only a handful of individuals know parts of it. Not even my own parents, God bless them, know the depths of my struggle.”
He paused again, breathing deeply for a few moments.
“Then began an altogether unexpected series of events,” he went on. “My grandfather, the retired vicar, died. Among his possessions was a file of old sermons and notes and personal journals and several Bibles from his grandfather, who had also been a minister in the south of England around the turn of the last century. Some stain existed on this man’s reputation. I knew nothing about it other than that he was looked upon as the clerical black sheep of the family tradition.
“In any event, his papers had come down through the family. Nobody wanted them, but neither did they want to simply toss the man’s life’s work on the fire. In going through my grandfather’s effects, his widow, my grandmother, asked if I would like the box from mysterious old Grandfather Diggorsfeld.
“Why not avail myself of some fresh sermon material? I thought. If they were any good, resurrecting them would save me countless hours of work. No one would know them to be recycled from a century earlier before the First World War, especially from so far away as Devon. I would spruce up the language and contemporize the anecdotes and have a ready supply of sermons at my disposal for years to come. So I took them.
“As I began to go through the papers, however, I was met with a discovery that was the last thing I expected. These were like no sermons I had ever read, and certainly like nothing I had ever preached or heard preached. They were personal . . . heartfelt expressions in which the honesty was palpable. The man poured out the depths of his soul to his listeners.
“What kind of man preaches personal sermons and exposes his questions and struggles and doubts to his congregation? I asked myself. To do so broke every convention of the ministerial art, as we were taught to preach in seminary. A minister must never admit doubt, never question the sacred doctrinal tenets of the church, never speak of personal quandaries in matters of theology or belief.
“I put aside the first selection and tried another. It was the same. Then another . . . and another, all with the same result. My first instinct was to close up the box and be done with it. But I could not help being intrigued by this man who had been my own great-great-grandfather and his deep quest for truth as revealed in his sermons.
“It did not take me long to realize that I was reading the heart cries of as intellectually honest a man as I had ever encountered, a man on a quest to personalize his faith. At root it was a quest to understand the heart of God.
“It was all new to me. More than merely new, it was revolutionary. I had never confronted the idea of an individual and personal spiritual quest, nor the notion that it might be my responsibility to ask if what I believed was actually true. Or, to take it even further, to look in the mirror and ask if I believed anything at all. Christianity, as I had always thought of it, meant a system of ideas. Preparation for the ministry in seminary was simply a series of exercises in training prospective clergymen to do four things: disseminate that orthodox system of ideas, proselytize on the basis of those ideas, keep people sufficiently interested so that they kept coming from week to week, and stimulate financial giving.
“The concept of anything personal in it was utterly foreign. The idea of searching for truth, of hungering to understand God, and especially of questioning
the accepted system of dogma . . . such concepts were utterly off the radar of ministerial training. It was a foreign spiritual language.
“Once begun, such uncomfortable thoughts could not be controlled. I hadn’t planned to ask if I was really a Christian. The question simply came. I could not keep it away.
“My well-ordered and socially acceptable world began to crumble. The first Sunday after my discovery of the box of sermons wasn’t so bad. I put together one of my standard meaningless messages and delivered it without incident and received the warm handshakes and predictably commonplace comments of, ‘Nice sermon, Reverend,’ when it was over.
“The week after that proved more difficult. My words sounded hollow in my ears. Between Sundays I was reading sermon after sermon of my great-great-grandfather’s and was finding them food for my hungry soul. By the third week I was struggling mightily.
“A few more Sundays went by. Increasingly I heard my own voice from the pulpit, preaching as if it were not me at all but an automaton spouting learned maxims and platitudes. My voice sounded like a machine, complete with humor and anecdotes and all the inflectionary gimmicks designed to keep a congregation engaged. Yet I saw myself for what I had always been, an empty spiritual shell.
“I knew I could not continue. I manufactured some excuse and told my congregation that I needed to be gone for two weeks. I drove down to Devon, where I visited the church in the village of Milverscombe, where old Grandfather Diggorsfeld had preached. I holed up in a bed-and-breakfast with nothing to keep me company but the memory of my great-great-grandfather—his writings and journals and papers and two of his Bibles. I read and read, then walked the streets and country lanes and haunted that old church in the early-morning hours.
“In the box of his effects I had also discovered an illuminating correspondence with one of his parishioners named Charles Rutherford of Heathersleigh Hall, kinsman of the well-known Samuel Rutherford. I gathered from my reading that Charles was a man of some importance in England in the years leading up to the war.
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