Gods Men

by Pearl S. Buck

  Otherwise the day had been fine, though the evening air was now laced with a cold wind from the northwest. He loved the city at this hour. The people were kind enough to him, even though he had fought that one impudent boy. He was sorry for it now. From how the boy looked at it, he had been right. The Miller family, though they trusted in God, were beggars.

  He entered the door of his home with so bitter a look upon his face that his mother, setting the square Chinese table with bowls and chopsticks for supper, stopped to look at him. Pottery bowls and bamboo chopsticks were cheaper than plates and knives and forks.

  “What’s wrong with you, son?” Her voice was childishly sweet and her face was still round and youthful. Her hair, once of the softest red gold, was now a sandy gray. In spite of his adolescent doubts of her he loved her, so soft was she, so tender to him and to them all.

  For the moment, nevertheless, he hardened his heart and blurted his thoughts. “Mama, somehow I’m beginning to see it, we’re really beggars.”

  She leaned on the table upon her outspread hands. “Why, Clem!”

  He went on unwillingly, hardening himself still more. “A Chinese boy called us beggars, and I lit into him. Now don’t look at me like that, Mama. William Lane came by at that moment, and he—he helped me to stop. But he thought the boy was right.”

  “I tremble for you, darling. If we lose our faith, we have nothing left.”

  “I want more faith, Mama.” His brain, honest yet agile, was seeking proof at last.

  “I don’t see how Papa could show more faith, Clem. He never wavered, even when we lost little Artie. He sustained me.”

  Her voice broke, and her full small mouth quivered. The tears, always waiting like her smile, ran from her golden brown eyes.

  “He could have more faith,” Clem said.

  “But how, dear?”

  “If he wouldn’t go and tell people when the bread is gone—at least if he wouldn’t tell the missionaries.”

  He lifted his eyes to hers, and to his amazement he saw clear terror. Her round cheeks, always pale, turned greenish. She did not deceive him, and for this his love clung to her always. She held out her hands in a coaxing gesture, and when he did not move, she came to him and knelt beside the bamboo stool upon which he sat, her face level with his.

  “Son, dear, what you’re saying I’ve said, too, in my own heart, often.”

  “Then why don’t you tell Papa?” he demanded. He could not understand why it was that though he loved her so much he no longer wished to touch her or be touched by her. He dreaded a caress.

  She did not offer it. She rose and clasped her hands and looked down at him.

  “For why you can’t do it, neither,” she said. “It would break his heart to think we had doubted.”

  “It’s not doubt—it’s just wanting proof,” he insisted.

  “But asking God for proof is doubt, my dearie,” she said quickly. “Papa has explained that to us, hasn’t he? Don’t you remember, Clem?”

  He did remember. His father, at the long family prayers held morning and evening every day, had taught them in his eager careful way, dwelling upon each detail of God’s mercy to them, that to ask God to prove Himself was to court Satan. Doubt was the dust Satan cast to blind the eyes of man.

  “And besides,” his mother was saying, “I love Papa too much to hurt him, and you must love him, too, Clem. He hasn’t anybody in the world but us, and really nobody but you and me, for the children are so little. He has to believe in our faith, to keep him strong. And Papa is so good, Clem. He’s the best man I ever saw. He’s like Jesus. He never thinks of himself. He thinks of everybody else.”

  It was true. Though sometimes he hated the unselfishness of his father, though his father’s humility made him burn with shame, he knew these were but aspects of a goodness so pure that it could not be defiled. He yielded to its truth and sighed. Then he rose from the stool and looked toward the table.

  “Is Papa home?”

  “No—not yet. He went down to preach in the market place.”

  Paul Miller had left the market place where he had gone to preach the saving grace of Jesus, for the people were busy and indifferent. On the way home he met Dr. Lane, returning from his Wednesday afternoon catechism class in the church. Ordinarily the tall handsome missionary, settled comfortably in a riksha, would have passed the short figure plodding through the dust with no more than a friendly, though somewhat embarrassed, nod. Today, however, he stopped the riksha. “Miller, may I have a word with you?”

  “Certainly, Brother Lane.”

  Henry Lane winced at the title. Brother he was, of course, spiritually, to all mankind, for he hoped he was a true Christian. But to hear it shouted thus cheerfully in the streets by a white man who wore patched garments was not pleasant. He did not encourage his wife or his son when they criticized the Faith Mission family. Indeed, he reminded them that Christ could be preached in many ways. Now, however, he had to conceal feelings that he was too honest to deny to himself were much like theirs. It was humiliating to the foreign community of Peking to have the Millers there. It was even worse that they were missionaries of a sort, preaching at least the same Saviour. The Faith Mission family had caused wonder and questions even in his own well-established church.

  On the street Chinese began to gather about the two Americans, the immediate crowd that seemed to spring from the very dust. Henry Lane took it for granted that no Chinese spoke English and ignored them.

  “Miller, it occurs to me that I ought to warn you that there is very likely to be trouble here against foreigners. I don’t like the talk I hear.”

  He glanced at the crowd. In the pale and golden twilight the faces were bemused with their usual quiet curiosity.

  “What have you heard, Brother Lane?” Paul Miller asked. He rested his hands on the fender of the riksha, and admired, as he had before, the delicate spirituality of the elder man’s looks. It did not occur to him to envy the good black broadcloth of the missionary’s garments or the whiteness of his starched collar and the satin of his cravat. Dr. Lane lowered his voice.

  “It is reported to me by one of my vestrymen, whose brother is a minister at the Imperial Court, that the Empress Dowager is inclined to favor the Boxers. She viewed personally today an exhibition of their nonsensical pretensions of inviolability to bullet wounds and bayonet thrusts. That is all she fears—our foreign armies. If she is convinced that these rascals are immune to our weapons she may actually encourage them to drive us all out by force. You must think of your family, Miller.”

  “What of yours, Brother Lane?”

  “I shall send them to Shanghai. Our warships are there,” Henry Lane replied.

  Paul Miller took his hands from the polished wooden fender.

  He looked at the watching Chinese faces, pale in the growing dusk. “I put my faith in God and not in warships,” he said simply.

  Henry Lane, good Christian though he was, felt his heart sting. “It is my duty to warn you.”

  “Thank you, Brother.”

  “Good night,” Henry Lane said and motioned to the riksha puller to move on.

  Paul Miller stood ankle deep in the spring dust and watched the riksha whirl away. His face was square and thin, and his skin was still pink and white, although it had been twenty years since first he heard the call of God at a camp meeting in Pennsylvania, and leaving his father’s farm, to the consternation of that old man, had gone to China, as the only heathen land of which he had heard. Faith had provided the meager means for himself and Mary to cross the continent in a tourist coach, and the Pacific by steerage. Neither had been home since. He did not feel it fair to ask God for furloughs, although other missionaries took them every seven years. He was living by faith.

  His mouth trembled and his eyes smarted. Until now he had never faced the possibility of death. They had been hungry often and sometimes sick, and the sorrow over Artie continued in him, though he tried not to think about it. But death at the ha
nds of cruel men, his Mary and his little ones, this he had not dreamed of, even in the nights when Satan tempted him with doubt and with homesickness for the sweet freshness of the farm life he had long ago lived. He was often homesick, but he no longer told Mary. At first they had cried themselves to sleep with homesickness, he a man grown. His mother had written to him now and again until she died, ten years ago, but he had never had a letter from his father. He did not even know if he lived.

  There in the darkening Chinese street, amid the dim lights of oil lanterns and candles of cows’ fat, listening to the sounds of coming night, mothers calling their children in from the streets, a sick child crying, an angry quarrel somewhere, the slam of wooden doors sliding into place in front of shops, a wailing two-stringed violin, the howl of the rising night wind, he was overcome with terror. He was a stranger and in a strange land. Whither could he and his little family flee? He thought of his wife’s tender looks, the gentleness of the two pale little girls, his son’s growing manhood. These were all he had, given him by God, and what did they have? He had robbed them of their birthright upon the farm, the safety of their own kind about them, a roof secure above their humble heads. If evil men killed these for whom he was responsible he could believe no more in God. In the darkness he stretched his hands toward heaven. The cold and twinkling stars were above him. There was no moon. None could see him, and he fell upon his knees, even here in the street, and he cried out to God. Then clenching his hands upon his bosom he lifted his face up and shut his eyes against the laughing stars.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Thou who at this moment maybe art looking down upon my dear old home, which I left, dear God, thinking it was what Thou wanted. Thou canst see into all hearts and knowest whether it is true that evil men are seeking our lives. Humbly I say I have noticed some difference myself in the Chinese in the last months. Our landlord wants us to move without reason. I have kept him paid up, though it has been hard to find the money always on time. But Thou dost provide. Save our lives and keep us safe, I now pray, and especially those dear ones whom Thou has given me, and yet I say Thy will be done, and I will not love them above Thee.”

  His head sank upon his breast and his chin rested upon his folded hands. He waited for the tide of faith to swell into his heart.

  It came at last, warming the blood in his veins, strengthening his heart like wine, convincing him that he was doing what was right. “Fear not, for I am with thee always—” He could hear the words he knew so well.

  “Amen, God,” he replied with reverence. He rose and plodded along the empty street toward the four small rooms where those whom he loved awaited him. Yes, he struggled constantly not to love them too well. They were not, he told himself, all that he had. For he had the immeasurable love of God.

  In less than half an hour he opened the door of his home and saw the sight which always gladdened him. The table was set for the evening meal. Mary sat beside the lighted oil lamp mending some garment, and Clem was studying one of his books. The two little girls were playing with a clay doll which a kindly Chinese woman had given them.

  They looked up when he came in, and he heard their greetings. For some foolish reason he could not keep the tears from his eyes. Mary rose and came toward him and he was glad the light was dim. Even so he closed his eyes when he kissed her lest a tear fall upon her face. Then he stooped to the little girls and avoided the eyes of his son.

  Only when he had conquered his sudden wish to weep did he speak to Clem. “What’s the book, son?”

  “A history book, Papa. I got it today at Mr. Fong’s shop.”

  “What history?”

  “A history of America.”

  He scarcely heard Clem’s voice. He was savoring his relief, the assurance God was giving him. They were all here, all safe. He would not tell them about the danger. There was no need. It was gone. “I will put my trust in the Lord.” With these silent words he bade his heart be still.

  The lamps in the mission house were all lit, and Dr. Lane was upstairs dressing for dinner. He did not encourage his wife’s ideas to the extent of wearing evening clothes every night as the English did, but he put on a fresh shirt and changed his coat. When he had left college, twenty years ago, he had been what he now called a dreamer. That is, he had believed in asceticism for the man of God. The stringency of war years had shaped him, although in his father’s house no one had actually joined the army. But they had sheltered slaves from the South, had spent a good deal of money helping them to settle and find work, and his father had been a leader in the Episcopal church in Cambridge. When he had announced his call to the mission field, however, his father had been plainly angry.

  “Of course we must send missionaries to heathen lands,” he had declared to the young Henry, “but I don’t feel that we must send our best young men. My father didn’t want me to go to war, and I didn’t go.”

  “God didn’t call you to go to war,” Henry had replied.

  The struggle with his father, wherein he had not yielded, had helped him when a few months later he fell in love with Helen Vandervent at Old Harbor. She was then the handsomest girl he had ever seen, a creature built on a noble scale even in her youth. He was tall but she was well above his shoulder, and proud and worldly, as he soon knew. He had gone on his knees to God, asking for strength to tame her, not for strength to give her up. Even so she had not yielded to him for nearly two years. She loved him, and she told him that she did, but his belief in her love was chilled by her unwillingness to share the life he felt must be his. This she had denied.

  “I don’t ask you to give up being a minister,” she had said. “Surely there are souls to be saved here at home.” Twenty years ago she had said it and he could still remember how she had looked, a tall handsome girl in a bright blue frock and coat. Even her hat was plumed with blue, but a frill of white satin lined the brim. She was queenly in youth, imperious in confidence, and his heart had staggered under the impact of her will.

  “Ah, but I must serve God where He bids me go,” he had told her, summoning the reserves of his own will.

  She had shrugged her shoulders and maintained her love and willfulness for nearly six months more, while by day and by night he prayed God for strength in himself and deepening in her love, that she might be softened. Strength he got, but he saw no softening in her and so he tore himself away from her one dreadful summer’s evening by the sea at Old Harbor. He had gone thither for one last trial of her love. It was an evil chance. She was surrounded by other young men, who were not beset by God and therefore were free to please her. He got her away at last and on the edge of the cliff above the beach he faced her.

  “Helen, I am going to China—alone if you will not come with me.”

  He was not sure that she believed it. She had shaken her head willfully and he had left her and come ahead to China not knowing whether she would follow him. Only when she was convinced that in Peking she could live a civilized life had she written at last that she would marry him. He had yielded enough to give her Peking. The first two years he had spent alone in an interior town, where life was primitive. In her heart she had never yielded, that he knew, although she believed that she was a Christian. In her way she was, he also believed. She kept his home comfortably, managed the servants with justice and carried out her ambitions for the children.

  He worried secretly about his son. There was something hard and proud in the boy. William laughed too seldom; he fell into a dark fury at any small family joke made at his expense, even in affection.

  Sometimes, musing upon this dear only son, he remembered a foolish thing his wife had done. She had taken the boy, when he was only nine years old, to an audience with the Empress Dowager. Once a year the Old Buddha gave a party to the American ladies. Somehow upon that occasion Helen had told the chief lady-in-waiting that she would like to bring her son to pay his respects to the Empress. The lady had laughed, had said something to the Empress, who was in one of her unaccountable moods, al
ternating between childishness and tyranny. Then the lady had said, “Our ancient Ancestor says she would like to see a foreign little boy. Please bring him on the next feast day, which is the Crack of Spring.”

  Upon a cold day William had gone with his mother to the Imperial Palace and had waited hours in an icy anteroom. At the hour of noon a tall eunuch had summoned them at last into The Presence. William had walked behind his mother and at the command of the eunuch had bowed very low before the spectacular old woman sitting on a glittering dragon throne. It was understood even then that no Americans were required to prostrate themselves.

  The Empress was in a good mood. The brilliant and still wintry sun streamed across the tiled floors and fell upon her gold encrusted robes and upon her long jeweled hands lying over her knees. William saw first the embroidered edge of her yellow satin robe, and then lifting his eyes higher, he saw the fabulous hands and then the ends of her long jade necklace and so his eyes rose at last to the enameled face, to the large shining eyes, to the elaborate jeweled headdress. Eunuchs and ladies, seeing this boldness of this child, waited for the royal fury. It did not fall. In the eyes of the young handsome American boy the Empress saw such worship, such admiring awe, that she laughed. Then everybody laughed except William, who stood gazing at her without response. Suddenly the mood changed. The Empress frowned, waved her encased fingertips, and turned away her head.

  The Chief Eunuch stepped forward instantly and hurried them away.

  “Why did the Empress get angry with me?” William asked his father when at home he was once again warmed and fed.