Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  “I am truly sorry to hear that.”

  What irritated Robbie most about the man’s statement was its complete sincerity. How could he possibly fault the man? But this fact only annoyed him all the more.

  “Are you?” he asked caustically.

  “Do you blame me for your friend’s departure?”

  “He was thoughtless and inconsiderate in what he did,” replied Robbie. “But I think a little compassion would not have done him harm.”

  Slowly Wallace closed his book and leveled his full attention on Robbie. “You believe I am a hard man, unacquainted with compassion, don’t you, Mr. Taggart? Perhaps in a certain sense you are right, and if that is true God will deal with me accordingly. But true compassion, of the kind our Lord felt, shows itself differently, depending on a man’s different needs. I sensed hostility in Mr. Drew from that first day. I knew there were hidden hurts in the man’s soul as well. But I felt it my duty not to patronize him. He would have twisted that behavior, as he twisted my response yesterday. To truly put on the face of love, as our Lord did, requires many different responses. That is one of the first lessons a missionary must learn. In Mr. Drew’s case I felt it was more compassionate to make him face the reality of what he was doing. There is something in the man’s past, I suspect, which—if I read him correctly—would have made him bitterly resent any patronizing words. I had prayed that a firmer response would bring him to repentance. It seems he chose to run away instead—and for that I truly am sorry. I do care about the man. I do not believe in accidents, only divine appointments. God did not bring either you or Mr. Drew here to the mission for no reason.”

  “But with him you never tried the other way,” said Robbie. “How can you say what would have happened? You don’t even know him. How do you know that a gentler approach might not have kept him here?”

  “I don’t. I had to act on whatever measure of spiritual wisdom I may have been given at the time. If it was my flesh reacting, then God will reveal it to me. This is a matter I assure you I will take to Him in prayer.”

  “Prayer! That’s a convenient way for you not to face up to your own shortcomings,” rejoined Robbie.

  Wallace smiled, seemed to ponder his response for a moment, then opened his mouth to speak.

  “For an unbeliever, you are bold, Mr. Taggart. And not without a good deal of insight, too. Indeed, it is precisely my human failings and shortcomings that most often drive me to prayer. But you are wrong on one point. Prayer does not keep me from facing my shortcomings. On the contrary, it is only through prayer that I am able to conquer them. Or I should say, that the Lord is able to conquer them in me.”

  “So you consider me an unbeliever because I do not practice your religious ways?”

  “Not at all. If you are an unbeliever, it is not because of anything to do with religious ways, but because of belief. Do you think you believe, Mr. Taggart?”

  “I suppose that depends on what you mean by believe.”

  “What do you mean by it?”

  “What someone thinks is true, I guess.”

  “So do you believe on that basis?”

  “I think there is a God, if that is what you mean.”

  “And that qualifies you as a believer, a Christian?”

  “Well, yes, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what a Christian is, someone who believes in God?”

  “That’s what most people think,” replied Wallace. “But according to the Scriptures, belief is something altogether different.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “It’s lifestyle, Mr. Taggart, not just intellectual agreement with an idea, or a set of ideas. Millions of people believe certain things to be true. But it makes no difference in their lives. It’s merely a mental assent to an idea or notion. But biblical ‘belief’ means something else completely. It involves trust. To believe in the true sense means to put your entire trust in it—completely. You believe in the seaworthiness of your ship by entrusting your life and future to it by going to sea on it. If you said, ‘I believe that ship is worthy, but I refuse to sail on it,’ your so-called belief would mean nothing. Without trust, mental assent is no belief at all.”

  “And so what does all that have to do with what Christians believe?”

  “To be a Christian, a believer, in the true sense, means to place your trust in Jesus Christ, depending on Him for all of the decisions and goals and priorities and attitudes and values of your life. To depend on Him entirely. To give yourself wholly to Him. To become like Him. To live like Him. To model your life after His. To obey His commands and instructions. That is what it means to believe! Saying, ‘I believe God exists,’ but then to do nothing in response, for it to make no difference in how you live—that is not belief according to the Bible.”

  “And you can say that about yourself?” asked Robbie, not wanting to expose his own reaction.

  “I can say that is my prayer, Mr. Taggart. The desire of my heart is to live like Jesus, to model my life after His, to trust Him, to give myself in service to those people to whom He has called me. So yes, I believe in that way. And that is why I do pray every day. And I pray for my own shortcomings and weaknesses. One cannot pray and try to hide from God at the same time. Sincere prayer exposes a man’s whole heart to Him—that is why it should not be entered into lightly.”

  Another pause followed; then Wallace stood. “It is time for me to prepare for the service,” he said. “I hope you will consider joining us.”

  Robbie made no reply, only stood silently while their eyes met briefly—in a kind of battle of wills, but also in a kind of reaching out to understand one another. Had Robbie been able to probe the other man’s mind, he would have seen that even in those brief moments that mysterious and awesome thing was going on which they had just been talking about—prayer. Wallace was not praying on behalf of himself, but that the heart of his young guest would somehow be opened to the truth of the gospel, and that in due time he would indeed find that fully trusting belief in the Savior.

  Robbie was the first to break eye contact, but it was the doctor who walked away. At the door he turned once more to Robbie.

  “I am curious about something, Mr. Taggart,” he said, “and of course you don’t have to answer me if you don’t wish. But it puzzles me why you have remained here instead of following your friend.”

  Robbie had pondered that dilemma himself. The moment he had seen Elliot’s note and knew for certain he was gone, his first instinct had been to grab up his jacket and make every effort to catch the Vicar. But he had remained. And even he was not quite sure why, though there were a hundred flippant things he might say, one of which he now found himself using on Wallace.

  “I don’t like to leave a job half-finished,” he answered with almost a defensive air in his tone. “Besides, it was a foolhardy thing for him to do. We have no money, don’t know the language, don’t know which way to go. We’re trapped here, for a while at least. He’ll probably end up back here before the day is out.” Even as he spoke them, though everything he said was true enough, the reasons sounded lame. But how could he express deeper forces than he even realized were operating upon him? How could he say that which he did not understand, that something beyond himself was compelling him to remain at the mission, for reasons he would not become aware of for a long time still to come?

  When Wallace had gone, Robbie too left the residence. The rain was coming in intermittent spurts now, but he didn’t mind a little moisture. He walked slowly away from the buildings, and spent the next hour walking along the bank of the stream, taking in again the scene that had so impressed him that first day with its peace and serenity. But now that he had become more familiar with this village, he knew that here also there was strife, discord, poverty and sadness.

  His gaze moved back along the little river in the direction from which he had come, and to the mission compound, less than two hundreds yards off to his right. There was more than met the eye there, too—more to be discovered and ex
perienced. But the mystery was wrapped in no quaint package out of some picture-book, like the picturesque village. There in the mission compound it was bound up intrinsically in the persons of Hsi-chen and Wallace, even Coombs and the proper Miss Trumbull and the others. Something waiting to be discovered, something almost as appealing to his sense of adventure as a new voyage on the open sea. A momentary thrill coursed through his veins at the thought, but it was immediately counterbalanced with a protective defense that said, Be careful, Robbie Taggart! Whatever it is, it may be wonderful—but it might also be dangerous!

  As he approached the slender bridge once more, his attention was suddenly drawn to dozens of village folk who had begun making their way across to the mission. Whatever it was, that something was drawing them also, from centuries of tradition toward worshiping a God who was radically new to them, a God brought to them by Isaiah Wallace. What was it that made it so compelling to these people that they would risk everything to follow where Wallace was leading them?

  Robbie stood and watched for some time while the steady but silent flow of Chinese men and women was gradually swallowed up within the walls of the small chapel building. Soon only a handful of latecomers were crossing the bridge, hurrying forward even as Miss Trumbull’s organ music once again began to play. Robbie vaguely recognized the tune, and from deep within his subconscious came remnants of the words, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . .” He could remember no more. Only today the words were different altogether, and the tune a bit stilted. The congregation was trying to sing in Chinese. Hsi-chen had once mentioned that translating Western songs into their native tongue was difficult because the two languages were so diverse. Robbie now realized what she had meant.

  He had wandered back into the compound almost before he knew it. He slowly walked to the camphor tree under which he and Hsi-chen had lately spent many hours discussing life and faith. Leaning against the tree he listened to the sounds coming from within the church, hardly questioning at first why he listened as an outsider, reluctant to enter this place of worship. Soon came a brief pause in the music; then the organ took up a song unfamiliar to Robbie. It was sung in English by only a few voices, probably the mission staff and perhaps one or two others.

  “Come, thou Fount of every blessing,” they sang, “tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.”

  He could hear Hsi-chen’s and Wallace’s voices harmonizing above the rest. One would have thought the two very distinctive sounds would have been discordant and grating. Yet the gentleness of the one and the deep austerity of the other seemed to blend together into a sound both fervent and appealing.

  “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. . . .”

  Suddenly Robbie realized he had wandered away from the security of the tree and all at once found himself on the steps of the chapel. Almost against his will he felt like he was being drawn into the sanctuary. He had given no conscious thought to Wallace’s invitation, and had not even debated within himself about whether he would attend the service.

  “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”

  Robbie opened the doors just as the final strain of the organ music died away. He hadn’t expected what he now saw. Crowded into that small building were what had to be over a hundred and fifty people. A few heads turned as he entered, but the majority remained bowed as Wallace delivered a prayer in Chinese. Robbie found a seat toward the rear of the chapel, on a wooden, backless bench next to an old gentleman he had never seen before. The remainder of the service was in Chinese, except for a song or two in English.

  In the few times during the course of his life when occasion had demanded it, Robbie had had a difficult enough time sitting through a church service in English. But in Chinese the boredom was magnified even further, and his mind wandered over a good many distant settings. By the time it was over he had gotten over whatever “sentimentalism,” as he called it, had possessed him to come in in the first place, and had regained what he considered his “good senses.” He was intent on making a quick getaway before he was noticed. He had begun to feel it signaled a weakness to have come, an admission that they had something he might need. The thing was ridiculous, of course, and it wouldn’t do to give Wallace the impression that any of that talk about “belief” had stirred anything in him.

  He had nearly ducked safely out the door when suddenly Hsi-chen appeared like an apparition at his elbow.

  “Mr. Taggart,” she said pleasantly, seemingly unaware that she had interrupted him in the very process of making his escape, “I’m glad you joined us this morning.”

  “Well, it is Sunday,” he answered airily. “What else would I do?” But before he went on he stopped himself suddenly. Why should he try to cover up who he was? If they were such righteous Christians, then they ought to be able to accept him as he was. “Actually,” he went on after a moment’s pause, “there are lots of things I might find to do on a Sunday, and going to church is usually not one of them.”

  “Then that makes me all the more glad that you chose to so honor our humble chapel,” she answered earnestly. “It makes it even more meaningful. And as you have perhaps noticed, there would have been many disappointed villagers if you had stayed away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our numbers are not often so swelled as they were today,” she explained. “Many new folk came, curious to see the English sailor who was saved out of the water.”

  “I doubt your father will be happy about that,” said Robbie.

  It was Wallace himself who answered, approaching from the other direction. “On the contrary, Mr. Taggart. I am deeply indebted to you; you have attracted many who might never have come through these doors otherwise. Today the gospel was spread to many new listeners, thanks to you! Already the name we first gave you, Moses, is being fulfilled!”

  A hint of a smile tugged at the doctor’s lips, and an ironic twinkle gleamed in his dark eyes.

  “But why did they wait until today?” Robbie asked. “They could have, and did, see me many times around the mission.”

  “The Chinese are a decorous, formal people,” replied Wallace. “Most had no official reason to come to the mission without an invitation. So they waited for the day when they knew an invitation was extended to one and all.”

  “Well then, I’m certainly glad I did not disappoint them!” laughed Robbie.

  “Come,” said Hsi-chen, “I will introduce you to some of my friends. That may help to bring them back for two or three more Sundays.” She chuckled even as she spoke.

  “Have I become one of your missionary band without even knowing it?” rejoined Robbie, keeping up the light banter.

  “Oh no, Mr. Taggart,” said Wallace. “It has not gone so far yet. Do not forget the import of our conversation this morning.” His tone had taken on its more usual imposing intensity. “You will know for certain when you have become a missionary.”

  Robbie was delivered from any necessity of having to respond when Wallace was spirited away by Coombs and several Chinese men. At that point, true to her word, Hsi-chen took him by the arm and began to introduce him, in Chinese, to several of the village families who indeed counted it a great honor to be thus singled out. After he had gone through the process of bowing in greeting to one man, as an aside Hsi-chen told Robbie that the man he had just met had been one of the participants in the attack on Chang’s home.

  “What happened? Why is he here now?” asked Robbie in surprise.

  “My father paid him a visit,” replied Hsi-chen, “and now he is here with his whole family.”

  “Whatever did your father say to him?”

  “You will have to ask my father that,” replied Hsi-chen.

  Robbie had little intention of doing that, he told himself—though with th
e thought came the recollection that he had not intended to attend the service in the chapel that morning, either. There was, indeed, a strange atmosphere in this place. Almost involuntarily he found himself wondering what other new adventures might be in store for him—planned or unplanned.

  There was at least one villager, however, who was not intimidated or impressed by the doctor’s ways. Robbie saw him approach from the direction of the bridge—he had obviously not been to the church service. He wore an expression steeped in bitterness and anger.

  He stalked up to where Wallace stood in conversation with several men, took a position some ten feet away, and then began waving his fist and shouting biting insults and accusations. A few of the Chinese men attempted to reason with him, but he would not relax his tirade.

  At length he approached still closer, walking toward Wallace, looking as if he might physically attack him. Wallace unflinchingly held his ground, speaking in his calm, measured voice, trying to soothe the man. Finally, with the help of two of his friends, half pulling, half cajoling, the man was made to retreat, but he continued to yell angry threats over his shoulder at Wallace, even as he approached the bridge.

  Robbie cast a questioning glance toward Hsi-chen, whose face was drawn with concern over the outburst.

  “That is Mr. Li,” she said. “He comes often on Sundays to express his disapproval of the mission.”

  To Robbie her comment seemed highly understated, but he could tell she was trying to be benevolent toward the troublemaker. “His heart is hard toward our Lord,” she went on, “but maybe it will not always be so.”

  Robbie was left with more mixed feelings about this place and its director. One man came to worship who two days earlier was an enemy; another cast threats. Yet in a way these two were representative of his own reactions to the mission. He shook his head, wondering why it seemed impossible to simply ignore the place.

  Later that afternoon, as the dinner meal was being cleared away from the table, Wallace broached a new subject. Coombs listened attentively, as he always did when Wallace spoke. Yet there still seemed to be a sense of defeat and resignation in his manner.