Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  But before she reached the residence, Ruth stopped dead still in the middle of the yard. Intent on the race, Robbie nearly collided with her.

  “’Tis no way to give me the lead!” he joked, catching his balance. But one look at her face showed him she was no longer laughing. Instead, an intense look of questioning had supplanted the earlier merriment.

  “What is it, Ruth—?” Suddenly as he looked up, he saw the cause for the unexpected change in her countenance. The mission had a visitor, and she had been the first to notice him.

  Before him was a sight Robbie had never expected to see again.

  Although now that he found himself standing face to face with Benjamin Pike’s withered and aging form, Robbie knew that another encounter with the man was inevitable sooner or later. His throat tightened, and instinctively he reached out and pulled Ruth protectively near to him. Every fiber within him screamed out for vengeance; even if he had wanted to, he could not control the sudden look of violence that spread across his face. Pike was quick to note it.

  Leaning against the chapel door, he shook his head with mock dismay.

  “Robbie, lad,” he said, “is that any way to greet a dear old friend?”

  Robbie made no immediate reply, merely gaping ahead; how could Pike speak in his old tone as if nothing had ever happened?

  “Surely,” Pike went on, “ye can’t be holding old mistakes against me after all these years.”

  Robbie swallowed hard. The words which finally came from his mouth were forced and terse. “What do you want with me?”

  Robbie had often wondered what he would do if he ever saw Pike again. He had never let that line of thinking progress far enough to come to a conclusion. He had gradually come to consider Pike a part of the long-distant past, forgotten and gone forever. But now here he was facing his old skipper as if the years had been but the blink of an eye. Here he was, an unresolved agony from the past, and with sight of him, years of pent-up bitterness and unforgiveness rose up from within Robbie. Why had he come back now? What new horrors would he bring with him this time?

  “Papa,” came Ruth’s voice as if from a fog, “he’s hurt like you.”

  The sound of her voice struck him with a jolt—there was compassion in her tone. Did she expect him to pity the miscreant? Dear God, you can’t ask such a thing of me!

  “Blimey!” croaked Pike, with a gloat that must have been intended to have a fatherly appearance, “do me ears deceive me, or do ye gots yerself a young’un? A China doll at that, ye old sea dog!”

  “Get out of here, Pike!” Robbie could take almost anything, but not to hear Pike’s evil lips speak degradingly of his daughter, Hsi-chen’s daughter. “We want nothing to do with you.”

  “Papa?” said Ruth, puzzled. She had never heard her father speak thus to anyone.

  “Go into the house, Ruth,” Robbie snapped. When she hesitated, he added sharply, “Quickly!”

  She scurried away, but Robbie did not relax even when she was safely behind the closed door of the residence.

  “I ain’t got no other place to go,” said Pike pitifully as soon as they were left alone. “I told myself, Robbie was ne’er one to hold a grudge, especially now as I heard ye gots religion. I says to myself, Robbie Taggart won’t turn me out.”

  “Well, you’re wrong! I can and I will!”

  But even as Robbie spoke, words that he heard from the lips of his own daughter only a few moments earlier came tumbling like an accusation back into his agonized mind. “Perfect love . . .” I cannot be expected to love him, God! That’s asking too much!

  But a quiet voice within gently responded to his cry. “Just such as he I gave my life for. Do you think I love Benjamin Pike any less than I do your daughter Ruth . . . or you? Yes, Robbie, I do expect you to love—and forgive.”

  I can’t! cried Robbie in silent misery.

  Pike had in the meantime hobbled on his crutch down the chapel steps, and Robbie saw more clearly how pathetic the old sailor had become. His clothes were mere rags and hung pitifully from his emaciated body. His scant, greasy hair was now completely gray, and his bloodshot eyes were rheumy and dull. Under any other circumstances, his was a figure toward whom Robbie would have felt instant compassion and pity. But stubbornly he shook his head at the emotions raging through him.

  In the midst of his turmoil he heard his name being called. He looked up and saw Wallace standing in the residence doorway.

  “Robert,” said the doctor, “your daughter tells me we have a visitor. He looks tired and no doubt hungry as well. He is welcome to join us for our evening meal.”

  Oh, Isaiah, you don’t know what you are doing! thought Robbie to himself. Surely you must know who this is, even if you have never laid eyes on the old captain. I’ve described him clearly enough to you. Surely Hsi-chen’s father could not have forgotten, no matter how many years had passed, that this was the man who had aided in kidnapping his daughter, and in nearly killing Robbie as well. How could he now invite him into their home? How could he even consider allowing him near Ruth? Robbie cast a questioning, resistant look in Wallace’s direction.

  “Robert, I have never turned away a seeking soul from this mission in all the years I have been here.” The words were spoken in Wallace’s stern intractable tone that clearly said he would not be moved in his decision.

  Robbie stepped reluctantly aside.

  “Thank ye, laddie,” said Pike. “I swear to ye, I’m a reformed man—at least I wants to be. I jist needs the helpin’ hand of an old friend, Robbie. I knew ye wouldn’t let me down.”

  Following behind his old skipper, Robbie could not see the glint of triumph in Pike’s eye as he followed Wallace inside.

  62

  God’s Power Made Perfect In Weakness

  Was it possible for a man such as Benjamin Pike to reform?

  Over the next several days Robbie spent many hours pondering that very question. The man was such a study in affability—helping around the mission compound like a devoted slave, lavishing all with the most gracious of mannerisms and cordial pleases and thank-yous. He seemed hardly the same man Robbie had always known. Every chance he had, he plied Robbie and Wallace with religious questions and listened attentively to their answers.

  Robbie had almost begun to repent of his own harsh reception of the man on that day he arrived.

  Yet part of him still held back his complete acceptance of Pike’s supposed reformation. There remained something in the old sailor’s eyes that still didn’t quite ring true, an occasional flash of cunning that might have been missed by one less wary.

  So Robbie ate with the man, allowed him to sleep in the spare room in the hospital where he and the Vicar had once stayed before he himself had moved into the residence. And he even—though only in his presence—let Pike tell Ruth an occasional sea story or two.

  Yet Robbie could never let himself lose sight of the man’s past treachery. Something inside told him Pike was up to no good. For two days he was especially vigilant over Ruth. However, during that time Pike did not give him the slightest provocation or reason for mistrust. On the afternoon of the third day, suddenly Pike was nowhere to be seen. Robbie did not know whether to be afraid or relieved. At least with Pike nearby and visible, he had been able to monitor his activities—he didn’t relish the idea of not knowing what the former friend of his father was up to.

  But at dinnertime, there was Pike again, a toothless and lopsided smile spread across his hideous face.

  “We missed you earlier,” said Robbie tightly.

  “Ye have every right to be put out with old Ben,” said the seaman contritely. “It were jist downright thoughtless o’ me to go off without leavin’ a word. An’ I would ne’er ’ave done such a thing ’cept ye an’ the reverend was nowheres about, an’ I didn’t want to disturb the ladies.”

  It was a plausible enough excuse, for Robbie and Ruth had gone for a walk, and it was only on their return that they had discovered Pike gone.

&
nbsp; “You are free to come and go as you please,” said Robbie.

  “Ye’re a saint, Robbie! But I always told meself that Robbie Taggart was good as gold.”

  “So, Mr. Pike,” put in Wallace, “you were perhaps exploring our little village?”

  It wasn’t like Wallace to make trivial small talk, but he had probably decided it was in everyone’s best interests to be fully apprised of Pike’s activities.

  “Matter o’ fact, yes, Reverend,” answered Pike in a smooth tone. “An’ a fine old place it is, too. Why, I wouldn’t mind settlin’ down here meself.”

  Wallace cleared his throat as he searched for some positive response to such a disquieting notion. “As God directs, Mr. Pike.”

  “I’ve been driftin’ from place to place an’ job to job, ain’t had no place to rest my sea-weary bones all these ten years. Maybe I’ll jist join yer little mission community here, Reverend.”

  Robbie said nothing. He had seen that wild glint flash through Pike’s eyes again, even as he spoke to Wallace. Whether Wallace knew he was being lied to, Robbie could not tell. But what could he do, short of forcing Pike to leave? And that he could not do. If he was truly a servant of God, and if that God was a God of love—and Robbie knew beyond all question that He was—then he was compelled to respond in love toward all men. Thus far such a requirement had not been difficult for him. He was a man who naturally liked others. However, neither his natural nor his spiritual self had ever been called to such a test as this.

  He had discussed this very thing with Wallace earlier that day.

  “Isaiah,” Robbie had said as they sat in the doctor’s study, “I know I must somehow express the love of Christ to Pike. What if his only chance to hear the gospel is to come through me? What if the only love he may ever experience is what I offer him? Yet I can barely look at the man without all the old hatred and bitterness rising up within me. Much less love him with the love of Jesus! I thought I had fully accepted my injury. I thought I had truly come to the point of thankfulness in my heart. And yet the moment he showed up, all the old resentments came instantly back. Ten years I’ve been walking with the Lord, and yet suddenly it’s like I’m a week-old Christian struggling with the most fundamental of things inside my heart. It’s all I can do to keep the hate from consuming me!”

  “The Lord has done a great work in your life, Robert,” replied Wallace. “In ten years He has remade you in almost every way. You turned everything over to Him. You gave Him all your former attitudes and priorities. Everything except that one most crucial place deep inside you where dwelt the memory of Benjamin Pike and all he represented. He was a hanging thread. We all have them in our lives—the one hidden thing we don’t even realize we are holding back from the Lord until that painful day when He finally reveals our own self to us all over again. Everyone has a Benjamin Pike. And now is your opportunity to give God thanks that he is providing you this chance to complete the circle of your growth in this area.”

  “Oh!” wailed Robbie, “if it were anything but this!”

  “If it were anything but this, then it wouldn’t be the supreme test of your commitment to walk in the way of our Lord.”

  “But he’s the man who took my hand!” Robbie protested.

  “What about Jesus? They took His life. And He forgave them. Dare we strive for anything less, Robert? We may yet be called on to give our lives, too. I found myself praying earlier today that God would prepare me, if that was in His plan for me. We never know what blessings and sacrifices the Lord has in store once we become completely His.”

  Robbie was silent, agonizing within his soul over his father-in-law’s words. He knew they were words of truth.

  “I think it is no accident that God has brought you to face Pike at this time,” continued Wallace thoughtfully. “His timing in our lives is always perfect. He has strengthened you through the years in preparation for this supreme test of your spiritual strength and manhood. You are a man, Robert. A man after God’s heart. A man I am proud to call my son, if not in blood, then certainly in every other way. It has been an honor in my life to know you, and to share these past ten years of ministry with you. You have blessed me, served me, and loved me. I could not be more proud of my daughter’s choice of husband. But my time in China is nearly over. The time is coming—”

  Robbie opened his mouth to protest, but Wallace cut him off.

  “Please. Let me finish. I have something I want to say to you. I have lived a good life, Robert. I hope I can say with Paul that I have fought the good fight and run the good race. But I will be seventy in not so many years. I am old. And the Lord has been speaking to me about the end of my service to Him on this earth.”

  Tears streamed down Robbie’s face as he listened, his heart thinking of Pike no longer but full of his great love for this man who had become his spiritual father.

  “The time of earthly endings must come to all. Earthly endings and eternal beginnings. And as my time of ministry here draws to a close, it is my prayer that you will take up the work and continue to carry forth the banner of God’s truth to these people you and I have grown to love so much. I want you to know that I believe God’s hand is upon you to accomplish great things for His church in China as this century ends and the 20th century begins. It is you, Robert, to whom I entrust the work of my life.”

  “But you have many years left, Isaiah,” said Robbie at last, through his tears.

  “Perhaps that is true. But I feel the Lord is showing me otherwise. Only the Lord knows. His timing is always right. But we cannot tell what these coming days of persecution may bring. And I want you to be ready, Robert, whatever may come. God will call upon you to make decisions affecting many. But His hand will be upon you. That is why I feel so strongly that He has brought your old friend and adversary, Mr. Pike, back into your life now. He is preparing you, Robert, for deeper, and possibly even more painful things. He is taking you further along the road of sharing in both the sufferings and the victories of your Master.”

  Both men were silent for some minutes, each deep in his own thoughts.

  “What does God want me to do?” Robbie finally asked.

  “I think you know the answer to that, Robert.”

  Robbie ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Yes, I suppose I do,” he sighed. “But he’s an evil, hateful man, and my flesh cannot love him.”

  “More evil than the men who put Jesus on the cross?”

  “No,” sighed Robbie again.

  “It will take real courage to face the task God has put before you. It is no less than what His Son faced as He hung there.”

  “Courage?”

  “Yes. Courage that only genuine men and women of God can summon. This will be the most difficult task you have ever faced in your life. You have braved storms and angry seas and battles of fist against fist and brawn against brawn. But victory in the arena of the Spirit will take an altogether greater kind of strength. It will take the greatest courage and the greatest humility of all: the courage to forgive.”

  “You know, Isaiah,” sighed Robbie, “I have always been more amply endowed with the other type.”

  “And now God is calling you again, as you have already done many times, to lay that fleshly strength of your old nature down, and exhibit courage on an altogether more profound level.”

  “I am so weak! Not only do I have only one hand, not only has my former physical strength been taken from me, I feel I have no emotional strength either.”

  “The power of God will be made perfect in weakness, Robert. So says the Word of God. For it is His strength you need only rely on—He will work the changes in your heart that will enable you to love. When we are strong, we can still rely on ourselves. That’s why God strips away all our earthly pride and strength, so that we will finally learn what it means to depend on Him. And out of such dependence, in the end, true spiritual strength is born.”

  “That will be the only way it can possibly happen,” replied Robbie, wit
h more determination than assurance, “for Him to work the changes in me.”

  “Just keep your heart submissive to God’s leading,” added Wallace. “Make sure that when He shows you what is required, you don’t rebel against it. It may be a heavy burden He gives you to bear.”

  Robbie smiled at these words, though he knew Wallace meant them more as a reminder than a rebuke. The old corner of his heart had been rebelling ever since Pike had made his appearance. Even after this talk with Wallace, though Robbie knew what God wanted him to do, seeing that old look in his former skipper’s eyes made his rebellious nature more alive than ever. As much as his father-in-law’s words were turning over in his subconscious mind and working themselves gradually deeper into his heart, he still found it nearly impossible to open himself to the man who had crippled him.

  Robbie was saved from having to agonize over what to do much longer, however. For the next day Pike disappeared again, and this time did not return.

  Two days after that, the trouble they had feared since Wuhu, a serious riot with ramifications throughout the entire region, erupted in Lungsi, a village only about three miles distant from the mission.

  63

  The Fanning of the Flames

  As soon as the trouble broke out, Wallace went to Lungsi.

  At the root of the disturbance, it seemed, was one of the mission’s communicants who had, against Wallace’s advice, taken an unbelieving neighbor to the authorities over the destruction of some property. Tempers had flared, and the Christian had been accused of being bewitched by the foreigners. This sentiment incited other anti-foreign, anti-Christian accusations, with several of the Christian members of the village attempting to defend their stand. Verbal sparring soon gave way to blows.

  Wallace arrived in the midst of the mayhem. The elder of the village and his council had thus far had no success in dispersing the twenty or thirty members of the angry mob. Wallace’s presence on the scene managed to quiet the crowd, especially in that he was able to encourage his own people to back off, despite taunts directed at him by several on the other side. The crowd shuffled off in various directions, but in no way did a sense of peace return to the community. Wallace helped restore order to the homes of his church members that had been vandalized during the row, then returned to the mission.