In His Steps - New Abridged Editon

by Charles M Sheldon

  When that Sunday in the Sterling mansion was drawing to a close and the soft, warm lights throughout the dwelling were glowing through the great windows, in a corner of her room, where the light was obscure, Felicia kneeled, and when she raised her face and turned it towards the light, it was the face of a woman who had already defined for herself the greatest issues of earthly life.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  THAT SAME EVENING, after the Sunday evening service, the Rev. Calvin Bruce, D.D., of Nazareth Avenue Church, was talking over the events of the day with his wife. They were of one heart and mind in the matter, and faced their new future with all the faith and courage of new disciples. Neither was deceived as to the probable results of the pledge to themselves or to the church.

  They had been talking a little while when the doorbell rang, and Dr. Bruce going to the door, exclaimed as he opened it, "It is you, Edward! Come in!"

  There came into the hall a commanding figure. The impression the bishop made on strangers was, first, that of great health, and then of great affection. He came into the parlor and greeted Mrs. Bruce, who after a few moments was called out of the room, leaving the two men together.

  The bishop sat in a deep easy-chair before the open fire. There was just enough dampness in the early spring of the year to make an open fire pleasant.

  "Calvin, you have taken a very serious step today," he finally said, lifting his large dark eyes to his old college classmate's face. "I heard of it this afternoon. I could not resist the desire to see you about it tonight."

  "I'm glad you came." Dr. Bruce sat near the bishop and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You understand what this means, Edward?"

  "I think I do. Yes, I am sure." The bishop spoke very slowly and thoughtfully. He sat with his hands clasped together. Over his face, marked with lines of consecration and service, a shadow crept, a shadow not caused by the firelight. Again he lifted his eyes towards his old friend.

  "Calvin, we have always understood each other. Ever since our paths led us in different ways in church life, we have walked together in Christian fellowship."

  "It is true," replied Dr. Bruce, with an emotion he made no attempt to conceal or subdue. "Thank God for it. I prize your fellowship more than any man's. I have always known what it meant, though it has always been more than I deserve."

  The bishop looked affectionately at his friend. But the shadow still rested on his face. After a pause he spoke again.

  "The new discipleship means a crisis for you in your work, Calvin. If you keep this pledge to do all things as Jesus would do -- as I know you will -- it requires no prophet to predict some remarkable changes in your parish." The bishop looked wistfully at Bruce, and then continued. "In fact, I do not see how a perfect upheaval of Christianity, as we now know it, can be prevented if the ministry and churches generally take the Raymond pledge and live it out."

  He paused as if he were waiting for his friend to say something, to ask some question. But Calvin Bruce did not know of the fire that was burning in the bishop's heart over the very question that Maxwell and himself had fought out.

  "Now, in my church, for instance," continued the bishop, "it would be rather a difficult matter, I fear, to find very many people who would take a pledge like that and live up to it. Martyrdom is a lost art with us. Our Christianity loves its ease and comfort too well to take up anything so rough and heavy as a cross. And yet what does following Jesus mean? What is it to walk in His steps?"

  The bishop was soliloquizing now. For the first time there flashed into Dr. Bruce's mind a suspicion of the truth. What if the bishop should throw the weight of his great influence on the side of the Raymond movement? He had the following of the most aristocratic, wealthy, fashionable people, not only in Chicago but in several large cities. What if the bishop should join this new discipleship?

  Dr. Bruce reached out his hand, and with the familiarity of lifelong friendship placed it on the bishop's shoulder and was about to ask him a very important question when they were both startled by the violent ringing of the doorbell.

  Mrs. Bruce had gone to the door and was talking with someone in the hall. There was a loud exclamation, and then, as the bishop rose and Dr. Bruce was stepping toward the curtain that hung before the entrance to the parlor, Mrs. Bruce pushed it aside. Her face was white.

  "O Calvin! Such terrible news! Mr. Sterling -- oh, I cannot tell it! What a fearful blow to those two girls!"

  "What is it?" Dr. Bruce advanced with the bishop into the hall and confronted the messenger, a servant from the Sterlings. The man was without his hat, and had evidently run over with the news, as the Doctor lived nearest of any friends of the family.

  "Mr. Sterling shot himself, sir, a few minutes ago! He killed himself in his bedroom! Mrs. Sterling..."

  "I will go right over. Edward," Dr. Bruce turned to the bishop, "will you go with me? The Sterlings are old friends of yours."

  The bishop was pale, but calm. He looked his friend in the face and answered, "Aye, Calvin, I will go with you, not only to this house of death, but also the whole way of human sin and sorrow, please God."

  And even in that moment of horror at the unexpected news, Calvin Bruce understood what the bishop had promised to do.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  WHEN DR. BRUCE and the bishop entered the Sterling mansion, everything in the usually well-appointed household was in the greatest confusion and terror. The great rooms downstairs were empty, but overhead were hurried footsteps and confused noises. One of the servants ran down the grand staircase with a look of horror on her face just as the bishop and Dr. Bruce were starting to go up.

  "Miss Felicia ... is ... with Mrs. Sterling," the servant stammered in answer to a question, and then burst into a hysterical cry and ran through the drawing-room and out of doors.

  At the top of the staircase the two men were met by Felicia. She walked up to Dr. Bruce and put both hands in his. The bishop laid his hand on her head, and the three stood there a moment in perfect silence.

  The bishop had known Felicia since she was a child. He was the first to break silence. "The God of all mercy be with you, Felicia, in this dark hour. Your mother..."

  For answer to the bishop's unfinished query, Felicia turned and went back into her mother's room. She had not said a word yet.

  Rose lay with her arms outstretched on the bed. Clara, the nurse, sat with her head covered, sobbing in spasms of terror. And Mrs. Sterling lay there so still.

  The next moment the house below was in a tumult. Almost at the same time the doctor, who had been sent for at once, but lived some distance away, came in, together with police officers who had been summoned by the frightened servants. With them were four or five newspaper correspondents and several neighbors.

  Dr. Bruce and the bishop met this miscellaneous crowd at the head of the stairs, and succeeded in excluding all except those whose presence was necessary. With these, the two friends learned all the facts ever known about The Sterling Tragedy, as the papers in their sensational accounts next day called it.

  Mr. Sterling had gone into his room that evening about nine o'clock, and that was the last seen of him until, after half an hour, a shot was heard, and a servant who was in the hall ran into the room and found the owner of the house dead on the floor, killed by his own hand.

  Felicia at the time was sitting by her mother. Rose was reading in the library. She ran upstairs, saw her father as he was being lifted upon the couch by the servants, and then ran screaming into her mother's room where she flung herself down on the foot of the bed in a swoon. Mrs. Sterling had at first fainted at the shock, then rallied and sent a messenger to call Dr. Bruce. She had then insisted on seeing her husband.

  She had compelled Clara and the housemaid, terrified and trembling, to support her while she crossed the hall and entered the room where her husband lay. She had looked upon him with a tearless face, had gone back into her own room, was laid on the bed, and as Dr. Bruce and the bishop entered the house she, with
a prayer of forgiveness of herself and her husband on her lips, had died, with Felicia bending over her, and Rose still lying senseless at her feet.

  So great and swift had been the entrance of grim Death into that palace of luxury that Sunday night. But the full cause of his coming was not known until the facts in regard to Mr. Sterling's business affairs were finally disclosed.

  Then it was learned that for some time he had been facing financial ruin owing to certain speculations that had in a month's time swept his supposed wealth into complete destruction. With the desperation of a man who battles for his very life, when he saw his money, which was all the life he ever valued, slipping from him, he had put off the evil day to the last moment. Sunday afternoon, however, he had received news that proved to him beyond a doubt the fact of his utter ruin.

  The very house that he called his, the chairs in which he sat, his carriage, his dishes from which he ate, had all been bought by money for which he himself had never done an honest stroke of pure labor. It had all rested on a tissue of deceit and speculation that had no foundation in real values. He knew the fact better than anyone else, but he had hoped that the same methods that brought him the money would also prevent its loss. As soon as the truth that he was practically a beggar had dawned upon him, he saw no escape from suicide.

  He had made money his god. As soon as that god had gone out of his little world there was nothing more to worship. Thus died the great millionaire, Charles R. Sterling.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  MRS. STERLING'S death was the result of shock. She had not been taken into her husband's confidence for years, but she knew that the source of his wealth was precarious. Her life for several years had been a death in life.

  The effect of this triple blow, the death of father and mother and the loss of property, was instantly apparent in the sisters. The horror of events stupefied Rose for weeks. She lay, unmoved by sympathy or any effort to rally. She did not seem yet to realize that the money which had been so large a part of her very existence was gone. Even when she was told that she and Felicia must leave the house and be dependent upon relatives and friends, she did not seem to understand what it meant.

  Felicia, however, was fully conscious of the facts. She knew just what had happened and why. She was talking over her future plans with her cousin Rachel a few days after the funerals. Mrs. Winslow and Rachel had left Raymond and come to Chicago at once as soon as the terrible news reached them, and with other friends of the family they were planning for the future of Rose and Felicia.

  "Felicia, you and Rose must come back to Raymond with us. That is settled. Mother will not hear of any other plan at present," Rachel said, while her face glowed with love for her cousin -- a love that had deepened day by day, and was intensified by the knowledge that they both belonged to the new discipleship.

  "Unless I could find something to do here," answered Felicia.

  She looked wistfully at Rachel, and Rachel said gently, "What could you do?"

  "Nothing. I was never taught to do anything except a little music, and I do not know enough about it to teach it or earn my living at it. I have learned to cook a little," Felicia answered, with a slight smile.

  "Then you can cook for us! Mother is always having trouble with her kitchen," laughed Rachel, understanding well enough that Felicia was thinking of the fact that she was now dependent for her very food and shelter upon the kindness of family friends.

  The girls received a little something out of the wreck of their father's fortune, but with a speculator's mad folly he had managed to involve both his wife's and his children's portions in the common ruin.

  "Can I? Can I?" Felicia replied to Rachel's proposition, as if it were to be considered seriously. "I am ready to do anything honorable to make my living and that of Rose. Poor Rose! She will never be able to get over the shock of our trouble."

  "We will arrange the details when we get to Raymond," Rachel said, smiling through her tears at Felicia's eager willingness to care for herself.

  So in a few weeks Rose and Felicia found themselves a part of the Winslow family in Raymond. It was a bitter experience for Rose, but there was nothing else for her to do, and she accepted the inevitable, brooding over the great change in her life, and in many ways adding to the burden of Felicia and her cousin Rachel.

  Mrs. Winslow was not in sympathy with the course that Rachel was taking, but the remarkable events since the pledge had been taken were too powerful in their results not to impress even such a woman as Mrs. Winslow.

  With Rachel, Felicia found a perfect fellowship. She at once found a part to take in the new work at the Rectangle. In the spirit of her new life she insisted upon helping in the housework at her aunt's, and in a short time demonstrated her ability as a cook so clearly that Virginia suggested that she take charge of the cooking class at the Rectangle.

  Felicia entered upon this work with the keenest pleasure. For the first time in her life she had the delight of doing something of value for the happiness of others. Her resolve to do everything after asking, "What would Jesus do?" touched her deepest nature. Even Mrs. Winslow was obliged to acknowledge the great usefulness and beauty of Felicia's character.

  The aunt looked with astonishment upon her niece, this city-bred girl, reared in the greatest luxury, the daughter of a millionaire, now walking around in her kitchen, her arms covered with flour and occasionally a streak of it on her nose (for Felicia at first had a habit of rubbing her nose forgetfully when she was trying to remember some recipe), mixing various dishes with the greatest interest in their results, washing up pans and kettles, and doing the ordinary work of a servant in the Winslow kitchen, and at the rooms of the Rectangle settlement.

  At first Mrs. Winslow remonstrated. "Felicia, it is not your place to be out here doing this work. I cannot allow it."

  "Why, aunt? Don't you like the muffins I made this morning?" Felicia would ask with a hidden smile, knowing her aunt's weakness for that kind of muffin.

  "They were beautiful, Felicia. But it does not seem right for you to be doing such work for us."

  "Why not? What else can I do?"

  Her aunt looked at her thoughtfully, noting her remarkable beauty of face and expression. "You do not always intend to do this kind of work, Felicia?"

  "Maybe I shall. I have had a dream of opening an ideal cook shop in Chicago or some large city, and going around to the families in some slum district like the Rectangle, teaching the mothers how to prepare food properly. I remember hearing Dr. Bruce say that he believed one of the great miseries of comparative poverty consisted in poor food. I'm sure I would be able to make a living for Rose and myself, and at the same time help others."

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  THREE MONTHS had gone by since the Sunday morning when Dr. Calvin Bruce came into his pulpit with the message of the new discipleship. Never before had the minister of the Nazareth Avenue Church realized how deep the feelings of his members flowed. He humbly confessed that the appeal he had made met with an unexpected response from men and women who, like Felicia, were hungry for something in their lives that the conventional type of church membership and fellowship had failed to give them.

  But Dr. Bruce was not yet satisfied for himself. We cannot tell what his feeling was or what led to the movement he finally made, to the great astonishment of all who knew him, better than by relating a conversation between him and the bishop. The two friends were, as before, in Dr. Bruce's house, seated in his study.

  "You know what I have come in this evening for?" the bishop was saying, after they had been talking some time about the results of the pledge with Nazareth Avenue Church people.

  Dr. Bruce looked over at the bishop and shook his head.

  "I have come to confess," went on the bishop, "that I have not yet kept my promise to walk in His steps in the way that I believe I shall be obliged to, if I satisfy my thought of what it really means."

  Dr. Bruce had risen and was pacing his study. The bishop remai
ned in the deep easy-chair, with his hands clasped, but his eye burned with the glow that always belonged to him before he made some great resolve.

  "Edward," Dr. Bruce spoke abruptly, "I have not yet been able to satisfy myself, either, in obeying my promise. But I have at last decided on my course. In order to follow it, I shall be obliged to resign from Nazareth Avenue Church."

  "I knew you would," replied the bishop quietly. "And I came in this evening to say that I shall be obliged to do the same with my charge."

  Dr. Bruce turned and walked up to his friend. They were both laboring under repressed excitement.

  "Is it necessary in your case?" asked Calvin Bruce.

  "Yes. Let me state my reasons." The bishop paused a moment, then went on with increasing feeling. "I have led what the poor and desperate of this sinful city would call a very comfortable, yes, a very luxurious life. I have a beautiful house to live in, expensive food, clothing, and physical pleasures. I have been able to go abroad at least a dozen times. I have never known what it means to be without money. And I have been unable to silence the question of late, 'What have I suffered for the sake of Christ?'"

  The bishop had risen now, and walked over to the window. "Calvin, I have heard the words of Jesus many times lately, 'Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least of these, ye did it not to Me.' When have I personally visited the prisoner or the desperate or the sinful, in any way that has actually caused me suffering? Rather, I have lived in the society of the rich, refined, aristocratic members of my congregations. Where has the suffering come in? What have I suffered for Jesus' sake?"

  The bishop sat down and bowed his head. Dr. Bruce spoke at last. "I have been in a similar position for years. My life has been one of comparative luxury. I feel I must resign my place as pastor of Nazareth Avenue Church, in order to satisfy myself that I am walking as I ought to walk in His steps. In this action I judge no other ministers, and pass no criticism on others' discipleship. But I feel as you do. I must come personally into a closer contact with the sin and shame and degradation of this great city."

  Sudden silence fell over those two men. They were too thoughtful, too well accustomed to the measuring of conduct, to underestimate the seriousness of their position.