Carolina Lee

There are some subjects which cannot be argued. They must be obliterated by a contempt which bites into one's self-love.

The mare saved the situation by a soft whinny. She turned her head expectantly, and, following her eyes, the riders saw the tall, lithe figure of a man making his way toward them through the underbrush. Moultrie gave vent to an exclamation.

"What is it?" asked Carolina.

"Oh, only a bad negro who haunts places where he has no business to. He is a perfect wonder with horses, and broke in that mare you are riding, who will follow him anywhere without a bridle, pushing her nose under his arm like any dog who thrusts a muzzle into your palm. He is always up to something. From present appearances, I should say that he had probably been bleeding your trees."

The negro, hearing voices, stopped, glanced in their direction, and promptly disappeared. Carolina only had time to notice that he was very black, but she followed him in thought, mentally denying dishonesty and declaring that harm could not come to her through error in any form.

She was struck, too, by the manner in which her sensitive, high-bred mare lifted her pretty head and looked after his retreating form, pawing the earth impatiently and sending out little snuffling neighs which were hardly more than bleatings. Surely, if a man had the power to call forth devoted love from such an animal, there must be much good in him!

"What makes you so quiet?" asked Moultrie, breaking in on her thought.

Carolina looked at him abruptly and decided her course of action.

"You have told me of the skeleton in your closet. Let me be equally frank and tell you of mine. I am a Christian Scientist."

"A what?"

"A Christian Scientist!"

"I never heard of one," said the young man, simply. "What is it?"

For the second time the girl's face flushed with a vicarious mortification.

"It is a new form of religion founded on a perfect belief in the life of Christ and a literal following of His commandments to His disciples, regardless of time," said Carolina, slowly.

Moultrie allowed a deep silence to follow her words. Then he drew a long breath.

"I think I should like that," he said. "Does it answer all your questions?"

"All! Every one of them!" she answered, with the almost too eager manner of the young believer in Christian Science. But an eagerness to impart good news and to relieve apparent distress should be readily forgiven by a self-loving humanity. Curiously, however, the most blatant ego is generally affronted by it.

"I was raised a Baptist," he said, reluctantly, "but I reckon I never was a very good one, for I never got any peace from it."

"My religion gives peace."

"And my prayers were never answered."

"My religion answers prayers."

"Not even when I lifted my heart to God in earnest pleading to spare my brother the unhappiness I felt sure would follow his marriage. HowI prayed to be in time to prevent it! God never heard me!"

"My religion holds the answer to that unanswered prayer."

"Not even when I prayed, lying on the floor all night, for the life of my father."

"My religion heals the sick."

He turned to her eagerly.

"Do you believe so implicitly in Christ's teachings that you can reproduce His miracles?" he cried.

"Christ never performed any miracles. He healed sickness through the simplest belief in the world, – or rather an understanding of His Father's power. That same privilege of understanding is open to me-and to you. You have the power within you at this very moment to heal any disease, if you only know where to look for the understanding to show you how to use it."

"Do you believe that?"

"I do better than believe it. I understand it. I know it."

"Is there a book which will tell me how to find it?"

"Yes."

"Will you order it for me, or tell me where to order it?"

"It is a very expensive book," said Carolina, hesitatingly, thinking of the telegraph-office.

"How expensive?"

"Three dollars."

"Do you call that expensive for what you promise it will do?"

When Carolina looked at him, he saw that she was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes. And he understood.

"You only said that to try me."

And she nodded. Her heart was too full of mingled emotions for her to speak. She had loved, despised, been proud of, and mortified for this man, – all with poignant, pungent vehemence, – during this three-hour ride, and at the last he had humbled and rebuked her by his childlike readiness to believe the greatest truth of the ages. She sat her horse, biting her lips to keep back the tears.

"Give me just one fact to go on," he begged.

"Do you read your Bible?"

"I used to, till I found I was getting not to believe in it. Then I stopped for my dead father's sake. He believed in it implicitly."

"Then you have read the fourteenth chapter of John?"

"I got fifty cents when I was twelve years old for learning it by heart."

"Then run it over in your own mind until you come to the twelfth verse. When you get to that, say it aloud."

"'Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.'"

He did not glance her way again, which Carolina noticed with gratitude. It showed that he was not accepting it for her sake. Presently he spoke again.

"Did you yourself ever heal any one?"

"Through my understanding of Divine Love, I healed Gladys Yancey," she said, quietly.