A Gamble with Life

Reuben Sterne was a disciplinarian of the severest type. A minister of the Gospel who had no real Gospel to preach. A theologian who had no true vision of God. A man severe and stern by nature, and made doubly so by an austere and loveless creed. "God was a jealous God." That lay at the foundation of all his beliefs and coloured all his actions. The burden of the Divine decrees lay heavy upon his heart in the brightest days, and touched every song to sadness. Of his own election he did not doubt. Of his call to preach to the elect he was equally sure. But his only son, Joshua, the child of many prayers, gave no evidence of saving grace, and died uncalled to the favours of the heavenly fold, while his grandson, Rufus, appeared, even from boyhood, to be as pagan as his name. This was a great grief to the old man, though he would not have made any sign of it for the world. It was his place to bow, not only in submission, but in thankfulness to the heavenly will. To kiss the hand that smote, and adore the unrelenting power that consigned to eternal burning those who were dear to him as his own life.

At bottom his heart was better than his creed, but he was afraid of showing tenderness or affection lest he should be running counter to the Divine Will, or giving encouragement to the enemies of the cross to blaspheme.

Twice every Sunday Rufus was led to the Baptist chapel to hear his grandfather preach, and early indicated the fate to which he was predestined by falling asleep under the old man's most terrible sermons. Among the memories that stood out most clearly in his brain was that of his grandfather in the pulpit. A tall, straight man, with clean-shaved, severe face, and eyes that never smiled. He always wore a frock-coat, tightly buttoned, a tall, stiff collar, and a large white bow, the ends of which touched the lapels of his coat. His grey hair was brushed smoothly from his forehead, his mouth was set in severe lines, his shoulders squared as if for battle. And indeed, every sermon was a battle. He was appointed of God to fight "spiritual wickedness in high places." He asked no quarter and gave none. His voice rang with the thunders of the law. Sinai was nearer to his heart than Calvary.

Rufus gave evidence of intellectual revolt before he had reached his teens.

"What is the use of preaching, grandfather?" he asked the old man, one Sunday morning, over the dinner table.

"The use of preaching?" the Rev. Reuben questioned, aghast at the audacity of the young speaker; while Mrs. Sterne laid down her knife and fork, and stared.

"Well, suppose you didn't preach, what would happen?" the boy went on, unconscious of the storm he was raising.

"Happen? Happen? Be silent, boy; you know not of what you are speaking."

"But if you didn't preach, would the elect be lost?" the boy persisted.

"Of course not. How could they be lost? 'Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.'"

"And will you save any of those who are not elected by preaching to them?" the boy went on.

"It is not in man's power to save at all," the old man said, severely. "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord."

"Well, then, I don't see a bit of use in preaching or in going to chapel."

The old man raised his eyes and stared. "You ungrateful, unregenerate youth," he said. "How dare you speak in such a way, and at my table?"

"But, grandfather," said the boy, with astonishment in his eyes, "why am I ungrateful because I ask questions?"

"Why? Because your questions savour of an unregenerate and unbelieving heart; because they make light of the Word of truth; because the Spirit of God is not in you."

"But how can I help that, grandfather? Do you think it is that I am not called?"

"I fear you are not," he said, with a groan. "I fear you are not."

"But you are not sure, grandfather?"

"No, I am not sure; but there is no evidence of saving grace in you."

"But if I am elected I shall be all right in the end, sha'n't I?"

"Yes, yes; the gracious Spirit always finds those who have the mark of the seal."

"Then, I don't think I shall go to chapel to-night."

"Not go to chapel!" and the old man's eyes flashed fire. "Not go to chapel? Did my ears deceive me? Is it for this I have cared for you since the death of your mother? Boy, boy, be careful how you disobey me!"

"But, but – "

"Not another word," the old man said, raising his right hand in a threatening attitude. "Not another word, or I will punish you as you were never punished before. How dare you blaspheme, and at my very board?"

That was the beginning of open strife and rebellion. The boy went to chapel that night, and for many years after, but never in the same spirit again. Scarcely a Sunday passed that both his heart and intellect did not revolt against his grandfather's teachings, and there was no one to show him the other side of the shield. Had some whisper come to him in those days that truth was many-sided, that the Kingdom of God was broader than Church or Creed, and that the heart of the Eternal was not to be measured by an ecclesiastical tape-line, he might have been saved many long years of darkness and doubt. But in the village of Tregannon, teachers and seers were few, and books that would have helped him were out of his reach.

So he grew first into the belief that he belonged to the non-elect, and later into the belief that the whole fabric of the Christian religion was a delusion and a snare.

Yet no cloud of unbelief dimmed for a moment the purity of his soul. He loved goodness none the less because he hated human creeds. Right was right, whatever preachers preached or failed to preach; and wrong was wrong though stamped with the Church's approval.

It was a great grief to the Rev. Reuben and to his wife when Rufus demonstrated by open and unabashed revolt that he belonged to the non-elect. They had suspected it early in his career; they had prepared themselves for the blow when it should fall. The tender-hearted little grandmother had hoped and prayed till the last, and even continued to pray when she believed that praying was vain and feared that it might be an offence to the Lord.

The Rev. Reuben was made of sterner stuff. "Ephraim," he said, "is joined to his idols, let him alone."

So the quiet, uneventful years passed away, and the boy grew into a man. A man of fine presence, of considerable intellectual attainments – for Reuben Sterne gave the lad the best education he could afford – and of unblemished character.

Rufus wanted to be an engineer, but that was beyond his grandfather's means. His grandmother wanted to apprentice him to a draper, but the boy protested so vehemently that that laudable desire was never carried out. In the end, he found his way into a Redbourne Bank, where he became acquainted with Felix Muller, who was a solicitor's clerk in the town, and who later on succeeded to his master's business. From Redbourne, Rufus removed to St. Gaved as Secretary to the Wheal Gregory Tin Mining Company, Limited, and it was while there that he conceived a scheme for the bettering of his own fortunes and those of the county as a whole.

Rufus could not help recalling the past as he stretched his legs before the fire and listened in dreamy fashion to the talk of the old people. All the years that had fled and gone seemed to live again. All the people that he knew in his boyhood's days gathered round him once more. Voices long since hushed in the great silence spoke to him as they used to do; and eyes that long since had fallen into dust smiled with all their old sweetness.

He always felt a boy again when he came home to Tregannon. The old people were unchanged. They did not look a day older than ten years previously. The house and its ways had been stereotyped for a generation. The same coarse rug was before the fire, on which he had sprawled as a lad. The same kettle sang on the hob, the same poker and tongs shone in the firelight.

The old people still talked on, recalling the events of other years, the one supplying what the other had forgotten. Rufus interposed a monosyllable now and then, but his thoughts in the main were far away from theirs. Suddenly his interest was aroused by an allusion his grandfather made to some wasteful and abortive lawsuit that followed his father's death.

"The ways of the law may be crooked in this country," he said, with energy; "and English lawyers may be blood-suckers in the main, but in America things are fifty times worse."

"Why do you think that?" he questioned, raising his eyes with interest.

"Why, because I've proved it. Your father's title was clear enough, there's no doubt about that. He made his money honestly too. If he'd lived a month or two longer he'd have returned home a rich man."

"Well?"

"Well, just because some swindler disputed his right, and a blackmailer presented a bogus account, and somebody else claimed on the estate, on the ground of a letter which was clearly a forgery, the lawyers went to work with glee, and the State judge or attorney, or whoever he may be, aided and abetted the plunder. A grosser piece of corruption there never was in this world."

"And they ate it all up between them?"

"Every dollar. At least, I presume so. It was postponed – I mean the settlement – and postponed month after month, and year after year; and taken to this court and that, the lawyers licking their lips all the time – What cared they for the widow and the fatherless? And when there was nothing left of the estate, why the litigation ceased."

"That's usually the case, isn't it?"

"But in our English courts there is a chance of an honest man coming by his rights."

"Not much if he should happen to be a poor man."

"Then you believe we are as bad as the Americans?"

"Every whit. Lawyers and law courts, all the world over mean the same thing."

"But isn't one of your best friends a lawyer?"

"You refer to Felix Muller? Well, yes. Muller has been a very good friend to me. But when it comes to business, like the rest of them, he will have his pound of flesh."