Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER IV.

The next day was Sun­day. Even on ship-​board there are some in­di­ca­tions that the sev­enth day is dif­fer­ent from the rest. There is al­ways a lit­tle ex­tra to the menu for din­ner, and then re­li­gious ser­vices are al­so held; and are not these two things fre­quent­ly all that dis­tin­guish the Sab­bath on the land?

That morn­ing nei­ther Lucy nor her fa­ther was at break­fast. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, Chester sought out the chief stew­ard, and by in­sis­ten­cy and the help of a small tip, he got his seat changed to the ta­ble oc­cu­pied by El­der Mal­by and the two oth­er mis­sion­ar­ies. “No one shall be an­noyed by my near pres­ence, if I can help it,” Chester said.

At the noon meal, the min­is­ter and his daugh­ter ap­peared as usu­al. Chester watched them un­ob­served from his changed po­si­tion. They looked at the va­cant place op­po­site, but as far as Chester could de­ter­mine, his ab­sence was not dis­cussed.

That af­ter­noon ser­vices were held in three parts of the ves­sel at the same time. On the steer­age deck a large com­pa­ny of Irish Catholics sur­round­ed the two Fa­thers. One of the priests stood in the cen­ter of the group while the peo­ple kneeled on the deck. The priest read some­thing in Latin, the oth­ers re­peat­ing af­ter him. Then a glass of “holy wa­ter” was passed among them, the wor­shipers dip­ping their fin­gers in and de­vout­ly cross­ing them­selves. Chester watched the pro­ceed­ings for a time, then he went to the sec­ond class deck where a re­vival meet­ing was in progress. The preach­er was de­liv­er­ing the usu­al ex­hor­ta­tion to “come to Je­sus,” while yet there was time. Present­ly, there came from the depths of the ship the sound of the din­ner gong be­ing slow­ly and solemn­ly beat­en, no doubt to im­itate, as near­ly as pos­si­ble, the peal of church bells. The stew­ard who act­ed as bell ringer did his du­ty well, go­ing in­to the halls and on to the decks, then dis­ap­pear­ing again in­to the sa­loon. This was the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment to ser­vice. Chester and his friends fol­lowed. Quite a con­gre­ga­tion had gath­ered. Two large pil­lows had been cov­ered with a Union Jack to serve as a pul­pit. A ship's of­fi­cer then read the form pre­scribed for ser­vices on ship-​board from the Church of Eng­land prayer book. It was all very dry and un­in­ter­est­ing, “Ver­ily a form of god­li­ness” and a lot of “vain rep­eti­tion,” said El­der Mal­by.

Then the min­is­ter--Chester's min­is­ter--arose. He had been asked, he said, to add a few words to the reg­ular ser­vice, and he was pleased to do so. He called at­ten­tion to the ac­ci­dent which had hap­pened on their voy­age, and felt to say some­thing on the prov­idence of God, and His watch-​care over His chil­dren. The preach­er's voice was pleas­ant, the min­is­te­ri­al tone not be­ing so pro­nounced as to make his speech un­nat­ural. Chester lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly, as al­so did Lucy who, Chester ob­served, was sit­ting well up to­wards the front.

“God is the source of the be­ing of all men,” said the preach­er. "He has brought us all in­to ex­is­tence, and made us in His own like­ness, and is a Fa­ther to us in fact and in feel­ing. He owns us and owns His re­spon­si­bil­ity for us. He cares for us and over­rules all things for our good. He is wor­thy of our love and con­fi­dence. Since we are His chil­dren, God de­sires us to be such in very deed--in fel­low­ship and char­ac­ter, and is sat­is­fied with us on­ly as we are giv­ing our­selves to the fil­ial life. This re­la­tion­ship which we bear to God can­not be ful­ly ex­plained. There is a mys­tery in it be­yond the un­der­stand­ing of fi­nite minds; but of this we are sure that the God of Cre­ation has brought us all forth in­to be­ing, and He will take care of us if we will let Him. We can­not rea­son­ably and rev­er­ent­ly think oth­er­wise of Him.

“Is it not a com­fort to think that we can­not get away from the ev­er-​present watch­ful­ness of God? As the Psalmist puts it: 'Whith­er shall I go from thy spir­it, or whith­er shall I flee from thy pres­ence? If I as­cend up in­to heav­en, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, be­hold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morn­ing and dwell in the ut­ter­most parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Sure­ly the dark­ness shall cov­er me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the dark­ness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the dark­ness and the light are both alike to thee.' Yes, yes, my friends, 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trou­ble. There­fore will not we fear--'”

Some­how, what the min­is­ter said af­ter that came very in­dis­tinct­ly to Chester Lawrence. He heard the words, but was aware on­ly of a pe­cu­liar feel­ing, a dim per­cep­tion of where he was and what he was hear­ing. There seemed to him to be a gen­uine feel­ing in the voice that ut­tered those beau­ti­ful words of scrip­ture. They clung to his heart, and the min­is­ter him­self be­came trans­fig­ured for an in­stant in­to some oth­er be­ing,--stern of coun­te­nance, yet love­li­ness in the depths of his soul, spir­itu­al­ly far away, yet heart yearn­ing with near­ness of love. Chester came ful­ly to him­self on­ly when El­der Mal­by took his arm and to­geth­er they paced a few turns around the deck.

That same Sun­day evening as Chester stood alone on the prom­enade deck watch­ing the moon­light lay as a gold­en cov­er­let on the placid sea, his at­ten­tion was at­tract­ed to the fig­ure of a girl mount­ing the steps lead­ing to the deck where he stood. She paused half way as if to rest, then came slow­ly up to where he was stand­ing. Her breath came heav­ily, and she looked around to find a place to rest. Chester in­stinc­tive­ly took her arm and led her to a deck chair.

“O thank you,” said Lucy, “I--my heart both­ered me pret­ty bad­ly that time. I am for­bid­den to climb stairs, but I couldn't find you on the low­er deck.”

“Did you wish to see me?” asked Chester.

“Yes; I--you'll not think me over bold, will you, but I had to find you--won't you sit down here--I can't talk very loud­ly tonight.”

Chester drew a chair close to hers. A light wrap clung about her and the moon­light streamed on head and face. The young man, in the most mat­ter-​of-​course-​way ad­just­ed the wrap to the girl's shoul­ders as he said:

“You are not well, tonight.”

“Oh, I'm as well as usu­al--thank you.” She smiled faint­ly. “Will you for­give us?”

He was about to re­ply, “For­give you for what?” but he checked him­self. Some­how, he could not feign ig­no­rance as to what she meant, nei­ther could he use mean­ing­less words to her.

“We were very rude to you yes­ter­day, both fa­ther and I; and I want­ed to make some ex­pla­na­tions to you, so you would un­der­stand. I am so sor­ry.”

“You and your fa­ther are al­ready for­giv­en. If there were a grain of ill-​feel­ing against him this af­ter­noon, it all com­plete­ly van­ished when I heard him talk at the ser­vices.”

“You were there?”

“Yes. Now don't you wor­ry.” He was near­ly to say “Lit­tle Sis­ter;” but again he checked him­self. “I am a 'Mor­mon,'” he con­tin­ued. “I am not ashamed of it, be­cause I know what it means. On­ly those who don't know de­spise the word.”

“Nei­ther am I ashamed of it,” she said as she looked him fair­ly in the face. “I know a lit­tle--a very lit­tle--about the 'Mor­mons,' but that which I know is good.”

“What do you know?”

“I'll tell you. One evening, in Kansas City I stopped to lis­ten to two young men preach­ing on the street. They were just boys, and they did not have the ap­pear­ance of preach­ers. You must know that I have al­ways been in­ter­est­ed in re­li­gion, and re­li­gious prob­lems. Per­haps that is nat­ural, see­ing my fa­ther is a min­is­ter. I read his books, and many are the dis­cus­sions I have had with him over points of doc­trine,--and we don't al­ways agree, ei­ther. He, how­ev­er, usu­al­ly took my lit­tle ob­jec­tions good na­tured­ly un­til one day he asked me where I had ob­tained a cer­tain no­tion re­gard­ing bap­tism. In re­ply I hand­ed him the book­let I had re­ceived at the 'Mor­mon' street meet­ing. He looked at it cu­ri­ous­ly for a mo­ment, want­ed to know where I had ob­tained it, then locked it up in his desk. He was re­al­ly an­gry; as that was some­thing he had nev­er been be­fore over any re­li­gious ques­tion, I was sur­prised and im­pressed. I had, how­ev­er, read care­ful­ly the book­let. Not on­ly that, but I had been se­cret­ly to one of the 'Mor­mon' ser­vices. I there learned that an ac­quain­tance of mine be­longed to the 'Mor­mon' Church, and de­pend up­on it, I had her tell me what she knew.”

“And your fa­ther?”

“He ob­ject­ed, of course. At first, I told him ev­ery­thing. He had al­ways let me go to any and all re­li­gious gath­er­ings with­out ob­jec­tion. He even laugh­ing­ly told me I could don the Sal­va­tion lassie's bon­net and beat a drum in the street, if I want­ed to; but when it came to the 'Mor­mons,' O, he was an­gry, and for­bade me from ev­er go­ing to their meet­ings or read­ing their lit­er­ature. I thought it strange.”

“It's not strange at all,--when you un­der­stand,” re­marked Chester, who was in­tense­ly in­ter­est­ed in her sto­ry. “I sup­pose you obeyed your fa­ther.”

“Well, now, you want me to tell you the truth, of course--I--I wasn't cu­ri­ous--”

“Cer­tain­ly not.”

“You're laugh­ing at me. But I wasn't, I tell you. I was in­ter­est­ed. There is some­thing in 'Mor­monism' that draws me to it. I don't know much about it, to be sure, for it seems that the sub­ject al­ways widens out to such im­men­si­ty. I want you to tell me more about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mor­mon and the new rev­ela­tions.”

“But your fa­ther will ob­ject. What would he say if he knew you were sit­ting here in this beau­ti­ful moon­light talk­ing to a 'Mor­mon'?”

“I'm of age, I guess. I'm do­ing noth­ing wrong, I hope.”

“I hope not. Far be it for me to harm you--or any liv­ing soul. But I don't know much about the gospel as we call it--for you must know it is the sim­ple gospel of Je­sus Christ re­vealed anew. There are three oth­er 'Mor­mons' on board, mis­sion­ar­ies go­ing to Eu­rope. One of them at least could tell you much.”

“But I'd be pleased to hear you tell me--is, is that fa­ther? I won­der if he is look­ing for me.”

Chester looked in the di­rec­tion in­di­cat­ed. A man came up, then passed on; it was not the min­is­ter. The girl crouched in­to the shad­ow, and as she did so her shoul­der pressed against Chester's. Then she sprang up.

“Well, I was fool­ish,” she ex­claimed, “to be afraid of dear old dad­dy!”

Chester al­so arose, and the two walked to the rail­ing. They stood there in the moon­light. Great clouds of black smoke poured from the ship's fun­nels, and streamed on to wind­ward, cast­ing a shad­ow on the white deck. They looked out to the wa­ter, stretch­ing in ev­ery di­rec­tion in­to the dark­ness. Then as if im­pelled by a com­mon im­pulse, they looked at each oth­er, then blushed, and low­ered their eyes. The girl's hands lay on the rail­ing. Chester saw their soft shape­li­ness, and not­ed al­so that there were no rings on them.

“I'm glad I've met you,” said Chester hon­est­ly.

“And I'm glad, too,” she breathed. “Some oth­er time you must tell me so much. I've so many ques­tions to ask. You'll do that, won't you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Now I must go to fa­ther. He may be un­easy.” She held out her hand. “Good night--what _do_ you think of me? Am I a rude girl?”

“I heard your fa­ther call you Lucy. That's your name, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“And I may call you that, may I not? You know these ship-​board ac­quain­tances don't wait on cer­emo­ny.”

“But I don't know your name, ei­ther. Think of it, how we have been re­al­ly con­fi­den­tial and we don't even know each oth­er's name.”

“I know yours.”

“On­ly half of it. I've two more. How many have you?”

“On­ly two.”

“And they are?”

“Chester Lawrence.”

“Well, mine is Lucy May Strong--and now, good­night.”

He took her arm and helped her down the steps, gen­tly, for she seemed such a frail be­ing, one who need­ed just such stout arms as Chester's to lean up­on. He risked the dan­ger of meet­ing the fa­ther by help­ing her down the sec­ond flight of steps to the state-​room deck.

“Good night, Lucy.”

“Good night--Broth­er Lawrence.”