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CHAPTER XV.
ON CHRISTMAS EVE

IT was Christmas eve, and nearing the time for Bethany to leave the office. She stood, with her wraps on, by one of the windows, waiting for Mr. Edmunds to come back. She had a message to deliver before she could leave, and she expected him momentarily.

In the street below people were hurrying by with their arms full of bundles. She was impatient to be gone, too. There were a great many finishing touches for her to give the tall tree in the drawing-room at home.

She had worked till the last moment at noon, and locked the door regretfully on the gayly-decked room, with its mingled odors of pine boughs and oranges, always so suggestive of Christmas festivities.

While she stood there, she heard steps in the hall.

"O, I thought you were Mr. Edmunds," she exclaimed, as David entered. It was the first time he had been at the office that day. "I have a message for him. Have you seen him anywhere?"

"No," answered David. "I have just come in from Hillhollow. Marta has telegraphed that she is coming home on the night train, so I shall not be able to accept Jack's invitation. She had not expected to come at all during the holidays; but one of the teachers was called home, and she could not resist the temptation to accompany her, although she can only stay until the end of the week."

As Bethany expressed her regrets at Jack's disappointment, David picked up a small package that lay on his desk.

"O, the expressman left that for you a little while ago," she said. "Your Christmas is beginning early."

She turned again to the window, peering out through the dusk, while David lighted the gas-jet over his desk, and proceeded to open the package.

It occurred to her that here was a time, while all the world was turning towards the Messiah on this anniversary eve of his coming, that she might venture to speak of him. Before she could decide just how to begin, David spoke to her:

"Do you care to look, Miss Hallam? I would like for you to see it."

He held a little silver case towards her, on which a handsome monogram was heavily engraved.

As she touched the spring it flew open, showing an exquisitely painted miniature on ivory.

She gave an involuntary cry of delight.

"What a beautiful girl," she exclaimed. "It is one of the loveliest faces I ever saw." She scrutinized it carefully, studying it with an artist's evident pleasure. Then she looked up with a smile.

"This must be the one Rabbi Barthold spoke to me about," she said. "He said that she was rightly named Esther, for it means star, and her great, dark eyes always made him think of starlight."

"How long ago since he told you that?" asked David in surprise.

"When we first began taking Hebrew lessons," she answered.

"And did he tell you we are bethrothed?"

"Yes."

David felt annoyed. He knew intuitively why his old friend had departed so from his usual scrupulousness regarding a confidence. He had intimated to David, when he had first met Miss Hallam, that she was an unusually fascinating girl, and he feared that their growing friendship might gradually lessen the young man's interest in Esther, whom he saw only at long intervals, as she lived in a distant city.

"I had hoped to have the pleasure of telling you myself," said David.

"I have often wondered what she is like," answered Bethany, "and I am glad to have this opportunity of offering my congratulations. I wish that she lived here that I might make her acquaintance. I do not know when I have seen a face that has captivated me so."

"Thank you," replied David, flushing with pleasure. A tender smile lighted his eyes as he glanced at the miniature again before closing the case. "She will come to Hillhollow in the spring," he added proudly.

They heard Mr. Edmunds's voice in the hall. Bethany held out her hand.

"I shall not see you again until next week, I suppose," she said, "so let me wish you a very happy Christmas."

He kept her hand in his an instant as he repeated her greeting, then, looking earnestly down into the upturned face, added gently in Hebrew, the old benediction – "Peace be upon you."

It was quite dark when she stepped out into the streets. She thought of David and Esther all the way home.

At first she thought of them with a tender smile curving her lips, as she entered unselfishly into the happiness of the little romance she had discovered.

Then she thought of them with tears in her eyes and a chill in her heart, as some little waif might stand shivering on the outside of a window, looking in on a happy scene, whose warmth and comfort he could not share. The joy of her own betrothal, and the desolation that ended it, surged back over her so overwhelmingly that she was in no mood for merry-making when she reached home.

She longed to slip quietly away to her own room, and spend the evening in the dark with her memories. She had to wait a moment on the threshold before she could summon strength enough to go in cheerfully.

Mrs. Marion and Lois were in the dining-room helping the sisters decorate the long table, where the children were to be served with supper immediately on their arrival.

"Frank and Jack have gone out in a sleigh to gather them up," said Mrs. Marion. "They'll soon be here, so you'll not have much time to dress."

"All right," responded Bethany, "I'll go in a minute. Mr. Herschel can't come, so you may as well take off one plate."

"But George Cragmore can," said Miss Caroline, pausing on her way to the kitchen. "I asked him this morning, and forgot to say anything about it."

Then she trotted out for a cake-knife, blissfully unconscious of the grimace Bethany made behind her back.

"O dear!" she exclaimed to Lois, "Miss Caroline means all right, but she is a born matchmaker. She has taken a violent fancy to Mr. Cragmore, and wants me to do the same. She thinks she is so very deep, and so very wary in the way she lays her plans, that I'll never suspect; but the dear old soul is as transparent as a window-pane. I can see every move she makes."

"What about Mr. Cragmore?" asked Lois. "Is he conscious of her efforts in his behalf?"

"O no. He thinks that she is a dear, motherly old lady, and is always paying her some flattering attention. It is well worth his while, for she makes him perfectly at home here, keeps his pockets full of goodies, as if he were an overgrown boy (which he is in some respects), and treats him with the consideration due a bishop. She is always going out to Clarke Street to hear him preach, and quoting his sermons to him afterwards. There he is now!" she exclaimed, as two short rings and one long one were given the front door-bell.

"So he even has his especial signals," laughed Lois. "He must be on a very familiar footing, indeed."

"He got into that habit when he first started to calling by to take me up to the Hebrew class," she explained. "Miss Caroline encouraged him in it."

Just then Miss Caroline came hurrying through the room to receive him.

"Bethany, dear," she said in an excited stage whisper, "you'd better run up the back stairs. And do put on your best dress, and a rose in your hair, just to please me. Now, won't you?"

Bethany and Lois looked at each other and laughed.

"I'd like to shock her by going in just as I am," said Bethany; "but as it's Christmas-time I suppose I must be good and please everybody."

It was not long before a great stamping of many snowy little feet announced the arrival of the Christmas guests.

They came into the house with such rosy, happy faces, that no one thought of the patched clothes and ragged shoes.

"Dear hearts, I wish we could have a hundred instead of ten," sighed Miss Harriet, as she helped seat them at the table. "They look as though they never once had enough to eat in all their little lives."

"They shall have it now," declared Miss Caroline heartily, "if George Cragmore doesn't keep them laughing so hard they can't eat. Just hear the man!"

She had never seen him in such a gay humor, or heard him tell such irresistibly funny stories as the ones he brought out for the entertainment of these poor little guests, who had never known anything but the depressing poverty of the most wretched homes.

Mr. Marion was the good St. Nicholas who had found them, and spirited them away to this enchanted land; but Cragmore was the Aladdin who rubbed his lamp until their eyes were dazzled by the wonderful scenes he conjured up for them.

When the dinner was over, and everything had been taken off the table but the flowers and candles and bonbon dishes, he lifted the smallest child of all from her high chair, and took her on his knee.

With his arms around her, he began to tell the story of the first Christmas. His voice was very deep and sweet, and he told it so well one could almost see the dark, silent plains and the white sheep huddled together, and the shepherds keeping watch by night.

One by one the children slipped down from their chairs, and crowded closer around him.

He had never preached before to such a breathless audience, and he had never put into his sermons such gentleness and pathos and power.

He was thinking of their poor, neglected lives, and how much they needed the love of One who could sympathize to the utmost, because he was born among the lowly, and "was despised and rejected of men." When he had finished, the tears stood in his eyes with the intensity of his feeling, and the children were very quiet.

The little girl on his lap drew a long breath. Then she smiled up in his face, and, putting her arm around his neck, leaned her head against him.

There was a bugle-call from the library, and Jack led the children away to listen to an orchestra composed of boys from the League, who had volunteered their services for the occasion.

While they were playing some old carols, Miss Caroline called Mr. Cragmore aside. "I've sent Bethany to light the candles on the tree in the drawing-room," she said. "May be you can help her."

Lois heard the whisper, and his hearty response, "May the saints bless you for that now!" She hurried into the hall to intercept Bethany.

"Ah ha, my lady," she said teasingly, "you needn't be putting everything off onto poor Aunt Caroline. I've just now discovered that she is only somebody's cat's-paw."

Bethany was irritated. She had been greatly touched by the winning tenderness of Cragmore's manner with the children. If there had been no memory of a past love in her life, she could have found in this man all the qualities that would inspire the deepest affection; but with that memory always present, she resented the slightest word that hinted of his interest in her.

She made Lois go with her to light the tapers, and that mischief-loving girl thoroughly enjoyed forestalling the little private interview Miss Caroline had planned for her protege.

It was still early in the evening, while the children were romping around the dismantled tree, that Cragmore announced his intention of leaving.

"I promised to talk at a Hebrew mission to-night," he explained, in answer to the remonstrances that greeted him on all sides.

"By the way," he exclaimed, "I intended to tell you about that, and I must stay a moment longer to do it."

He hung his overcoat on the back of a tall chair, and folded his arms across it.

"The other day I made the acquaintance of a Russian Jew, Sigmund Ragolsky. He has a remarkable history. He married an English Jewess, was a rabbi in Glasgow for a long time, and is now a Baptist preacher, converted after a fourteen years' struggle against a growing belief in the truth of Christianity. The story of his life sounds like a romance. He was so strictly orthodox that he would not strike a match on the Sabbath. He would have starved before he would have touched food that had not been prepared according to ritual. He is here for the purpose of establishing a Hebrew mission. You should see the people who come to hear him. They are nearly all from that poor class in the tenement district. One can hardly believe they belong to the same race with Rabbi Barthold and his cultured friends. Ragolsky, though, is a scholar, and I should like to hear the two men debate. He says the Reform Jews are no Jews at all – that they are the hardest people in the world to convert, because they look for no Messiah, accept only the Scripture that suits them, and are so well satisfied with themselves that they feel no need of any mediator between them and eternal holiness. They feel fully equal to the task of making their own atonement. Rabbi Barthold says that the orthodox are narrow fanatics, and that the majority of them live two lives – one towards God, of slavish religious observances; the other towards man, of sharp practices and double-dealing. I want you to hear Ragolsky preach some night. I'll tell you his story some other time."

"Tell me this much now," said Bethany, as he picked up his overcoat again; "did he have to give up his family as Mr. Lessing did?"

"No, indeed. Happily his wife and children were converted also. He had two rich brothers-in-law in Cape Colony, Africa, who cut them off without a shilling, but he is not grieving over that, I can assure you. O, he is so full of his purpose, and is such a happy Christian! If we were all as constantly about the Master's business as he is, the millennium would soon be here."

Afterward, when the children had been taken home, and the feast and the tree, and the people who gave them, were only blissful memories in their happy little hearts, Bethany stood by the window in her room, holding aside the curtain.

Everything outside was covered with snow. She was thinking of Ragolsky and Lessing, and wondering which of the two fates would be David Herschel's, if he should ever become a Christian.

Would Esther's love for her people be stronger than her love for him?

She knew how tenaciously the women of Israel cling to their faith, yet she felt that it was no ordinary bond that held these two together.

Looking up beyond the starlighted heavens, Bethany whispered a very heartfelt prayer for David and the beautiful, dark-eyed girl who was to be his bride; and like an answering omen of good, over the white roofs of the city came the joyful clangor of the Christmas chimes.

CHAPTER XVI.
A "WATCH-NIGHT" CONSECRATION

THE office work for the old year was all done. Mr. Edmunds had locked his desk and gone home. David would soon follow. He had only some private correspondence to finish.

Bethany sat nervously assorting the letters in the different pigeon-holes of her desk. Ninety-five was slipping out into the eternities. It had brought her a prayed-for opportunity; it was carrying away a far different record from the one she had planned. She felt that she could not bear to have it go in that way, yet an unaccountable reticence sealed her lips.

David had been in the office very little during the past week, only long enough to get his mail. This afternoon he had a worried, preoccupied look that made it all the harder for Bethany to say what was trembling on her lips.

She heard him slipping the letter into the envelope. He would be gone in just another moment. Now he was putting on his overcoat. O, she must say something! Her heart beat violently, and her face grew hot. She shut her eyes an instant, and sent up a swift, despairing appeal for help.

David strolled into the room with his hat in his hand, and stood beside her table.

"Well, the old year is about over, Miss Hallam," he said, gravely. "It has brought me a great many unexpected experiences, but the most unexpected of all is the one that led to our acquaintance. In wishing you a happy new year, I want to tell you what a pleasure your friendship has been to me in the old."

Bethany found sudden speech as she took the proffered hand.

"And I want to tell you, Mr. Herschel, that I have not only been wishing, but praying earnestly, that in this new year you may find the greatest happiness earth holds – the peace that comes in accepting Christ as a Savior."

He turned from her abruptly, and, with his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets, began pacing up and down the room with quick, excited strides.

"You, too!" he cried desperately. "I seem to be pursued. Every way I turn, the same thing is thrust at me. For weeks I have been fighting against it – O, longer than that – since I first talked to Lessing. Then there was Dr. Trent's death, and that nurse's prayer, and the League meeting Frank Marion persuaded me into attending. Cragmore has talked to me so often, too. I can answer arguments, but I can't answer such lives and faith as theirs. Yesterday morning I had a letter from Lee – little Lee Trent – thanking me for a book I had sent him, and even that child had something to say. He told me about his conversion. Last night curiosity led me down town to hear a Russian Jew preach to a lot of rough people in an old warehouse by the river. His text was Pilate's question, 'What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?' It wasn't a sermon. There wasn't a single argument in it. It was just a tragically-told story of the Nazarene's trial and death sentence – but he made it such a personal matter. All last night, and all day to-day those words have tormented me beyond endurance, 'What shall I do? What shall I do with this Jesus called Christ!'"

He kept on restlessly pacing back and forth in silence. Then he broke out again:

"I saw a man converted, as you call it, down there last night. He had been a rough, blasphemous drunkard that I have seen in the police courts many a time. I saw him fall on his knees at the altar, groaning for mercy, and I saw him, when he stood up after a while, with a face like a different creature's, all transformed by a great joy, crying out that he had been pardoned for Christ's sake. I just stood and looked at him, and wondered which of us is nearer the truth. If I am right, what a poor, deluded fool he is! But if he is right, good God – "

He stopped abruptly.

"Mr. Herschel," said Bethany, slowly, "if you were convinced that, by going on some certain pilgrimage, you could find Truth, but that the finding would shatter your belief in the creed you cling to now, would you undertake the journey? Which is stronger in you, the love for the faith of your fathers, or an honest desire for Truth, regardless of long-cherished opinion?"

For a moment there was no answer. Then he threw back his shoulders resolutely.

"I would take the journey," he said, with decision. "If I am wrong I want to know it." Bethany slipped a little Testament out of one of the pigeon-holes, and handed it to him, opened at the place where the answer to Thomas was heavily underscored:

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

"Follow that path," she said, simply. "The door has never been opened to you, because you have never knocked. You have no personal knowledge of Christ, because you have never sought for it. He has never revealed himself to you, because you have never asked him to do so."

He turned to her impatiently.

"Could you honestly pray to Confucius?" he asked; "or Isaiah, or Elijah, or John the Baptist? This Jewish teacher is no more to me than any other man who has taught and died. How can I pray to him, then?"

Bethany fingered the leaves of her little Testament, her heart fluttering nervously.

"I wish you would take this and read it," she said. "It would answer you far better than I can."

"I have read it," he replied, "a number of years ago. I could see nothing in it."

"O, but you read it simply as a critic," she answered. "See!" she cried eagerly, turning the leaves to find another place she had marked. "Paul wrote this about the children of Israel: 'Their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil' (the one told about in Exodus, you know) 'untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.'"

"Where does it say that?" he asked, incredulously. He took the book, and turning back to the first of the chapter, commenced to read.

The great bell in the court-house tower began clanging six.

"I must go," he said; "but I'll take this with me and look through it another time."

"I wish you would come to the watch-meeting to-night," she said, wistfully. "It is from ten until midnight. All the Leagues in the city meet at Garrison Avenue."

He slipped the book in his pocket, and buttoned up his overcoat. A sudden reserve of manner seemed to envelop him at the same time.

"No, thank you," he answered, drawing on his gloves. "I have an informal invitation from some friends in Hillhollow to dance the old year out and the new year in."

His tone seemed so flippant after the recent depth of feeling he had betrayed, that it jarred on Bethany's earnest mood like a discord. He moved toward the door.

"No matter where you may be," she said as he opened it, "I shall be praying for you."

After he had gone, Bethany still sat at her desk, mechanically assorting the letters. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had quite forgotten it was time to go home.

The door opened, and Frank Marion came in. He was followed by Cragmore, who was going home with him to dinner.

"All alone?" asked Mr. Marion in surprise. "Where's David? We dropped in to invite him around to the watch-meeting to-night."

"He has just gone," answered Bethany. "I asked him, but he declined on account of a previous engagement. O, Cousin Frank," she exclaimed, "I do believe he is almost convinced of the truth of Christianity!"

She repeated the conversation that had just taken place.

"He has been fighting against that conviction for some time," answered Mr. Marion. "I had a talk with him last week."

"What do you suppose Rabbi Barthold would say if Mr. Herschel should become a Christian?" asked Bethany.

"Ah, I asked the old gentleman that very question yesterday," exclaimed Mr. Cragmore. "It astounded him at first. I could see that the mere thought of such apostasy in one he loves as dearly as his young David, wounded him sorely. O, it grieved him to the heart! But he is a noble soul, broad-minded and generous. He did not answer for a moment, and when he finally spoke I could see what an effort the words cost him:

"'David is a child no longer,' he said, slowly. 'He has a right to choose for himself. I would rather read the rites of burial over his dead body than to see him cut loose from the faith in which I have so carefully trained him; but no matter what course he pursues, I am sure of one thing, his absolute honesty of purpose. Whatever he does, will be from a deep conviction of right. I, who was denounced and misunderstood in my youth because I cast aside the weight of orthodoxy that bound me down spiritually, should be the last one to condemn the same independence of thought in others.'"

"Herschel would have less opposition to contend with than any Jew I know," remarked Mr. Marion.

"That little sister of his would be rather pleased than otherwise, and, I think, would soon follow his example."

Bethany thought of Esther, but said nothing.

"We'll make it a subject of prayer to-night," said Cragmore, who had been appointed to lead the meeting.

"Yes," answered Marion, clapping his friend on the shoulder. Then he quoted emphatically: "'And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.'"

"Let's ask him right now!" cried Cragmore, in his impetuous way.

He slipped the bolt in the door, and kneeling beside David's desk, began praying for his absent friend as he would have pleaded for his life. Then Marion followed with the same unfaltering earnestness, and after his voice ceased, Bethany took up the petition.

"Nobody need tell me that those prayers are not heard," exclaimed Marion, triumphantly, as he arose from his knees. "I know better. Come, Bethany; if you are ready to go, we will walk as far as the avenue with you."

As they went down-stairs together, he kept singing softly under his breath, "Blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord!"

By ten o'clock the League-room of the Garrison Avenue Church was crowded.

George Cragmore had prepared a carefully-studied address for the occasion; but during the half hour of the song service preceding it, while he studied the faces of his audience, his heart began to be strangely burdened for David and his people. He covered his eyes with his hand a moment, and sent up a swift prayer for guidance, before he arose to speak.

"My friends," he said in his deep, musical voice, "I had thought to talk to you to-night of 'spiritual growth,' but just now, as I have been sitting here, God had put another message into my mouth. We are all children of one Father who have met in this room, and for that reason you will bear with me now for the strangeness of the questions I shall ask, and the seeming harshness of my words. This is a time for honest self-examination. I should like to know how many, during the year just gone, have contributed in any way to the support of Home and Foreign Missions?"

Every one in the room arose.

"How many have tried, by prayer, daily influence, and direct appeal, to bring some one to Christ?"

Again every one arose.

"How many of you, during the past year, have spoken to a Jew about your Savior, or in any way evinced to any one of them a personal interest in the salvation of that race?"

Looks of surprise were exchanged among the Leaguers, and many smiled at the question. Only two arose, Mr. Marion and Bethany Hallam.

When they had taken their seats again there was a moment of intense silence. The earnest solemnity of the minister was felt by every one present. They waited almost breathlessly for what was coming.

"There is a young Jew in this city to-night whose heart is turning lovingly towards your Savior and mine. I have come to ask your prayers in his behalf, that the stumbling-blocks in his way may be removed. But it is not for him alone my soul is burdened. I seem to hear Isaiah's voice crying out to me, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.' And then I seem to hear another voice that through the thunderings of Sinai proclaims, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' Ah! the Christian Church has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It must read a terrible handwriting on the wall in the fact that Israel's eyes have not been opened to the fulfillment of prophecy. For had she seen Christ in the daily life of every follower since he was first preached in that little Church at Antioch, we would have had a race of Sauls turned Pauls! We are Christ's witnesses to all men. Do all men see Christ in us, or only a false, misleading image of him? He cherished no racial prejudices. He turned away from no man with a look of scorn, or a cold shrug of indifference. He drew no line across which his sympathies and love and helping hands should not reach. When we do these things, are we not bearing false witness to the character of him whose name we have assumed, and the emblem of whose cross we wear? I can not believe that any of us here have been willfully neglectful of this corner of the Lord's vineyard. It must be because your hearts and hands were full of other interests that you have been indifferent to this."

Then he told them of Lessing and Ragolsky and David, and called on them to pray that his friend might find the light he was seeking. A dozen earnest prayers were offered in quick succession, and every heart went out in sympathy to this young Jew, whom they longed to see happy in the consciousness of a personal Savior.

David had not gone out to Hillhollow. He dined at the restaurant, and was just starting leisurely down to the depot when he found that his watch told the same time as when he had looked at it an hour before. It must have been stopped even some time before that. At any rate it had made him too late for the train. The next one would not leave till nine o'clock. He stood on a corner debating how to pass the time, and finally concluded to go back to the office for a magazine he had borrowed from Rabbi Barthold, and take it home to him.

His steps echoed strangely through the deserted hall as he climbed the stairs to the office. He lighted the gas, and sat down to look through the papers on his desk for the magazine. But when he had found it, he still sat there idly, drumming with his fingers on the rounds of his chair.

After awhile he took Bethany's Testament out of his pocket, and began to read. It was marked heavily with many marginal notes and underscored passages, that he examined with a great deal of curiosity. Beginning with Matthew's account of the wise men's search, he read steadily on through the four Gospels, past Acts, and through some of Paul's epistles. It was after ten by the office clock when he finished the letter to the Hebrews.

He put the book down with a groan, and, folding his arms on the desk, wearily laid his head on them.

Just then Bethany's parting words echoed in his ears, "No matter where you may be, I shall be praying for you."

It had irritated him at the moment. Now there was comfort in the thought that she might be interceding in his behalf. He loved the faith of his fathers. He was proud of every drop of Israelitish blood that coursed through his veins. He felt that nothing could induce him to renounce Judaism – nothing! Yet his heart went out lovingly toward the Christ that had been so wonderfully revealed to him as he read.

The conviction was slowly forcing itself on his mind that in accepting him he would not be giving up Judaism, that he would only be accepting the Messiah long promised to his own people – only believing fulfilled prophecy.

He wanted him so – this Christ who seemed able to satisfy every longing of his heart, which just now was 'hungering and thirsting after righteousness;' this Christ who had so loved the world that he had given himself a willing sacrifice to make propitiation for its sins – for his – David Herschel's sins.