Captain Ball's Experience, or Thieves in the Church.
“I HAVE had a strange experience,” said Captain Ball, speaking with much emotion. “It began about three weeks ago. I had lately been making some very good trades, and one night I was riding home, reckoning up my gains, and feeling a pride and triumph in the start I had got in the world by my own shrewdness and exertions. It was starlight, and very still; I could scarcely hear a noise but the field crickets and the tramp of my horse on the dark road, when suddenly a voice said, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ “Was it actually a voice? I questioned, as I hesitated.” “No; I knew it wasn't all the time. But the impression was just as distinct and as unexpected as if it had been spoken by some person in my ear. I went to talk with my minister; I wanted to get into the church, where I thought I would be safe. I had no conception of repentance and a change of heart. I supposed our pastor would commence questioning me about doctrines, and so forth, to let me know what I would have to believe before I could become a church member. But he didn't take any such course. He made me go into the house and sit down in his study, where he talked about the blessedness of this world, independently of its rewards hereafter. Then he said:— “‘Captain Ball, do you know the first thing required to be done if you would be a Christian?’ “‘The Christian life of a faithful follower of Jesus Christ,’ said he, ‘can be founded only upon repentance. Now it is easy to say we repent, but the only repentance that is worth anything is an active repentance—by which I mean, not only sorrow for sin and an earnest desire to avoid it in the future, but one that goes to work, and seeks, so far as is in its power, to make amends for everything wrong that we have done. Is there a person in the world, Captain Ball, who can look you in the face and say you have wronged him?’ “He knew my weak point,” added the Captain. “Every one has his weak point, and I suppose the lancet must be applied there first. That question was like a sharp steel driven into my soul. I writhed and groaned inwardly, and struggled, and perspired a long time before I could answer. I saw it was going to be dreadful hard for me to be a Christian. I meant, however, to get off as easy as I could. So I determined to confess something which I supposed was known to everybody who knows me—my horse trade with Peter Simmons last spring. “‘Did you wrong Peter?’ said the minister. “I shaved a little, said I. “‘How much?’ said he. ‘Tell me honestly what you think.’ “I let him have a ringboned and windbroken nag that I had physicked up to look pretty gay—worth, for actual service, not over ten dollars—and got in return a sound and steady beast worth sixty dollars, and twenty-five dollars to boot. So I honestly think, said I, that I shaved him out of about seventy-five dollars. “‘And with seventy-five dollars in your possession belonging to poor Peter Simmons, do you think you can commence a life of Christian purity? Do you think that Christ will bear your prayers for pardon, with stolen money in your pocket?’ said the minister. “I said something about a trade, and men must look out for themselves when they swap horses—but he cut me short. “‘Your own soul,’ said he, ‘will not admit the excuses which your selfishness invents.’ “But the rule you applied, said I, will cut off the heads of church members as well as mine. There's Deacon Rich, he trades horses, and shaves when he can. “‘No matter,’ said he, ‘whose head it cuts off; no matter what Deacon Rich does. You have to deal with your own soul and with your Lord. And I tell you, whether you are out of the church or in it, a single dollar which you have unjustly and knowingly taken from any man without rendering him its full value of your ability—a single dollar, I say, will be like a millstone hung upon your neck, to sink your soul into the sea of spiritual death.’ “I couldn't stand that. The Spirit of God used those words with terrible effect upon my heart. I was greatly agitated. The truth spoken by the pastor appealed to my understanding with irresistible power. I went away, but I couldn't rest. So I took seventy-five dollars and went to Peter and paid him, making him promise not to tell anybody, for I was ashamed to have it known that I was conscience-stricken, and paid back money. Then I went to the minister again and told him what I had done. He didn't praise me as I thought he would. He took it as a matter of course, and no more merit in it than to wash my hands before sitting down to supper. On the contrary he suspected that my hands were not quite clear yet. He wanted to know if I had wronged anybody besides Peter; I tried to say no, but my conscience wouldn't let me. I could have told a plumper lie once without flinching—yes, and flattered my own heart to believe the lie. I was discouraged; I felt bitterly disheartened. It was indeed so much harder to be a Christian than I supposed, that I regretted going to talk with the minister at all. Like the young man who had great possessions, I was on the eve of going away sorrowful. But my heart burned within me, and I was forced to speak. “In the way of business, said I, no doubt I have taken advantage here and there, as everybody does; as church members themselves do, when they can. “‘What everybody does is no rule for you and me, Captain Ball,’ said the minister. ‘It is to be a Christian in the fullest sense—not simply to be church members—that we must strive for with all our heart. The fact of being in the fold does not make the lamb; there are wolves in the fold, alas! but we are by no means justified in doing as the wolves do, even when they appear in sheep's clothing.’ “I felt the rebuke. Well, said I, there is Deacon Rich, I think he paid me a note twice. The first time he paid it, we were transacting some other business, and by some mistake the note wasn't destroyed. I found it among my papers afterward. I was a good deal excited, and lay awake more than one night thinking what I ought to do about it. The deacon was a hard man, I considered, and took advantage of a man when he could. He had driven more than one hard bargain with me.” The deacon, who was present, and heard these allusions made to himself, winced and coughed uneasily. Captain Ball went on without appearing to mind him. “So, said I to the minister, I concluded I would serve the deacon as he would serve me under similar circumstances. I kept the note by me a good while, and when I thought the particulars of our settlement had slipped his mind, I said to him one day, May be you would like to take up that note, which had been due then a considerable time. He was surprised, looked excited and angry, said he had paid it, and held out stoutly for a while; but there was the note. There was no proof that it had been paid, and finally he took out his pocket-book, and with some pretty hard words, paid it over again with interest. “‘And now,’ said the minister, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ “I suppose, said I, the money must be paid back. “So I went to the deacon the next day, and told him that on reflection I was convinced that he was right and I was wrong about the first payment of the note, and returned the money—one hundred and thirteen dollars—a good deal to his astonishment.” The deacon coughed and wiped his forehead. “I hoped then all was right,” continued Captain Ball. “I tried to satisfy my conscience that it was; but I was afraid to go back to the minister, he has such a way of stirring up the conscience and finding mud at the bottom, when we flatter ourselves that because it is out of sight there is no impurity there. “And I knew that as long as I dreaded to see the minister, something must be wrong; and on looking into my heart, I found the matter of a mortgage which I had foreclosed on a poor man and got away his farm, when he had no suspicion but that I would give him time to redeem it. By that means I had got into my possession property worth two thousand dollars, for which I did not actually pay, and for which Isaac Dorr never actually realized more than half that amount. But the proceedings were entirely legal, and so I tried to excuse myself. But my awakened conscience kept saying, ‘You have taken a poor man's land without giving him a just return. The law of God condemns you although the law of man sanctions the wrong. You shall have no peace of soul, your heart will burn you until, with justice, you wipe out your injustice to him and to all others whom you have wronged.’ “Against the decree of my conscience I rebelled a long time. It was hard for me to raise a thousand dollars together with the interest due from the time the mortgage was foreclosed; it was like taking a portion of my life to be obliged to subtract so much from my gains and give it to a man who had no legal claim upon me, and I groaned and mourned over it in secret, and tried to pray; but that mortgage came right up between my prayer and God, and Heaven looked dark and frowning through it. At last I could not resist the appeals of my conscience any longer, and I went again to the minister, told him my trouble, and asked him what I should do. “‘There is a simple test,’ said he. ‘Do you love your neighbor as yourself? If you do, you will be just to him if it takes from you the last dollar you have in the world.’ “That was a terrible sentence. I went out staggering from it as if I had received a blow. O God! I said, how can I be a Christian? But I had help beyond myself; otherwise I could never have endured that struggle. I knelt before God and solemnly vowed for his sake, for the sake of his pardon and love, I would not only do justice to the poor man I had wronged, but would give up all if need be, all that I had in the world, so that I might find peace in him. 189A strange, soothing influence came over my soul, and a voice seemed to say: ‘Though you lose all you have, God, Christ, and the blessing of a heart pure and peaceful shall be left—the best and only true source of happiness and life.’ And in the solemn night-time, after I gave up the struggle, that comfort seemed to me so great and precious, that I felt willing, if it would only stay with me, to accept poverty, and to go into the world poor and despised, hugging that priceless blessing in my heart. The next day I was as light as if I had wings. Nothing could keep me from going to see Isaac Dorr, with a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, and a note for the remainder of what I owed him. “Well,” said the narrator, with tears running down his cheeks, “I only wish that every person could have seen the Dorr family when I visited them, and made known my errand. Poor Isaac had grown discouraged, and had just made up his mind to quit his wife and children and go to California. His children were crying, and his wife in an extremity of distress and despair. She received me a great deal better than I anticipated; I had acted according to law, she said, and Isaac, careless and improvident, was greatly to blame. “‘Yes,’ said Isaac, with the firmness of a desperate man, ‘it was a savage game you played on me, but I was a fool ever to get in debt as I did, and then fancy that any man would not take an advantage when the law permits it. I am ruined in consequence, and here you see this woman and these babies’— “The poor fellow broke down as he looked at them, and cried like a child. “Isaac, said I, as soon as I could, I have come to show you that a man can be honest even when the law does not compel him to be. I want to do right, Isaac, because God commands it, and I have come to tell you that you needn't leave your wife and baby yet, unless you prefer to. “‘Prefer to—go off to a strange country and leave them here to suffer?’ he cried, and he caught the children in his arms and wrung his wife's hand, and sobbed as if his heart would break. “Then I counted the money I had brought, and explained what I intended to do, and gave him the note, and such surprise and happiness I never saw. They would have kissed my feet if I would have let them. It seemed to me as if Heaven was opened then and there, and it was opened in my heart with such a flood of light and joy as I had never experienced or thought possible before. “My friends,” added the captain, his once hard voice now almost as mellow as a woman's, his cheek still moist with tears, “I have been constrained to make this confession; I thank you for listening to it. The minister tells me a man may be a church member without being a Christian. I mean to be a Christian first, and if I fail”— He could proceed no further, but sat down with an emotion more effective than any words. I have nothing to add to this narrative except that he became a church member, and that the example of thorough repentance, of childlike faith in Christ, and of rigorous, practical, everyday righteousness elevated many degrees the standard of Christianity among my people.—Watchman and Reflector. LIFE affords but few opportunities of doing great services for others; but there is scarcely an hour of the day that does not afford us an opportunity of performing some little, it may be unnoticed, kindness.—Bowes. THE due admixture of Christian worship and Christian work makes the true Christian life. Are these elements properly balanced in your life?—Nashville Advocate.