p. 9 | INEZ by Lucius E. Christian

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 47.

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INEZ.

By Lucius E. Christian

A Thanksgiving Day Story.

"NEVER!" and he brought his right hand down heavily on the table. "Never!" He almost shouted it.

"But, Elmore,—" said his wife kindly but firmly.

"Never speak her name again," he interrupted, "let her be as tho she were dead."

"But, Elmore," again said his wife, not noticing the interruption, "I must, and will speak."

He bowed his head and looked vacantly at the flames in the stove as they rose and fell like an ocean's tide. In all their married life of forty years had his wife before acted so decidedly. He knew what was coming, and he gathered up all his resources for the battle of words.

"Elmore, I fully know that I am opening an old wound, yet I wish the difficulty settled between us and our daughter to-night, so far as we are concerned. God will help us do it."

She waited a moment for a reply, but as he did not speak, she went on:—

"To-day I was thinking how long ago it was since Inez left our home. It is just thirteen years ago to-night since Inez and her lover, Harry Balingtyne, stole away from our home unknown to us, and were married. Neither of us wanted them to be married, but they did it in spite of our protests. I know he was only a common laborer, and he had quite a name as a drinker and a gam

bler; but Inez would not believe us, and believed his story."

She stopped a moment, and looked out of the window at the dreary and black night. The pause gave her strength to go on:—

"Seven years passed by and then we received a letter from a friend of hers, saying that Inez had lately become the mother of a little boy; that her husband had left her for good, never to return; and that she was in a dying condition, with nothing hardly to eat or wear; that the home that they once owned had gone to satisfy a gambler's demands, and that she asked us to forgive her and wished to return. I was willing to forgive and forget, and I sent her money, but you said, 'Let her die, she disobeyed; let her reap what she has sown.' Elmore, do you wish those words to remain?"

He groaned, and rising from his chair paced the floor. He clinched his fists, and he looked like a wild animal as he hissed the words through his teeth: "Alice, if I were not a Christian now, I would say so again."

His actions and words did not surprise his wife, and she answered:—

"Is it not as wrong to think them? But let us settle this to-night. Too long it has been a bone of contention, and we have not lived as happily as we should. My heart has always longed for my child. Only last month she wrote you, that she would doubtless soon die of consumption, and that if she did not have rest and help she must soon give up the struggle of life. Will you not for my happiness, your happiness, for her sake, and for the Lord's sake, relent and let her return?"

He had by this time sat down by the table. The Bible was before him. He involuntarily took it, opening the book at random, for his wife's question had cut him to the quick; his eye fell on this verse: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land." This was too direct, so over went the leaves: "Forgive, and thou shalt be forgiven." The book closed and opened again, and there was that well-known verse: "And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

Looking up, he said rather unwillingly, yet half submissively, "If I must, I must," and again his head fell.

"Elmore, no. I do not wish you to take it in that way. I want you to be willing to receive her with an open heart as well as open arms. So when I write she will know that we both have fully forgiven, and that she need have no doubts about how you will receive her. She does not fear me. It is you only that keeps her away. I am, as I always have been, ready to receive our daughter back! Shall I write it so?"

The wound of the past had been opened to its fullest extent, and as Mr. Burnham sat there thinking deeply, pleasant memories of the past and of God's mercy to him, arose before him, and tears began to course down his cheeks. At this his wife looked surprised; because such a thing was very rare. With a choking voice, he feebly said, "Alice, let us ask God." So the two knelt. It was a pathetic scene. The prayer was a series of sobs and broken sentences. After having asked his wife to forgive him, which she promptly and willingly did, he said:—

"Alice, please get the writing material, I will write a letter to Inez myself—but no, that would hardly do. I want her to get here by Thanksgiving day. Why, it is only a week more. I will send her a telegram, and send some money by telegraph; for she may not have sufficient to come with."

Despite the fact that it was already nine o'clock, he put on his overcoat, and soon was at the Union Depot. This was the message he sent:—

"Come at once. All is forgotten, forgiven. Forgive me. I send money for expenses. R. E. BURNHAM."

The telegraph operator, as he ticked off the message, thought it a rather strange message. He was right. It was very strange to a stranger. Burnham, as he walked homeward, felt that there flowed in and over his soul such a peace that he could not be mistaken as to its source. He had done what he thought God would have him do, and he was happy.

That very same evening a messenger boy rapped at the door of a tumble-down tenement house. A boy of six opened the door.

"Does Mrs. Balingtyne live here?"

"Yes sir, but mother is not in."

"Will she be in soon, Ralph?"

"My name is not Ralph; it is Wilber."

"Well, Wilber, where is your mother?"

"Over to a friend's, she will be in shortly."

The messenger boy did not let anything escape his eyes. He saw that the mother was a widow, worked in a factory and was extremely poor. To make sure he asked the boy a question,

"Have you a father?"

"No, never had one."

"O, yes, you must be mistaken, Wilber; everyone has a father."

"I haven't anyway," and Wilber's eyes flashed fire.

At that moment the door opened, and a slender and rather delicate woman entered the room.

"Mrs. Harry Balingtyne, I presume," said messenger boy 27, touching his hat.

"Yes, sir, my young man."

"Well, here is a message for you," and with that remark 27 again touched his hat, and returned to the Union Telegraph Office.

"A telegram! from whom? who is dead? from husband, father, or mother?" said Mrs. Balingtyne in a breath. With trembling hands, and her heart fluttering, she tore open the envelope, and commenced to read:—

"Come at once;"—that truly was welcome, for her father's name graced the paper. "All is forgotten, forgiven;"—ah! what a burden flew off from her heart. "Forgive me;"—that was more than she could stand, and she sat down and had a good cry. Wilber did not know what to make of it, and going up to his mother, said:—

"Mother, what's the matter? what makes you cry?"

"O, good things, we're going home to grandpa's soon."

"I send money for expenses." "How thoughtful of father, I have enough for the trip, but this extra money will get Wilber and me some decent clothes. Father, I forgive you twice over, and O heavenly Father, I thank thee!"

Mrs. Balingtyne's household goods were few, and these she gave to her neighbors, and the next evening Wilber and she stepped aboard the west bound passenger train for home. They little knew what was in store for them. The night passed, then the next day, and night came again. In the morning they would be home, but that night the passenger train ran into a wild freight train, and what a terrible scene! Steam and smoke escaping, groans and cries from the wounded and dying, and the cars one grand pile. Soon helpers arrived, and the bruised, dead, and dying were tenderly cared for. An extra took all to the next station. Mrs. Balingtyne was only slightly injured, but it so affected her that she could not go home until the day before Thanksgiving. Wilber, the boy, escaped unscathed.

The next day after the accident, Mr. Burnham picked up the morning paper. His eyes caught sight of accident news. Running his eye down the column, he came to the name, "Balingtyne, Mrs. Inez." That was enough. Mrs. Burnham had gone down town to see some friends. So he wrote a note and left it on the dresser, and left for the station, just in time for the morning train, which was coming in.

The train made a brief stop, and then hurried on to the scene of the accident. As Mr. Burnham stepped off the train, he asked a bystander where his daughter was, and was told that she was in a house near by. Soon he was rapping at the door of that house. Mrs. Henderson, the lady of the house, took him into the parlor where his daughter was lying on the sofa.

"Mrs. Balingtyne, here is your father," said the lady.

"Inez!"

"Father, O father!"

And each rushed into the other's outstretched arms.

Mrs. Henderson left the room quickly, and drew the curtains across the open space. The scene was too holy for the eyes of strangers. What passed between the two we shall never know, save that the father forgave the daughter, and the daughter the father.

That afternoon Mrs. Balingtyne, Wilber, and her father left for home. The mother's welcome was none the less welcome than the father's. "Home," "Peace," were said, the former by the daughter, and the latter by the mother. What a day of gladness it was in the desolate household! Hearts were united; the lost one had returned. It was truly a day of thanksgiving.

Pale and weary was Inez as the evening of that day was reached, and yet how happy was she! She was resting in her home—in the love of father, mother, and God. She was ill and extremely weak, but with good care and skilful nursing she became, after several months, a strong, healthy woman again. The way Mr. Burnham watched over his daughter was good to see. The love of God had renewed the love of the father. Wilber, the boy, is growing every day more like his mother, and Mr. and Mrs. Burnham are growing older in years, but younger in heart. Inez bears the heavier burdens of household duties; for she wishes to return their kindness to her.

Two years afterwards came the announcement through the daily press that Harry Balingtyne had passed the "Great Divide." When Inez read it, a tear coursed down her cheek, and she said:—

"Lord, thy will always, not mine, be done! Amen."

Alta, Iowa.