UNDER THE SHADOW by A. E. C.

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 27, 1880

UNDER THE SHADOW.

By A. E. C.

"WELL, what kind of a meeting to-night?"

It was the minister's wife who asked this, as the minister entered the parsonage sitting-room direct from the Thursday evening prayer-meeting.

The minister sighed wearily.

"Oh, about as usual; Deacon Abbot asked the prayers of the church for his son."

A look of righteous indignation flashed into the minister's wife's face.

"Poor Deacon Abbot?" she sorrowfully exclaimed.

"Poor Hal, I should say," the minister answered.

"Why, what do you mean?" she spiritedly rejoined, taking up the cudgel in behalf of the deacon. "What do you mean? Deacon Abbot is a bright and a shining light, surely. His prayers and exhortations bespeak him to be a most saintly man. I think he is greatly to be pitied in Hal's going to the bad as he does."

"Prayers and exhortations shine only one way," answered the minister, almost bitterly, "and"—

But here, on the principle that a thought of angels causes sound of the rustle of their wings, or that speaking of a less admirable being is certain to bring him behind the door, came an interruption in the person of the talked-of deacon himself.

"I felt that I must unburden my troubles to somebody, brother Harrison," he said. "That young scapegrace is bringing down my grey hair in sorrow to the grave. I'm ready to wish he'd never been born. To-night, while I've been in the courts of Zion serving the Lord, he's been down to Turner's serving the evil one. It seems pretty hard, when I've labored in the kingdom for five-and-forty years, giving my testimony everywhere and not witholding my substance from the spread of the gospel, to have my child defy me like this, and set his feet to destruction. I've threatened the boy and expostulated with him, but I might as well talk to the wind or the rain, he's that headstrong and unmanageable. O dear! O dear! O wretched man that I am!"—and the deacon groaned and wrung his hands.

After the wail and the call were ended, the minister proceeded to don overcoat and hat.

"Where are you going?" surprisingly inquired the minister's wife.

"To look for the lost sheep gone astray," answered the shepherd of souls, passing into the street.

Down through the heart of the village he took his way to Turner's saloon, where nightly, amidst the shuffle of cards, the clink of glasses, the ribald jests and maudlin laughter of wicked men, Hal Abbot might be found.

By a fortunate coincidence, just as the minister passed the building Hal came out, and started in the direction of his home. Earlier than usual he had left the place, and as not always, was quite himself.

The minister seeing him, though himself unnoticed by Hal, turned, and retracing his footsteps, presently joined the young fellow. In outward appearance he was a goodly specimen of young manhood. His bright, handsome face carried, in the moonlight, a winning grace. It was indeed a woful pity that with all his inborn attractiveness and ability he should, at twenty, choose to be walking with rapid steps the downward path.

Pleasantly the minister accosted him, then linked his own arm through his, and as they strolled along chatted cheerily on indifferent subjects. Hal evidently expected a sermon with a personal application, and was consequently rather cold and unresponsive. At length, however, his companion's urbanity won upon him, and before he realized it, with so much tact the conversation managed, he was telling his story.

"It began with my very life, Mr. Harrison," he said. "I remember when I was a mere baby being pushed away from my father's knee with a frown and an impatient gesture. He never caressed me, he never smiled upon me, nor took the slightest interest in my play and amusements. My boyish romping and chatter made him nervous; he couldn't nor he wouldn't stand 'such an everlasting din,' and his entrance into the house became to me the signal for restraint and silence. I learned to feel his absence a relief, and to dread his presence. As I grew older he seemed to regard me simply as his tool, made for no other purpose than to do his work. He never encouraged me nor praised me, but on the slightest occasion, and without any occasion even, scolded and punished me. 'Spare the rod and spoil the child' was one of his favorite maxims, and he was for ever talking about breaking my will. His pride led him to give me a respectable education, and that is about the only thing he ever did give me. Many a time I've been mortified with poor and old-fashioned clothes among well-dressed boys whose fathers were not so well-to-do as mine. I never had any money to spend, except for the barest necessities, and was held accountable for the outlay of every penny. So long as he could, he kept me bound to him in servile fear, and when I got old enough to dare to break my bonds, I naturally made the most of my liberty."

"He thinks now that I'm going straight to ruin, asks the prayers of the church in my behalf, gets all the pious old hypocrites in the town to labor with me, sets himself up as a martyr in being the father of such an unworthy son, and declares he'll give his whole property to the missionary societies if I don't immediately mend my ways. Perhaps I am going to ruin—and I don't care much if I am—but he has himself to thank for it, and my blood will be on his garments in the day of judgment—should there ever be a day of judgment. If my mother had lived," (the young fellow's hard tone softened a little) "or I had had a sister, or there had been in my home the thinnest atmosphere of love and sympathy, it would have been different. But the old house is duller than a jail, and the old man uglier than Satan, so I go" (nodding over his shoulder toward Turner's) "where things are livelier, and folks more agreeable."

"There, sir," after a brief pause, giving a sarcastic laugh, "I've drawn his picture to the life—the godly Deacon Abbot'—that's what people call him—who is a pillar in the church, and prays and exhorts so fluently, and gives his dollars by the score to convert the heathen. Fireside piety appears to be at a discount with nineteenth century saints. Deliver me from Christians, if he is a sample"—and again the young men's derisive laughter broke on the solemn stillness of the moonlit night.

With an ache in his own heart, the minister reasoned and pleaded long and earnestly with misguided Hal.

Reporting the interview on his return to the parsonage, the pastor remarked, with rather clerical heat, that his first duty of the morrow should be to visit Deacon Abbot, and endeavor to convince him that he was not in a thoroughly sanctified state, with all his attainments.

"It is dreadful, it is awful," he said, "that so many, many professors and possessors of our holy religion, by indulging in some grave fault or evil habit, make their profession and possession of none effect, so far as it regards their associates. Hard as it may sound, I believe souls sometimes go down to perdition because of the sins of Christian men and women."

"Deacon Abbot means to be a good man. The Lord's grace is undoubtedly in his heart. Right grandly he lets his light shine in some directions, but toward his own home it is shut out by irritability and moroseness and avarice. Under the shadow which these have cast upon his life, poor Hal has almost made eternal shipwreck. Almost; thank God it is not quite. I think he will yet be saved, though the narrowness of his chance should be to us, every one who has named the Master's name, as a warning from the heavens."—A. E. C., in Examiner and Chronicle.