Alls For the Best | Page 7

rather than respect. We ask for good works, and are never satisfied with
anything else. By their fruits ye shall know them."
On the next Sunday I saw Mr. Gray in church. My eyes were on him
when he entered. I noticed that all the lines of his face were drawn
down, and that the whole aspect and bearing of the man were solemn
and devotional. He moved to his place with a slow step, his eyes cast to
the floor. On taking his seat, he leaned his head on the pew in front of
him, and continued for nearly a minute in prayer. During the services I
heard his voice in the singing; and through the sermon, he maintained
the most fixed attention. It was communion Sabbath; and he remained,
after the congregation was dismissed, to join in the holiest act of
worship.
"Can this man be indeed self-deceived?" I asked myself, as I walked
homeward. "Can he really believe that heaven is to be gained by pious
acts alone? That every Sabbath evening he can pitch his tent a day's
march nearer heaven, though all the week he have failed in the
commonest offices of neighborly love?"
It so happened, that I had many opportunities for observing Mr. Gray,
who, after joining the church, became an active worker in some of the
public and prominent charities of the day. He contributed liberally in
many cases, and gave a good deal of time to the prosecution of
benevolent enterprises, in which men of some position were concerned.
But, when I saw him dispute with a poor gardener who had laid the
sods in his yard, about fifty cents, take sixpence off of a weary
strawberry woman, or chaffer with his boot-black over an extra shilling,
I could not think that it was genuine love for his fellow-men that
prompted his ostentatious charities.

In no instance did I find any better estimation of him in business circles;
for his religion did not chasten the ardor of his selfish love of
advantage in trade; nor make him more generous, nor more inclined to
help or befriend the weak and the needy. Twice I saw his action in the
case of unhappy debtors, who had not been successful in business. In
each case, his claim was among the smallest; but he said more unkind
things, and was the hardest to satisfy, of any man among the creditors.
He assumed dishonest intention at the outset, and made that a plea for
the most rigid exaction; covering his own hard selfishness with
offensive cant about mercantile honor, Christian integrity, and religious
observance of business contracts. He was the only man among all the
creditors, who made his church membership a prominent thing--few of
them were even church-goers--and the only man who did not readily
make concessions to the poor, down-trodden debtors.
"Is he a Christian?" I asked, as I walked home in some depression of
spirits, from the last of these meetings. And I could but answer No--for
to be a Christian is to be Christ-like.
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This
is the divine standard. "Ye must be born again," leaves to us no latitude
of interpretation. There must be a death of the old, natural, selfish loves,
and a new birth of spiritual affections. As a man feels, so will he act. If
the affections that rule his heart be divine affections, he will be a lover
of others, and a seeker of their good. He will not be a hard, harsh,
exacting man in natural things, but kind, forbearing, thoughtful of
others, and yielding. In all his dealings with men, his actions will be
governed by the heavenly laws of justice and judgment. He will regard
the good of his neighbor equally with his own. It is in the world where
Christian graces reveal themselves, if they exist at all. Religion is not a
mere Sunday affair, but the regulator of a man's conduct among his
fellow-men. Unless it does this, it is a false religion, and he who
depends upon it for the enjoyment of heavenly felicities in the next life,
will find himself in miserable error. Heaven cannot be earned by mere
acts of piety, for heaven is the complement of all divine affections in
the human soul; and a man must come into these--must be born into
them--while on earth, or he can never find an eternal home among the
angels of God. Heaven is not gained by doing, but by living.

III.
"RICH AND RARE WERE THE GEMS SHE WORE."

"HAVE you noticed Miss Harvey's diamonds?" said a friend, directing
my attention, as she spoke, to a young lady who stood at the lower end
of the room.