The Witness | Page 7

tribute, "He was a man!"
Below the resolutions, on the little table covered with an old-fashioned
crocheted cotton table-cover, lay Stephen's Bible, worn, marked, soft
with use. His mother had wished it to remain. Only his clothes had
been sent back to her who had sent him forth to prepare for his
life-work, and received word in her distant home that his life-work had
been already swiftly accomplished.
Courtland entered the room and looked around.
There were no traces of the fray that had marred the place when last he
saw it. Everything was clean and fine and orderly. The simple saint-like
face of the plain farmer's-wife-mother looked down upon it all with
peace and resignation. This life was not all. There was another. Her
eyes said that. Paul Courtland stood a long time gazing into them.
Then he closed the door and knelt by the little table, laying his forehead
reverently upon the Bible.
Since he had returned to college and things of life had become more
real, Reason had returned to her throne and was crying out against his
"fancies." What was that experience in the hospital but the phantasy of
a sick brain? What was the Presence but a fevered imagination? He had
been growing ashamed of dwelling upon the thought, ashamed of liking
to feel that the Presence was near when he was falling asleep at night.
Most of all he had felt a shame and a land of perplexity in the

biblical-literature class where he faced "FACTS" as the professor called
them, spoken in capitals. SCIENCE was another force which mocked
his fancies. PHILOSOPHY cooled his mind and wakened him from his
dreams. In this atmosphere he was beginning to think that he had been
delirious, and was gradually returning to his normal state, albeit with a
restless dissatisfaction he had never known before.
But now in this calm, rose-decked room, with the quiet eyes of the
simple mother looking down upon him, the resolutions in their
chaplet-of-palm framing, the age-old Bible thumbed and beloved, he
knew he had been wrong. He knew he would never be the same. That
Presence, Whoever, Whatever it was, had entered into his life. He could
never forget it; never be convinced that it was not; never be entirely
satisfied without it! He believed it was the Christ! Stephen Marshall's
Christ!
By and by he lifted up his head and opened the little worn Bible,
reverently, curiously, just to touch it and think how the other boy had
done. The soft, much-turned leaves fell open of themselves to a heavily
marked verse. There were many marked verses all through the book.
Courtland's eyes followed the words:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.
Could it be that this strange new sense of the Presence was "the
witness" here mentioned? He knew it like his sense of rhythm, or the
look of his mother's face, or the joy of a summer morning. It was not
anything he could analyze. One might argue that there was no such
thing, science might prove there was not, but he knew it, had seen it,
felt it! He had the witness in himself. Was that what it meant?
With troubled brow he turned over the leaves again:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God.
Ah! There was an offer, why not close with it?

He dropped his head on the open book with the old words of
self-surrender:
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
A moment later Pat McCluny opened the door, cautiously, quietly; then,
with a nod to Tennelly back of him, he entered with confidence.
Courtland rose. His face was white, but there was a light of something
in his eyes they did not understand.
They went over to him as if he had been a child who had been lost and
was found on some perilous height and needing to be coaxed gently
away from it.
"Oh, so you're here, Court," said Tennelly, slapping his shoulder with
gentle roughness, "Great little old room, isn't it? The fellows' idea to
keep flowers here. Kind of a continual memorial."
"Great fellow, that Steve!" said Pat, hoarsely. He could not yet speak
lightly of the hero-martyr whom he had helped to send to his fiery
grave.
But Courtland stood calmly, almost as if he had not heard them. "Pat,
Nelly," he said, turning from one to the other gravely, "I want to tell
you fellows that I have met Steve's Christ and after this I stand for
Him!"
They looked at him curiously, pityingly. They spoke with soothing
words and humored him. They led him away to his room and left him
to rest. Then they walked