A New Dawn Over Devon (25 page)

 39 
Visitor From Switzerland

As the time grew short and the miles shrank, Hope Guinarde's heart beat more and more rapidly within her. It had been a long and tiring train ride, not to mention a somewhat bumpy channel ferry crossing. She had been gone from the chalet almost a week, and, after a day in London before leaving for Devon, she was now nearly at the end of her journey.

By the time the train began to slow and the conductor announced Milverscombe, she could hardly contain her anticipation.

She had only known Amanda a few brief months. The girl was young enough to be her daughter, and at the time of their acquaintance in Switzerland, they had hardly hit it off as the closest of friends. And their parting had been strained to say the least. Yet Hope felt she was returning to visit a lifelong friend.

She stepped off the train full of so many emotions, not knowing what she would find, yet knowing the Lord had something unknown and wonderful waiting for her. She hardly had a chance to glance around before she heard her name called out above the hissing steam of the engine.

“Sister Hope!” cried the familiar voice.

If Hope had had any lingering doubts about how Amanda would receive her after their tense meeting a year and a half earlier, they were gone in an instant.

She looked toward the sound to see Amanda running toward her with arms outstretched. Vaguely she saw two or three other figures behind her. But she had no chance to think of them further, for the next moment Amanda had her in her arms. She returned the hug, tears flowing freely.

“Oh, Amanda,” said Hope, “it is so good to see you.”

She leaned back and looked deeply into Amanda's eyes. “You look well!” she said.

“As do you,” whispered Amanda. “Thank you . . . thank you for everything!”

“For what?” said Hope.

“For loving me enough to send me home.”

Hope smiled and nodded. Her heart was too full for words. Notwithstanding the letters they had received at the chalet, she had hardly been able to dare dream that her exhortations of the previous winter would be used to so turn Amanda's life toward home. But one look in Amanda's face showed just how great the transformation had been. The hard, resistant independence had been replaced by a radiant childlikeness, and Hope could see that Amanda was finally at peace with herself.

Behind them, Amanda's small entourage now approached.

“I am so glad you are here!” Amanda said as they withdrew from the embrace, dabbing at their eyes. “Now I want you to meet my family.”

Amanda turned, slipped her arm through Hope's, and brought her a few steps forward.

“Mother, meet Hope Guinarde . . . Sister Hope, this is my mother, Jocelyn Rutherford.”

Sister Hope extended her hand. “Lady Rutherford—” she began.

But more words never came from her mouth. The next instant Hope found herself swallowed in Jocelyn's embrace. The grateful mother could no longer hold back her emotions and sobbed without reservation.

For several long moments the two women held each other in the silent embrace of mutual love and respect.

At length Jocelyn spoke, whispering into Hope's ear words of gratitude that she had longed to express to this dear woman.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “You will never know how grateful I am.”

Hope nodded. She could not reply. Her own throat and eyes made speech temporarily impossible.

“And my sister, Catharine . . .” said Amanda, continuing with the introductions. Hope nodded with a smile to Catharine over Jocelyn's shoulder.

“And I would like you to meet a visitor in our home, Elsbet Conlin—Betsy, this is Sister Hope.”

Hope and Jocelyn parted.

“Hello, Betsy,” said Hope, looking down and smiling as she took the girl's outstretched hand.

At the touch of her fingers and the gaze of her eyes, Hope's heart leapt with love and feelings undefined. She did not yet know that the girl before her was motherless and fatherless. She knew nothing about her. But immediately the look of her eyes plunged straight into Hope's heart, and something told her it was for this child standing in front of her that the Lord had sent her to England.

Betsy returned her gaze, smiling and unflinching, until Amanda spoke again.

“Do you have more bags?” she said, interrupting Hope's thoughts.

Hope turned. “Oh . . . yes, just one,” she answered.

“Then shall we get it and be off to the Hall? We have a nice tea all waiting for you!”

 40 
Preservation of the Doctrine

A small, select committee of ecclesiastics sat in a plain room around an oval wood table. Whether there was a Bible in the room could not be said for certain. A glance around the table revealed none. Had one been present, it would doubtless have remained as closed as the minds here gathered in the name of preserving what were thought to be its sacred creeds.

There had been talk. Various reports had been filed. The complaints had reached this executive body. Discreet investigations, interviews, and personal observations had been carried out. And now these august defenders of the faith must render a decision based on their collective years and their love for the traditions of their elders.

“As I understand it,” the chairman began, “the chief charge facing us is unorthodoxy.” The speaker was a man whose seventy-three years had provided more abundantly for the expansion of his waistline than his mind. And though he was personally unfamiliar with the case, the briefing of his loyal lieutenants was all he would need to pass judgment. Of all things he could not tolerate, unorthodoxy sat at the top of the list. Doctrinal correctness was far more important in his eyes than ethics, or even morality itself. He would far more quickly cut off fellowship for doctrinal slippage, as he saw it, than for anything to do with a man's or woman's obedience or disobedience
to the commands of Christ. Orthodoxy was his God, and he served the idol with all the passion of one from the church at Sardis.

“He is a difficult man to pin down,” said the woman to his right, a certain Mrs. Packer, tall, robust of frame, and with ample black-grey hair neatly bundled atop her head. Her demeanor, even her professional dress, made it clear she had learned well from the example of the Pankhursts, though she disdained them, and was the equal of any man in both ambition and determination. She enjoyed the role of authority and had her eye on the chairmanship when Roul stepped aside, as he was reportedly planning to do at year's end. She had first been contacted by one of the church's deacons on behalf of the disturbed membership. Never caring much for Diggorsfeld, she had immediately taken over the investigation with relish. “He avoids saying anything which contradicts Scripture outright,” she went on. “But his bias is undeniably liberal. It is clear he does not give proper emphasis to the tenets and doctrines of the denomination.”

“Such as?” inquired Chairman Roul.

“Animals in heaven and that church attendance is not mandatory are two of the most obvious,” she replied. “In addition, he refuses to urge his people to tithe, and there are hints of scandal involving a married woman.”

“I see . . . these
are
serious charges,” rejoined Roul in solemn tones. “The latter could be especially useful, if it becomes necessary to rouse the people against him, to illustrate how heretical teaching leads to moral decline. A rumor dropped into the right ears is always effective. Do we have sufficient evidence otherwise to move against him?”

The members of the committee glanced around the table at one another. No one spoke, for none of them did possess such evidence.

“We have been watching him for months now,” said the treasurer of the committee, Mrs. Paulus, “ever since the first reports reached us.”

“And what have you found?”

“The same points of objection that Mrs. Packer reported.”

“But as I look at the chapel's statistics,” now put in the only member of the committee who was not convinced, Vice-Chairman Taylor, “it appears that attendance is actually on the rise.” He was younger than either Packer or Paulus, and had not completely relinquished his mind to the will of the committee. His capacity to think for himself, however, was diminishing by degrees the more frequently he squelched his objections and went along. As a young seminarian
he had been full of spiritual ideals and enthusiasm. But there is no underestimating the power of organizational church orthodoxy to engender a spirit of fear within its membership, the first casualty of which is always the capacity to inquire of God outside the rigid boundaries of that orthodoxy. And sadly, Taylor's former zeal for truth was invisibly being supplanted by the attempt to protect his position within the hierarchy of which he had made himself a part.

Chairman Roul glanced to his right.

“That, uh . . . may be true,” replied Mrs. Packer. “There have been reports of increased attendance for some time. It is one of the factors in the case that has puzzled us.”

“I thought the dissenters were leaving him.”

“Some, it is true, have stopped attending until the matter is resolved.”

“But others say his popularity with the people is enormous.”

“When I was there the chapel was packed,” put in Taylor. “And enthusiastic. I don't know that I have ever seen one of our clergymen so well liked by the people.”

“Except, of course, for those raising the complaints.”

“Yes . . . of course—I suppose that is true.”

 41 
Good Will Be Called Evil

Even as the executive committee, unknown to him, pondered his fate, Timothy Diggorsfeld rose to answer the door of his parsonage. There stood a young man he judged to be in his late twenties whom he had never seen before.

“Someone gave me this little leaflet,” he said, showing Timothy a small folded paper in his hand. “It had this address on it. Can you tell me . . . is this true, what is written here?”

“Why don't you come in and have some tea with me,” said Timothy, “and show me exactly what your question is.”

He had to blink back his tears for a second or two, seized by a momentary stab of fond remembrance in his heart, and thinking that standing before him was an angel sent by his good friend Charles Rutherford as a reminder that he was thinking of him.

“—My name is Timothy Diggorsfeld,” the pastor added, extending his hand.

Fifteen minutes later he and his visitor were seated in Timothy's parlor. The young man still clutched the tract which had been handed him by one of the members of New Hope Chapel several days before.

“Ever since I read these words,” he was saying, “I have not been able to get them out of my mind.
Jesus seeks to introduce us to a life lived with the Father—
an ongoing, moment-by-moment experience between loving Father and
contented child. He does not protect us from God, he
takes us to him. It is toward intimacy with the
Father
that the Son would guide us. For such he
was born, for such he died. This is what a
relationship with Christ is all about
.”

He glanced up at Timothy as if the words were the most astonishing thing he had ever heard. “As I read them, an inner explosion went off in my brain,” he added.

As Timothy listened he could not help smiling to himself. He knew the words well, for he had written them himself, though his name appeared nowhere on the tract.

“You see, for years I have struggled with what people call the atonement,” the young man went on.

“You are . . . or are not, a Christian?” said Timothy.

“I don't know,” replied his visitor. “I have never prayed a conversion prayer, if that is what you mean, though I have been a sporadic attendee of various churches. Perhaps I should explain that I am one who tries to make sense of things. Logic is important to me, though I have heard it scoffed at by some preachers. What do you think? Is logic of God or of the devil?”

“Who made it?”

“I'm afraid I don't understand you.”

“Who made our minds?”

“God, of course.”

“Then logic must be one of his gifts to us.”

“But what if it is of the fallen nature?”

“A legitimate concern, for many aspects of our humanity are. Can you tell me—why does such a question occur to you?”

“I don't know. I suppose because so much of the preaching I have heard emphasizes that there is nothing good within us, that everything about man has been tainted by sin. I heard a sermon just last month entitled ‘The Total Depravity of Man.'”

Timothy smiled. He was well familiar with that upside-down theology whose deepest foundations were rooted in the sinfulness of man rather than the character of God.

“I would agree,” he said, “that everything in us has been tainted by sin. We
are
sinners; there is no doubt about that. By no goodness of our own will we enter the kingdom of heaven, but only through the shed blood of the Savior and the loving forgiveness of his Father. However, I take exception with the
total
depravity view. Sinful . . . yes. In need of a Savior . . . yes.
Totally
depraved . . . no.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we are still made in God's image, and everything God made was good. Even the Fall cannot change that
in-his-image-ness
. And to return to your question about logic—I consider it too wonderful a thing for the devil to have invented. Of course it is tainted, as you say, by our sin nature. But I stand by what I said, that imperfect as it is, it remains one of God's precious gifts to mankind.”

“Do you think logic can aid spirituality?”

“Not only can it, it is
supposed
to. I believe that faith, though by definition it concerns the unseen,
must
be bolstered as much as possible by sound reasoning, and that obedience must likewise be nourished by a wide-awake and thoughtful mentality.”

“Why do so few Christians emphasize that?”

“Because 1 Corinthians 1:19–20 and 3:19 are two of the most misread passages in the New Testament,” replied Timothy, “which foolish people use to justify the shoddy view that we are not supposed to make sense of God's truth. Both Jesus and Paul were crafty and intelligent men, who brought the full weight of their intellects to the aid of their faith.”

“I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear you say it,” laughed the young man lightly. “I have never been able to accept ideas by rote simply because someone tells me I should. And so much of what I have been told about salvation, I am sorry to say, makes very little sense to me.”

“Common sense is one of the much overlooked virtues in theological circles,” rejoined Timothy. “I am pleased to see that it is one you value. Would you care to give me an example of something about the common explanations of salvation that grates against your common sense?”

“Such as,” replied his guest, “Jesus dying to satisfy the justice of an angry God.”

“Why do you think that makes little sense?”

“God punishing sin, even though
he
is the one who created mankind capable of that sin? It is logically backwards. It is as if I punished my dog for being unable to speak English.”

“In other words, punishing your dog for being something he cannot help being?”

“Exactly. We cannot help being sinners. Yet they say God created us imperfect and then will condemn us to hell for
not
being perfect unless we go through a process of repentance which our very sinfulness
makes it impossible for us to thoroughly understand or embrace. This strikes me as monstrous cruelty. Yet theologians insist such to be evidence of his holiness and righteousness, and all the while maintain that God is love. The illogic of it is enormous.”

“You make a strong point,” nodded Timothy.

“Well if that is their God,” said their visitor, “I want no part of him. That is certainly like no love I am familiar with.”

He sighed and glanced away. Timothy waited.

“And yet,” he went on in a moment, “I am drawn to Jesus. For in him I see love, tenderness, compassion, reasonableness, intelligence, logic, manliness, humor, truth, and even, if I can say it, down-to-earth common sense. I have read the Gospels numerous times. And part of me desires to give myself to him and be his disciple.”

“But something has prevented you?” asked Timothy.

“Yes—the idea that he was a sacrifice to appease an angry God. I simply cannot in good conscience accept such a thing. As much as I respond to Jesus himself, I cannot accept him if that is what it means. So to answer your question, I don't suppose I am a Christian.”

“But from the sound of it, you want to be.”

“Yes, I think I do. Because I am certain in my heart that Jesus' death and resurrection must mean more than the theologians say.”

“You are right, they mean much more,” smiled Timothy.

“What do you think they mean?”

“That your image of God the Father is wrong.”

“If only I could believe that.”

“Do you believe Jesus?”

“I . . . I think I do.”

“What did he say of his Father?”

The young man hesitated, then cast Timothy a look of question.

“He said that he was just like the Father,” Timothy went on, “—in other words, full of love, compassion, tenderness, gentleness . . . and forgiveness—all the same qualities you say you see in Jesus himself.”

“What about his holiness in the face of our sin?”

“Who else but a holy and righteous Father could love and forgive us perfectly and completely?” replied Timothy.