Chapter XI: Mr. Blackman

“I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at home also,
for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”

“I hope the c’mmittee’s satisfied now,” sputtered Maybee. “They’ve got a degraded school, with me in one room and Tod in another. I don’t care! Mr. Blackman’s gone to the ’cademy, and we have wimmins to teach us. Mine has curls, and Tod’s hasn’t, and mine prays a real nice little prayer before she says ‘Our Father.’ Mr. Blackman never said only that, quick’s ever he could,—Amen! ring-a-ling-a-ling, right along together, as if it didn’t mean nothing ’tall.”

Maybee was right. “Our Father” had no meaning to Mr. Blackman.

Dick and Will, who were both trying to be Christian boys now, were talking it over one day. “It isn’t so much what he _says_,” Dick remarked, “as the feeling he gives you that the Bible and such things are of no account, anyhow.”

“Yes, and then it sounds so grand,” Will rejoined, “when he talks about the Good and the True and Beautiful,—how they of themselves will help men up, and how Reason teaches us all we need to know, and about matter and law and evolution. I couldn’t understand it any more than I could father’s free agency and election, but it made me feel easier, and didn’t say _do_ anything in particular, so I liked to think it might be true. Queer, wasn’t it, Bill Finnegan should be the one to open my eyes? but queerer yet, as he said, that I or anybody could ever forget or not care that Christ died for us.”

Dick looked thoughtful. “It seems stranger anybody can believe there is a God, and not care to know about Him or try to please Him, than it does not to believe in Him at all, like Mr. Blackman. I wonder if he reads the Bible? He never goes to church. Would you dare ask him to?”

“To go to church? Mr. Blackman? No, indeed!—that is, I shouldn’t like to. He is so much older, and he turns up his nose,—that is, he makes you feel as if it was all nonsense.”

“But it ought not to make us feel so. If he should turn up his nose at the sun, we shouldn’t think any the less of it. I’ve a good mind to. It would come a little tough to say anything of that sort to him, but—I guess I could.”

“I do wish you would, then. Oh, dear! you are so much braver than I, Dick, about these things.”

“Oh! that’s something in the grain, I guess, but I don’t see why we should be ashamed of our Master. It would be mean enough for us to feel ashamed of Bill Finnegan anywhere after what he did for us; and Jesus Christ has done so much more, besides being God’s own Son and the Lord of heaven and earth.”

That evening Mr. Blackman’s bell rang,—the very faintest tingle; but when he opened the door, Dick looked him straight in the face, his honest blue eyes full of eager longing. “Please, Mr. Blackman, I called—I don’t know how to say it,—but I—I wish—you was a Christian. Couldn’t you—won’t you go to the meeting to-night?”

The Bible tells of a certain king who went into battle disguised, and who supposed himself quite safe, covered as he was with a strong armor; but somebody drew a bow at a venture and smote him between the joints of his breastplate and killed him.

Now, Mr. Blackman prided himself that nothing Conscience or anybody else might say about God and religion ever had made or ever could make the least impression upon his armor of arguments and proofs; but just those few simple words, so earnestly spoken, found a crevice somewhere, and struck right home to his heart.

“What makes you wish so?” he asked, taking the boy’s hand.

“Because—because you’re so good and kind and know most everything, and God wants just such men for his servants. Besides, you couldn’t help loving Him if you knew Him.”

“Do you think so? Well, suppose I go to-night, just to please you,” and Mr. Blackman reached at once for his hat.

Dea. Carter looked at Mr. Sampson, and Mr. Sampson said “Thank God!” in his heart when the two came in together.

Mr. Blackman was an excellent teacher for the older pupils, and had a great deal of influence over them; many a parent had been praying it might yet weigh on the Lord’s side. Who shall say that was _not_ the reason Dick’s bold effort for the Master was so successful?

“He went to please me, that night,” Dick said joyfully, some four weeks later. “Now I guess he goes to please himself. I’m _so_ glad I asked him.”

And well you may be, Dick; only remember the results are not always thus speedy and pleasant; but all the same, _never_ be ashamed of your Master.