Things are not damned. It is men who are; and that is too bad to be talked much about but when a man flings out of his foul mouth the name of Jesus Christ'--here he lowered his voice--'it's a shame--it's more, it's a crime.'
There was dead silence, then Rattray replied--'I suppose you're right enough, it is bad form; but crime is rather strong, I think.'
'Not if you consider who it is,' said Graeme with emphasis.
'Oh, come now,' broke in Beetles. 'Religion is all right, is a good thing, and I believe a necessary thing for the race, but no one takes seriously any longer the Christ myth.'
'What about your mother, Beetles?' put in Wig Martin.
Beetles consigned him to the pit and was silent, for his father was an Episcopal clergyman, and his mother a saintly woman.
'I fooled with that for some time, Beetles, but it won't do. You can't build a religion that will take the devil out of a man on a myth. That won't do the trick. I don't want to argue about it, but I am quite convinced the myth theory is not reasonable, and besides, it wont work.'
'Will the other work?' asked Rattray, with a sneer.
'Sure!' said Grame; 'I've seen it.'
'Where?' challenged Rattray. 'I haven't seen much of it.'
'Yes, you have, Rattray, you know you have,' said Wig again. But Rattray ignored him.
'I'll tell you, boys,' said Graeme. 'I want you to know, anyway, why I believe what I do.'
Then he told them the story of old man Nelson, from the old coast days, before I knew him, to the end. He told the story well. The stern fight and the victory of the life, and the self-sacrifice and the pathos of the death appealed to these men, who loved fight and could understand sacrifice.
'That's why I believe in Jesus Christ, and that's why I think it a crime to fling His name about!'
'I wish to Heaven I could say that,' said Beetles.
'Keep wishing hard enough and it will come to you,' said Graeme.
'Look here, old chap,' said Rattray; 'you're quite right about this; I'm willing to own up. Wig is correct. I know a few, at least, of that stamp, but most of those who go in for that sort of thing are not much account'
'For ten years, Rattray,' said Graeme in a downright, matter-of-fact way, 'you and I have tried this sort of thing'--tapping a bottle--'and we got out of it all there is to be got, paid well for it, too, and--faugh! you know it's not good enough, and the more you go in for it, the more you curse yourself. So I have quit this and I am going in for the other.'
'What! going in for preaching?'
'Not much--railroading--money in it--and lending a hand to fellows on the rocks.'
'I say, don't you want a centre forward?' said big Barney in his deep voice.
'Every man must play his game in his place, old chap. I'd like to see you tackle it, though, right well,' said Graeme earnestly. And so he did, in the after years, and good tackling it was. But that is another story.
'But, I say, Graeme,' persisted Beetles, 'about this business, do you mean to say you go the whole thing--Jonah, you know, and the rest of it?'
Graeme hesitated, then said--
'I haven't much of a creed, Beetles; don't really know how much Ibelieve. But,' by this time he was standing, 'I do know that good is good, and bad is bad, and good and bad are not the same. And Iknow a man's a fool to follow the one, and a wise man to follow the other, and,' lowering his voice, 'I believe God is at the back of a man who wants to get done with bad. I've tried all that folly,'
sweeping his hand over the glasses and bottles, 'and all that goes with it, and I've done with it'
'I'll go you that far,' roared big Barney, following his old captain as of yore.
'Good man,' said Graeme, striking hands with him.
'Put me down,' said little Wig cheerfully.
Then I took up the word, for there rose before me the scene in the League saloon, and I saw the beautiful face with the deep shining eyes, and I was speaking for her again. I told them of Craig and his fight for these men's lives. I told them, too, of how I had been too indolent to begin. 'But,' I said, 'I am going this far from to-night,' and I swept the bottles into the champagne tub.
'I say,' said Polly Lindsay, coming up in his old style, slow but sure, 'let's all go in, say for five years.' And so we did. We didn't sign anything, but every man shook hands with Graeme.
And as I told Craig about this a year later, when he was on his way back from his Old Land trip to join Graeme in the mountains, he threw up his head in the old way and said, 'It was well done. It must have been worth seeing. Old man Nelson's work is not done yet. Tell me again,' and he made me go over the whole scene with all the details put in.
But when I told Mrs. Mavor, after two years had gone, she only said, 'Old things are passed away, all things are become new'; but the light glowed in her eyes till I could not see their colour.
But all that, too, is another story.
