'Smiles', page 69 by Eliot H. Robinson
<< Return to Title Details & Download70
e.
"Perhaps I should apologize," began Mr. Talmadge in a low voice, the timbre of which still retained the resonance of early culture. "I came on this happy scene--or at least to the corner of the house--while you were speaking of life in the city, and I could not very well help pausing and listening.
"I know your feelings only too well, Dr. MacDonald. I was born, bred and worked in New York until my health became undermined by just such influences as you mentioned; and I was forced to run away, too, and seek the hills 'whence cometh my help.'"
"And deep in your inner consciousness you don't regret the change, do you?" asked Donald.
"No. Perhaps I am selfish--a shirker--and there are times when the old call to get back where I know that the need is greatest comes like a clarion. But for myself, the disaster--which once seemed like a curse--has turned out to be a blessing, as is so often the case. I have learned a great lesson, doctor."
"What lesson?" queried Rose.
"God's," responded the minister, quietly. "It may seem strange to you, my dear, but, although I was reared in a religious family, went through a great theological school, and was the rector of a city church for ten years, I never fully knew Him until I came here."
"Why, Mr. Talmadge!" gasped the girl in astonishment, while Donald said bluntly, "Do you really believe that you know Him, now?"
"I do. Not, of course, in all the fullness of His mysterious majesty, but as a friend whose ways are no longer hidden from my eyes."
"Frankly, I wish I might say as much," said the doctor. "I, too, was brought up in a religious household, but small good it did me, for, when I became old enough to think for myself, the glaring errors and inconsistencies in my childhood belief became so apparent that I became hopeless of ever understanding the truth which might lie within that astonishing maze. I quit going to church long ago."
"Doctors are generally regarded as an atheistic lot," smiled the minister