Danger eBook

Timothy Shay Arthur
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 299 pages of information about Danger.

Danger eBook

Timothy Shay Arthur
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 299 pages of information about Danger.

Mrs. Birtwell sat for a long time without replying.  Her eyes were bent upon the floor.

“Hopeless!” she murmured, at length, in a low voice that betrayed the pain she felt.  “Surely that cannot be so.  While there is life there must be hope.  God is not dead.”

She uttered the last sentence with a strong rising inflection in her tones.

“But the drunkard seems dead to all the saving influences that God or man can bring to bear upon him,” replied Mrs. Sandford.

“No, no, no!  I will not believe it,” said Mrs. Birtwell, speaking now with great decision of manner.  “God can and does save to the uttermost all who come unto him.”

“Yes, all who come unto him.  But men like Mr. Ridley seem to have lost the power of going to God.”

“Then is it not our duty to help them to go?  A man with a broken leg cannot walk to the home where love and care await him, but his Good Samaritan neighbor who finds him by the way can help him thither.  The traveler benumbed with cold lies helpless in the road, and will perish if some merciful hand does not lift him up and bear him to a place of safety.  Even so these unhappy men who, as you say, seem to have lost the power of returning to God, can be lifted up, I am sure, and set down, as it were, in his very presence, there to feel his saving, comforting and renewing power.”

“Perhaps so.  Nothing is impossible,” said Mrs. Sandford, with but little assent in her voice.  “But who is to lift them up and where will you take them?  Let us instance Mr. Ridley for the sake of illustration.  What will you do with him?  How will you go about the work of rescue?  Tell me.”

Mrs. Birtwell had nothing to propose.  She only felt an intense yearning to save this man, and in her yearning an undefined confidence had been born.  There must be away to save even the most wretched and abandoned of human beings, if we could but find that way, and so she would not give up her hope of Mr. Ridley—­nay, her hope grew stronger every moment; and to all the suggestions of Mrs. Sanford looking to help for the daughter she supplemented something that included the father, and so pressed her views that the other became half impatient and exclaimed: 

“I will have nothing to do with the miserable wretch!”

Mrs. Birtwell went away with a heavy heart after leaving a small sum of money for Mrs. Sandford to use as her judgment might dictate, saying that she would call and see her again in a few days.

The Rev. Mr. Brantly Elliott was sitting in his pleasant study, engaged in writing, when a servant opened the door and said: 

“A gentleman wishes to see you, sir.”

“What name?” asked the clergyman.

“He did not give me his name.  I asked him, but he said it wasn’t any matter.  I think he’s been drinking, sir.”

“Ask him to send his name,” said Mr. Elliott, a slight shade of displeasure settling over his pleasant face.

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Project Gutenberg
Danger from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.