"I should call all true lovers of humanity Christians," replied Brian, "whether they are consciously followers of Christ or not."She thought a little; then with a curiously hard look in her face, she suddenly flashed round upon him with a question, much as her father was in the habit of doing when an adversary had made some broad-hearted statement which had baffled him.
"Some of you give us a little more charity than others; but what do you mean by Christianity? You ask us to believe what is incredible.WHY do you believe in the resurrection: What reason have you for thinking it true?"She expected him to go into the evidence question, to quote the number of Christ's appearances, to speak of the five hundred witnesses of whom she was weary of hearing.Her mind was proof against all this; what could be more probable than that a number of devoted followers should be the victims of some optical delusion, especially when their minds were disturbed by grief.Here was a miracle supported on one side by the testimony of five hundred and odd spectators all longing to see their late Master, and contradicted on the other side by common sense and the experience of the remainder of the human race during thousands of years! She looked full at Brian, a hard yet almost exultant expression in her eyes, which spoke more plainly than words her perfect conviction:
"You can't set your evidences against my counter-evidences! You can't logically maintain that a few uneducated men are to have more weight than all the united experience of mankind."Never would she so gladly have believed in the doctrine of immortality as now, yet with characteristic honesty and resoluteness she set herself into an attitude of rigid defense, lest through strong desire or mere bodily weariness she should drift into the acceptance of what might be, what indeed she considered to be error.But to her surprise, half to her disappointment, Brian did not even mention the evidences.She had braced herself up to withstand arguments drawn from the five hundred brothers, but the preparation was useless.
"I believe in the resurrection," said Brian, "because I cannot doubt Jesus Christ.He is the most perfectly lovable and trustable being I know, or can conceive of knowing.He said He should rise again, I believe that He did rise.He was perfectly truthful, therefore He could not mislead; He KNEW, therefore He could not be misled.""We do not consider Him to be all that you assert," said Erica.
"Nor do His followers make one inclined to think that either He or His teaching were so perfect as you try to make out.You are not so hard-hearted as some of them--"She broke off, seeing a look of pain on her companion's face."Oh, what am I saying!" she cried in a very different tone, "you who have done so much--you who were always good to us--I did not indeed mean to hurt you, it is your creed that I can't help hating, not you.You are our friend, you said so long ago.""Always," said Brian; "never doubt that.""Then you must forgive me for having wounded you," said Erica, her whole face softening."You must remember how hard it all is, and that I am so very, very miserable."He would have given his life to bring her comfort, but he was not a very great believer in words, and besides, he thought she had talked quite as long as she ought.
"I think," he said, "that, honestly acted out, the message intrusted to me ought to comfort your misery.""I can't act it out," she said.
"You will begin to try," was Brian's answer; and then, with a very full heart, he said goodbye and left his Undine sitting by the fire, with her head resting on her hands, and the words of her mother's message echoing in her ears."It is only love that can keep from bitterness; love is stronger than the world's unkindness."Presently, not daring to dwell too much on that last scene which Brian had described, she turned to his strange, unexpected reason for his belief in the resurrection, and mused over the characteristics of his ideal.Then she thought she would like to see again what her ideal man had to say about his, and she got up and searched for a small book in a limp red cover, labeled "Life of Jesus of Nazareth--Luke Raeburn." It was more than two years since she had seen it; she read it through once more.The style was vigorous, the veiled sarcasms were not unpleasant to her, she detected no unfairness in the mode of treatment, the book satisfied her, the conclusion arrived at seemed to her inevitable--Brian Osmond's ideal was not perfect.
With a sigh of utter weariness she shut the book and leaned back in her chair with a still, white, hopeless face.Presently Friskarina sprung up on her knee with a little sympathetic mew; she had been too miserable as yet to notice even her favorite cat very much, now a scarcely perceptible shade of relief came to her sadness, she stroked the soft gray head.But scarcely had she spoken to her favorite, when the cat suddenly turned away, sprung from her knee and trotted out of the room.It seemed like actual desertion, and Erica could ill bear it just then.
"What, you too, Friskie," she said to herself, "are even you glad to keep away from me?"She hid her face in her hands; desolate and miserable as she had been before, she now felt more completely alone.
In a few minutes something warm touching her feet made her look up, and with one bound Friskarina sprung into her lap, carrying in her mouth a young kitten.She purred contentedly, looking first at her child and then at her mistress, saying as plainly as if she had spoken:
"Will this comfort you?"
Erica stroked and kissed both cat and kitten, and for the first time since her trouble a feeling of warmth came to her frozen heart.
