The inquiring spirit
will not be controlled;
He would make certain all, and all
behold.
--Sprague.
At the age of twenty-one
Edwin had formed one bad habit. Having had nobody to tell him
that the use of tobacco was harmful to his body and seeing it
used as commonly as a food by nearly all, regardless of age or
sex, he had learned both to smoke and to chew. By the
permission of the farmers for whom he had worked, he had
raised a few tobacco-plants for himself, and the leaves of
these plants, when carefully dried, were what he used as
smoking-tobacco, but the cigars and chewing-tobacco he
purchased at the store.
But although Edwin had
never heard that tobacco was in any way unfit for the use of
man, something within him seemed to suggest that there were
some things about its use that were filthy and unclean. One
thing that he abhorred was the chewing of tobacco in the
house, because he pitied the women who were forced to look
after and clean the spittoons. When in the house in the
evening or on Sunday he considered smoking his pipe or cigars
more appropriate, and he had supplied himself with special
mouth-pieces for his cigars and convenient cases in which to
carry them in his pockets. He did his chewing when at his work
in the field. He also felt that it was placing his employer's
property in too much danger to smoke when about his work in
the barn, and this he always avoided. Thus, the same principle
that had governed his earlier years was still his ruling
trait.
Although for so many
months Edwin had been seeking carefully and often with tears
for some clue to the mystery connected with the hereafter, he
had as yet found no one who could inform him on the subject;
for those whom he considered the best people living were as
uncertain concerning the future reward as the most vile. But
from information gleaned he felt that there must be a place
somewhere beyond the grave where the good and the bad would
live again. When reasoning about the matter, he would say,
"Now, if I am on the road to heaven, how am I to know if I get
off that road and take a branch that will land me in hell?"
The thought of his own
good behavior and abhorrence of all that he considered evil
did not suggest to his mind that for this reason he might be
the more entitled to enter the better place, for all his
actions had been prompted by a sense of justice and his duty
toward his fellow men.
Having become acquainted
with a young married couple named Frank and Amanda Kauffman,
Edwin went often to their home to pour out his troubles and
perplexities. But although these people tried hard to help
him, their efforts often plunged him into greater doubts and
confusion. Whenever he went to them or to any one else with
his question, it seemed that the answer was still the same:
"No one can know about these things. We must all wait and
see." Still he was not discouraged. Instead he was more than
ever determined to keep on trying until he did find out.
Had Edwin been able to
reason about the drunkard, the thief, or the liar, as not
being fit for the good place, it might have been different,
but to him the evils with which they were bound were a matter
of choice. He had never heard the story of Adam and Eve, and
so did not know that their first sin had severed not only them
but also the entire human race from God's family (Rom. 5:19).
Had he known that it is impossible for any one to know God or
to enter the better world without first realizing that he is
already condemned and on the road to destruction, and that the
only way to be transferred to the highway leading to heaven is
to be forgiven and adopted back into the family of God as a
redeemed child, it would not have been so hard for him to
understand upon which road he was traveling.
It was springtime, and as
the days grew warm and bright, the tiny grass-blades in the
meadowlands made their appearance. Then it was that the farmer
for whom Edwin was working realized that it was time to gather
the stones that were scattered here and there throughout the
meadow into piles that they might be hauled away before they
became lost in the soft, velvety carpet of green; for should
they be left where they were, later on the knives of the
mowing-machine and the teeth of the hay-rake would be badly
damaged and perhaps broken. Edwin was told, therefore, that
his work for a time would be to gather all the stones, both
large and small, into heaps in systematic order so that they
could be easily hauled away by the team in the large
farm-wagon.
As The field was large and
level, it was a pleasant place to work, and Edwin, having
plenty of time to think, confined his thoughts principally to
the things that were uppermost in his mind. He reasoned thus:
"Now, if a man must walk
every step of the way through life in uncertainty and doubt as
to what the end will be, and has such a short time to stay in
this world how miserable THe remainder of my life will be! If
only I could do something whereby I could know surely that I
would at the last have my desire, I would be so glad! Still,"
he reasoned on, "there must be some way to know these things,
and I will not stop trying to find out just what it is. It's
altogether unreasonable to believe that we can not know until
after we die about these things. God surely has some way to
let us understand; for if he didn't what would there be to
hinder every person on earth from going to hell? Surely God
wants some of the people to go to the other place."
His belief that some were
surely on their way to heaven was firm, and he felt that those
few must not be in doubt as to where they were going, and that
God must in some way let them know how to live in order to
keep on the right road, and also that their lives must be
peaceful and happy. But he felt that some great change would
have to take place in one's life before this assurance could
come.
Thus, God again, when all
men failed him, became Edwin's teacher, for these thoughts
were in accordance with the Bible, and in wisdom and love his
heavenly Father helped him to comprehend the very principles
of a true Christian life. The truths he thus learned were so
deeply stamped upon his mind with the divine seal that they
could never be erased. Still within his heart there was
another question that had not been answered: "How can I get
this assurance within my own heart?" Nothing could ever bring
satisfaction until he knew without a doubt that he was going
aright, and nothing but facts would ever dispel his doubts.
"God," he reasoned, "is
the only one who knows, and the only way for me to understand
is for God to let me know just what he thinks about me. God
will not deal with me according to what the people may think
of me, or by what they may say. Some say that I am all right
now; but if I were all right, I should be the first to know
it, and I do not feel that I am fit now for heaven if I should
die."
The knowledge that he had
always tried to do the best that he could and that he had
endeavored to treat every creature living as fairly as he knew
how was not enough to satisfy him, and he said: "There is
something still of which I have never heard or dreamed. If
only I could find out what it is or by what means I could get
it, how glad I should be! Can it be that I must die before I
know what it is?"
"Shall not God search this
out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart" (Psa. 44:21).
