Why Call Them Back from Heaven

9

Glancing through the half-open study door. Nicholas Knight saw the man enter the church, furtively, almost fearfully, with his hat clutched in both his hands and held foursquare across his chest.

Knight, seated at his desk, with the little study lamp pulled low against the desk top, watched in fascination.

The man, it was quite apparent, was unused to church and unsure of himself. He moved quietly and unsteadily down the aisle and he cast about him little probing glances, as if he might fear that some unknown and awesome shape would spring out at him from the pooL of shadow.

And yet there was about him an attitude of worship, as if he might have come seeking refuge and comfort. And this, in itself, was something most unusual. For today few men came worshipfully. The} came nonchalantly or with a calm assurance that said there was nothing here they needed, that they were only paying homage by an empty gesture to a thing that had become a cultural habit and very little more.

Watching the man, Knight felt something stir deep inside himself, a surge of feeling that he had forgotten could happen to a man—a sense of reaching out, a sense of benediction, of purpose and of duty and of pastoral compassion.

Of pastoral compassion, he thought And where in a world like this was there any need of that? He had first sensed it long ago, when still in seminary, but he had not felt it since—for there had been no place for it and no need of it.

Silently, he rose from his chair and paced carefully and slowly to the door that led into the church.

The man had almost reached the front of the empty church and now he sidled from the aisle and sat down gingerly in a pew. His hat still was clutched against his breast and he sat forward, on the edge of the seat, his body stiff and straight. He stared straight ahead and the light of the candles flickering on the altar sent tiny shadows fleeing on his face.

For long minutes he sat there, unstirring. He scarcely seemed to breathe. And Knight, even from where he stood in the doorway of the study, imagined that he could feel the tension and the ache in that straight-held body.

And after those long moments of tensed sitting, the man rose to his feet and started back down the aisle again, hat still clutched tightly to his breast, marching out of the church exactly as he had entered it. There had not been, Knight was sure, at any time, a single flicker of expression in that frozen face, and the body was still as ramrod-straight, as uncompromising, as it had been before.

A man who had come inside seeking something and had not found it and now was leaving, knowing now, perhaps, that he would never find it.

Knight stepped out of the study and moved quietly toward the entrance. But the man, he saw, would reach the door, and be out, before he could intercept him.

He spoke softly: "My friend."

The man jerked around, fear etched upon his face.

"My friend," said Knight, "is there something I can do for you?"

The man mumbled, but he did not move. Knight moved closer to him.

"You need help," said Knight. "I am here to help you."

"I don't know," said the man. "I just saw the open door and came in."

"That door is never closed."

"I thought," said the man. "I hoped…"

His words ran out and he stood dumb and stupid.

"All of us must hope," said Knight. "All of us have faith."

"I guess that's it," said the man. "I haven't faith. How does a man get faith? What is there for a man to have some faith in?"

"An everlasting life," Knight told him. "We must have faith in that. And in much else, besides."

The man laughed—a low, vicious, brutal laugh. "But we have that already. We have everlasting life. And we do not need the faith."

"Not everlasting life," said Knight. "Just continued life. Beyond that continued life there is another life. a different kind of life, a better life."

The man raised his head and his eyes grew hard, like two small points of fire.

"You believe that, Shepherd? You are the shepherd, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am the shepherd. And yes, I do believe it."

"Then what sense does all this make-this continuation? Wouldn't it be better…"

Knight shook his head. 'I don't know," he said. "I can't pretend to know. But I can't bring myself to question God's purpose in allowing it."

"But if He allows it, why?"

"Perhaps a longer life to prepare ourselves the better when our times does come to die."

"They talk," said the man, "of life forever, of immortality, of no need of dying. Then what's the use of God? We won't need the other life, for well already have it."

"Yes," said Knight, "perhaps we will. But then we'll cheat ourselves. And the immortality that they talk about may not be something that we want. We may grow tired of it."

"And you, Shepherd? What of you?"

"What of me? I don't understand."

"Which of these other lives for you? Are you freezer-bound?"

"Why, I…"

"1 see," the other said. "Good day, Shepherd, and many thanks for trying."