--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jean Blake collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 4 published: 1921-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Jean Blake, "God’s Way Out," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 4 (February 1921): 309–314.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2404unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2404unse start_page: 309 end_page: 314 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2404unse publication_year: 1921 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # God’s Way Out God's Way Out By Jean Blake Maisie set on a low stool before the fire, her chin sunk in her hands, her wide eyes staring deep in the glowing peat. It was not often she sat thus, for she was foster mother to her five motherless brothers and sisters, and her time was always fully occupied with them and the housework, and the endless drudgery of their small croft. But today the burden seemed too heavy for her young shoulders, and she was in the throes of depression. You see she was only eighteen, and youth takes its cares very seriously. There was a heap of mending by her side, but she heeded it not. Her father was away at a cattle show, the bairns, except Rabbie, were at school, and that young man, the baby, was fast asleep in the cradle at the window. There was a step and a cheery hail from without, whereupon the lethargy slipped from Maisie, like a cast-off garment, and she hastily snatched up a handful of stockings. "Good mornin' to you, Maisie," said big Alec Urquhart, the smith, as he entered the kitchen without ceremony. "How's all wi' you?" "Good-mornin', we are all fine," said she, with recovered . composure. "Take a seat, though there's no much room to sit down. I was wanting to get these stockings done before I started reddin' up. Are ye no away at the show today-" "No, I wasna carin' for going," he said, absently, "can ye no put that stuff away for a minute, Maisie, and listen to me?" Maisie meant to reply that she was too busy, but somehow the words stuck in her throat, and the work slipped from her impotent fingers. The gravity of his face startled her. "Is anything wrong, Alec?" she asked, clearing her throat. "It a' depends!" he said, enigmatically. Maisie's eyes followed him as he paced restlessly up and down. There was a twinkle in their gray depths. — "May the coo's sick or your mother?" she hazarded at last. Their eyes met, and by mutual consent they laughed heartily. — "Ye ken fine it's no ma mither or the coo either, ye hizzy !" exclaimed Alec, dropping into the Scots in his excitement. S10 IMPROVEMENT ERA He went over and placed his big hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "It's you, just you, Maisie ! And ye ken it as weel's me," he said, tenderly. "But I'm no sick. I never felt better in my life, Alec." And indeed she looked far from ill, with that sweet, healthy color on her rounded cheeks, the morning sunshine in her bright hair, and something new and wonderful in her bonny eyes. "I'm very well," she repeated, as he did not speak. "But / am sick," he said, quickly, "sick with love and longing for you, my bonny wee lassie. Dae ye no ken I love ye more than all the warld beside." "Ah, my dear," she said, half laughing, "what a long time you have taken to tell me. I've loved ye since we were bairns ihegether, and ye have told me it in a thousand ways these many years. But if AJec's tongue had been slow, his actions now were not so, and he found words, as if by magic, to tell her all his love, sweet Scottish love, words not found in any other language. Maisie didn't say much, but her lips spoke effectually none the less, and so did her sparkling eyes. They came to earth when the "kail pat" boiled over and nearly put out the fire. Then Alec bethought himself. "Maisie, would ye like to go to Zion?" he asked, as one who was sure of his answer. "Oh, Alec," she said, swiftly, "ye ken well it has been the dream of my life to go, ever since I was baptized. It's the spirit of gathering and will not be denied." "I did know it," he said joyously, "and it makes me very happy to be the one to give ye the desire of your life." "What do you mean, Alec?" she asked, falling suddenly quiet. "Just this, dearie: Ye mind auld Davie Johnston that I helped stack peat for once or twice?" "Mair than that, Alec. Ye did everything for the puir old soul." "Ay, ye ken him. Well, you mind he died a while back and there was nothing heard about sillar, though they said he had a lot. When they were pulling down his auld hoose, just recently, they came across a stocking foot with two hundred pounds worth of gold and bank notes in it, and a will duly signed and witnessed, leaving it a' to me." "It sounds like a fairy story," she whispered. "It was just God!" he replied, softly. "He kent how harassed and driven ye were and how much we wanted one another. Weel, he kens your heart's desire, my wee love, and now he's GOD'S WAY OUT 311 opened up the way for you, for us both. Ye'll come, darling?" It was not so much a question as a statement. Wee Rabbie in the cradle stirred, and she touched the rocker with her foot, mechanically, staring unseeingly out of the window. — "But father and the bairns!" I promised ma mither " her voice trailed off into silence, and her hands clenched painfully. "Ye have your life to live, as they have theirs, and God knows ye've worked hard for them all the time your mother was sick, and after she died. Surely you should get your chance, now." "I dinna ken, Alec," she said. "I canna think just now; someway, ye must give me time, love." He stopped on the verge of hasty words, and took her in his arms. "Till tomorrow, then," he said, quietly; "but ye must tell me then. I was planning to go at the end of the month, or at the beginning of the new year." "So soon?" she said, trembling, then, "will ye manage to come to the meeting tonight?" "No, I canna come, dear. I've to go and see the auld shepherd at Mowbray aboot his collie." For Alec was "vet" as well as smith of the village. "I'll have to go now; and mind, when you're coming to your decision, that there'll never be another woman for me. It's just God's way out." Then he went off quickly along the road. He did not turn to wave. That was not his nature, but strode on with big purposeful steps. Scarcely had he disappeared, when the children were upon her, clamoring for their dinner. Bonny bairns they were with faces and hands tanned deeply, and hair that was lint white against their brown faces. "Alec Unquhart was here, was here, was here!" chanted Tam, in an aggravating sing-song. "What do you know about it?" demanded Maisie, as she served big plates of broth to her hungry brood. "Ken fine!" said Tam, a young "limb," with a merry, freckled face. "Your face is as red's the fire and your eyes a' shiney. Besides" (as an afterthought) "we met him on the road. He's a grand lad yon," he continued with a patriarchal air that made the others giggle delightedly. "He'll mak' a fine brother-in-law." "Eat quicker and talk less, Tam," said Maisie briefly, her cheeks aflame. Dinner past and the children back to afternoon school, there was yet a hundred and one things to do. She washed and dressed Rabbie for the second time that day, gave the chickens 312 IMPROVEMENT ERA and pigs their meat and last, but not least, did a big baking of scones and oatcakes. In the evening they went to a cottage meeting at a neighboring brother's, a meeting which opened by singing, "O ye mountains high," and closed with "High on the mountain top." When Maisie came away, she felt that it really was her destiny to leave Scotland with Alec, that it was, indeed, "God's way out." She remained standing at the door long after the others had gone in and were off to bed. The cottage stood at the edge of a bog or moss, whence came the peat for the fire. A dreary, treeless expanse, it stretched for miles around with no highland, save a range of low hills in the distance. The "craft" or smallholding in the north of Scotland is cultivated mainly by the womenfolk, yielding, it would seem, grudgingly, a modicum of "tatties" and corn, and hay for the cow, in return for constant, wearisome toil. Yet it is a life that rears up fine, hardy men and women, who say little, work hard, and live thriftily, who have learned in the school of bitter experience to live on wholesome, if somewhat unappetising, food, to be "contented wi' little and cantil wi' mair." Maisie Mackenzie and her father would have been more than content with their lot, had they not heard and accepted the gospel. For the owner of a "craft," however small, has a standing in the community, and is one to be envied. But now their bare horizon had widened till it embraced the tree-crowned mountains and fertile valleys of Zion, where the spires of God's temples reared themselves on high and they could never more be content even in the beloved homeland. So you see why Maisie's eyes were full of tears, this cold, starlit night. Here was her dream within her grasp, her heart's desire had been granted her, and yet —and yet Seemed the time slipped back three years, and she knelt again in speechless pain by the bedside of her dying mother. Her father sat in stony grief by the fire, and the wee things crouched around in various attitudes of childish despair. She seemed to hear her mother's weak tones again. How they rang in her ears! "Maisie, dear, you are the oldest, and now that I must leave you, I want you to take my place. Dinna leave them, or your dear father. See, I charge ye to mind them for me till we meet again." — "Oh, mither, mither, I will I will!" she had cried; and soon after, the brave woman, who had fought so long against her failing strength, had died in the arms of her first and only sweetheart, died happily by reason of Maisie's promise. GOD'S WAY OUT 313 "It wasna fair to exact it," moaned the girl to herself, in fierce rebellion. "I was too young to understand what it meant. An' I love him so much!" Suddenly a frenzied clucking from the old barn, where one of the hens was locked up with a brood, roused her from her own miserable thoughts, and she hastened forward to find out the trouble. Her young face was set in hard, bitter lines, for the determination to accept Alec had been made, and she had put the past behind her, so she told herself. In the barn, biddy, an old hen and a favorite of Maisie's, was tearing up and down on the verge of frenzy. In the darkness, one little chick had strayed from her wing and had been carried off by a hungry rat. With a lighted candle Maisie found their hole, and at the entrance a little fluffy, yellow ball, still warm, but dead and torn. Poor old Biddy behaved as if it were her only chick, and clucked on distractedly. It came to Maisie that Biddy was only a foster mother, too, yet she would have given her life for the wee chick, and would not be comforted now. Her mother's face rose before her, in an agony of pleading, like a vision. The bairns were just like the chickens. Without a mother's care they would stray from the nest and be caught by the cruel rats of vice and wickedness. Two paths lay before her: one a sunny, flower-strewn road, the other a stony, uphill way, but she knew now which path she chose. And even as she visualized them they seemed to become one, a path of glory, that led upwards to mother, and heaven, and God! Maisie reentered the house with the face of one who had seen a vision. When Alec came next morning she met him with a face that tried to seem entirely happy, but failed rather dismally. "I canna do it, Alec," she said, with quivering lips. "I canna leave father and the bairns." "I thought you said you loved me, Maisie. Have I no claim?" he asked rather sternly. "Theirs is the stronger one, dear. I do love you, ye ken I do; next to God you come, but oh, my dear, I promised ma mither I would never leave them, and if I did I would never know a minute's peace or happiness. I canna ask ye to wait for me, Alec, so I'll just need to bid you good-bye. But only God kens how hard it is." "But I will wait, darling," he said, strongly. "I'll wait till ye are ready. Ye'll no come with me now, but I'll work like a navvy till I can get ye all out, an' with God's help it'll no be long before I'm back for ye, my old sweetheart." 314 IMPROVEMENT ERA She went to his arms like a bird to its nest, and they were silent for a space, their hearts too full for words. Alec said again, softly, "And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand years." Glasgow, Scotland The Thinker By Ezra J. Poulsen Behold the thinker! He is the trail blazer of progress, and happy millions enjoy opportunities that were first but the concepts of his brain. Out of chaos and void he creates patterns of excellent workmanship, by which the most lasting structures of human achievement are builded. Always he is in the vanguard, seeing the first visions, seizing the first opportunities, and making the first tests. Not in the parlor of opulence and ease, but in the sweat-shop you will find the thinker; often misunderstood, neglected, even abused; but courageous and hopeful, with an undying faith in the possibilities of the future. No mental cloud becomes so dense; no passion, so intense as to obscure his vision of a more perfect day. What a lesson, what a source of inspiration, do we find in the lives of the world's great thinkers! Socrates, Confucius, Sir Isaac Newton, Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Edison; and may we mention him who towers above them all, —Jesus, the Christ? There is a host of others, and the total result of their labor is but a revelation to us of our own possibilities. They have demonstrated that man can think, must think, if he would manifest the divinity that is in him. Only by so doing can he become as God, whose masterful intellect designed the universe, with all its inconceivable glories; and whose first desire is to bring about the eternal happiness of his multitude of children. m Nephi, Utah