The Face of Heaven Read Online Free Page A

tell Sheriff Jackson.”
    “Why is it time?” She recognized the voice of one of the other ministers, Abraham Yoder, whose carriage she had watched pull into their yard. “What’s the hurry? We’ve scarcely begun to discuss this issue. Why is there a fire in your britches, Samuel?”
    “I don’t want the sheriff to think we’ve been keeping something like this from him. After all, these men are breaking the law—they belong to the owners of a plantation in Virginia. And they’re breaking the Word of God as well—they are to be good slaves and carry out their duties in obedience to their masters. Not to engage in this act of rebellion.”
    “So you would like to be a slave, Samuel?” asked Pastor Yoder.
    “No, I should not like to be a slave. But if I were a slave, I would carry out my duties with reverence and respect to my God and those he had placed in authority over me.”
    “If you feel that way perhaps you could trade places with them.”
    “ Vas ?”
    “Sure. You go to the sheriff and tell him that when the slave hunters show up from Virginia you are substituting yourself for them. They wish to be free and that will secure their freedom. Meanwhile you can show us what a good slave looks like in the eyes of God.”
    “Do not talk such nonsense, Abraham,” Lyndel heard Samuel fume. “God did not make me a slave. He made me Amish.”
    “He made you a man.” Lyndel sat up. It was Nathaniel’s voice, calm and clear. “He made these others men as well. Human beings fashionedin his image. It is for freedom Christ has set us free. How can you place them back in the yoke of slavery, Pastor Eby?”
    “Paul is talking about spiritual freedom,” came a new voice that Lyndel recognized as Solomon Miller’s. “There is no talk in any of his letters about striving for physical freedom for slaves. It’s their hearts that are to be free in Christ. Not their bodies.”
    “No talk in any of his letters?” Lyndel detected a slight rise in Nathaniel’s voice. “So when was it you last read Philemon, Pastor?”
    “Gently, Mr. King,” interjected Lyndel’s father.
    “I have read Philemon,” retorted Solomon Miller. “I read the Bible through twice every year.”
    “ Gut. Then you will recall that Paul sent the slave back to Philemon a brother in Christ. And by so doing sent back a man who was his equal.”
    There was a moment of silence. Then Samuel Eby spoke up again. “Still, Paul sent him back a slave.”
    “No. That is precisely what Paul did not do. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—we all agree on that, yes?” Nathaniel paged through his Bible, which he had set on the table during the discussion. Reaching his place, he continued, “Paul plainly said, Receive him back not now as a slave but above a slave, a brother beloved specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? If thou countest me a partner, receive him as myself.
    “Paul said no to slavery. He said it here, he said it when he declared a slave should try to win his freedom, and he said it when he told us there was neither slave nor free but all of us are one in Christ. How can we say we live the gospel of our Lord Jesus and keep men and women in bondage? How can we say we follow the Word of the living God and deny those made in his image the liberty to live as we here in Elizabethtown have the liberty to live? Did our forefathers not come to America from Europe so that they could have this liberty? Yet we will not give that same freedom to men like us sleeping in the room upstairs.”
    His voice was still not that loud but his words struck her heart with what seemed to her the very fervor of God. How was it possible that all these thoughts had been locked away inside him and she had neverknown about it? But how could she know? Nathaniel was just her brother’s friend, it was all he had ever been, never anyone special to her or she to him. Yet now all sorts of feelings stormed through her,