“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.”
Farmer Vance and his wife were taking tea at Mr. Sherman’s. Mrs. Vance and Mrs. Sherman were old schoolmates, and always exchanged yearly visits.
The two gentlemen had talked over the coming election, specie payment, business prospects, and came finally to the Centennial.
Did Mr. Vance think of going? Well, he didn’t know; should like to well enough. Fact was, he’d been unfortunate about his help all summer,—had them off and on; couldn’t think of going unless he found some reliable man to look after things. By the way, did Mr. Sherman know of anybody who wanted to hire out for the rest of the season?
Yes; Mr. Sherman was sure he knew of just the man, or at least a man who needed just such a place. He had been employing him for a few weeks, and could vouch for his willingness and ability. It was Dan Harte, living in that little old house on the corner—
“Dan Harte!” echoed Mr. Vance, laying down his knife and fork.
“Yes, Dan Harte,” repeated Mr. Sherman, reaching for another biscuit; “and a better gardener I wouldn’t ask for.”
“How many sprees has he had in the time?”
“Not one.”
“You’re joking now. Why, I know Dan. He worked for me, years ago. As you say, he was willing and competent, but he would have his times. He was soaked through and through with whiskey then, and he has been going down hill ever since.” “But you see, he has turned square around and is going up now.”
“Oh, sho! he’s done that time and again. You remember the temperance flurry we had three years ago? I helped the thing along then, mostly on account of such fellows as Dan. Don’t believe in so much fuss myself, although I don’t make a practice of using the stuff. But, as I was saying, Dan signed the pledge. Wasn’t the least bit of use; he was dead drunk in less than a week. I wouldn’t give that,”—snapping his fingers,—“for all his promises and pledges.”
“I confess I should have little faith myself were it not that now he has an Endorser whose word never fails,” rejoined Mr. Sherman, quietly.
Mr. Vance looked his surprise, and politely waited for his host to proceed.
“I do not say he will not fall again,” resumed Mr. Sherman, “but I do say that so long as he keeps his trust where it is now, on the Divine arm, he will stand firm. Dr. Helps called my attention to his case first. He said he believed the man had become a Christian, and he was anxious to get him employment out of doors, away from those low groggeries around the mills. I could quite easily create a supply for the evident demand, and am not sorry I did. One can’t do a better thing than to extend a helping hand to a fallen brother.”
“Oh, of course, of course; but my word for it, he’ll give in to his appetite again, sooner or later. It’s in the nature of things. I haven’t your faith in this church business. Haven’t been inside one myself for twenty years, to say the least; never brought up my boy to, either. Folks all prophesied he’d go to destruction, but I ain’t ashamed to stand him alongside of Carter’s boy, to-day.”
Mr. Sherman lifted his eyebrows slightly.
What but the very church influences the father despised had checked the boy in his downward career and led him up to better things?
“Dick is very steady at church,” he remarked. “Yes, oh, yes! he and his mother have taken to it of late. I let them have their own way; that’s my creed—every man as he thinks—liberal, you see. Freedom is what our forefathers came over here for.”
“Freedom to worship God,” amended Mr. Sherman, quietly. “I believe in that liberality. If a man will truly worship God after the dictates of an enlightened conscience, I won’t quarrel about his creed. But I want him to let the true light shine on his conscience, not merely the flickering flame of reason or science.”
“Can’t all see alike; don’t believe in any of it myself,” rejoined Mr. Vance, pushing back from the table. “Come, let’s have a look at Dan. If I thought it would last long enough to pay, I’d really like to hire the fellow.”
Some six weeks later Mr. Sherman met the farmer on the street, and stopped to inquire after his new workman.
“It beats all!” said Mr. Vance. “The man’s in earnest this time, and no mistake. Does seem as if he’d hit the right tack at last, and I can’t help believing he’s going to hold out, in spite of myself. Anyhow, wife and I are going to start for the Centennial next week, leaving Dan monarch of all he surveys. Now, I’d like to ask if you really pretend it’s his religion makes all the difference? for he is different from what he’s ever been before; there’s no denying that.”
“I do most sincerely believe it is wholly by faith in a helping Saviour that man is to-day clothed and in his right mind,” rejoined Mr. Sherman, earnestly.
“Well, I never saw anything just like it,” said Mr. Vance, preparing to move on. “It astonishes me every time I look at him. I may come to church myself some day just to inquire into the thing. Be some staring, wouldn’t there? Plenty of room I suppose?”
“Room and a welcome and a blessing, I trust, for ‘whosoever will,’” said Mr. Sherman shaking his friend’s hand heartily. “Come, and get on the ‘right tack,’ yourself.” “Well, look out for me next Sunday, then. I’ve more than half made up my mind there’s something in it, after all. Nobody can deny it has worked a wonderful change in Dan Harte,” and Mr. Vance walked hastily away.
II.
TELLING THE TIDINGS.
“And we declare unto you glad tidings.”
There was to be a Sabbath School concert, quite an elaborate one, and both girls and boys were interested to make it a success.
“What do you mean by ‘success’?” asked Miss Marvin of her class who were eagerly discussing the parts assigned them.
“Oh! get lots of people here and have ’em say it’s grand—tip-top,” said Varney Lowe.
“To go ahead of all the other churches,” said Bell Forbush.
“Not to have one single failure,” added Nettie Rand.
Miss Marvin shook her head smilingly.
“Real success means more than that,” she said. “You are going to tell once more the ‘old, old story.’ There will be people here not so familiar with it as you and I may be. Which will you aim to have them remember,—the manner or the matter?”
The girls looked doubtfully at each other, but the closing exercises prevented further remark. The class, however, remained after school to decide when and where to meet for rehearsals.
“You must all come to my home every other night,” said Bell decidedly.
“I’m afraid—perhaps—I thought Miss Marvin didn’t approve,” suggested Sue.
“Indeed I do; you cannot take too much pains to speak clearly and correctly. Shall I explain what I did mean? Suppose you make a feast for your friends, and they pronounce it the best they ever ate. At the same time, you find a poor man starving close by your door. You may give him never so little, but you feed him tenderly, and save his life. Which will give you the most satisfaction,—the thought of that, or the praises of your friends?”
“That, of course,” said Varney Lowe. “It’s so splendid to save anybody’s life. Heroes always do.”
“Well, you are preparing for your friends a feast of good things from God’s storehouse of truth. You cannot serve it too royally or arrange it too attractively; but remember, there will be souls here, starving, absolutely dying,—although they may not believe it themselves,—for the bread of life. Would it not be the truest success to feed one such soul with the crumb you are each to bring?”
“Nobody ever notices what we say,” interrupted Bell, rather flippantly.
“There are two things I wish you would do this week,” continued Miss Marvin, without noticing the interruption; “one is, to invite your parents to come——”
“I most think father will, this time,” put in Dick, his face all aglow.
Mr. Vance had been to church for several Sabbaths.
“Of course we shall ask them, we always do,” said Nettie Rand. “And will you also ask your Heavenly Father to be here and help you to speak the words so plainly and earnestly as to make them stepping-stones by which somebody shall get nearer to Himself,—somebody perhaps, who has not even started heavenward?”
Will Carter shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. There was only one faint “Yes’m.”
“Can you tell me,” said Miss Marvin pleasantly, “why this is more strange or difficult to do than the other? Remember, if we really want that best kind of success, and ask God for it, we shall surely have it.”
Maybee and her dearest girl-friend, Nanny Carter, stood close by waiting, as usual, for Sue. Nanny was busily talking:—
“You haven’t seen my new bronze boots, an’ there’s my beautiful brown an’ gold stockings; won’t they look el-egant up there on the platform? and aren’t you glad we’re all to dress in white? Shall you wear a brown sash? it’s so fashionable, and which do you think’ll look best for me, pink or red flowers?”
“I don’t know,” said Maybee absently. “But isn’t it queer—about the stepping-stones, and helping folks? Don’t you wish we could?”
“Could what?” asked Nanny, who hadn’t heard a single word.
“Why, our verses,—make ’em stones, you know, to help folks along. Just s’pose, now, everybody’s verse was a really, truly stone, how thick they’d be, and p’raps lots more folks would go to heaven. I mean to ask Him.”
“Ask—who—what? You’re dreadfully poky to-day. I shall go and walk with Will,” said Nanny; and for once Maybee did not coax her back, she was so busy thinking.
She kept thinking, too, all the week. Never did she learn a piece so thoroughly, or take more pains to recite it loud and distinctly.
“It can’t help anybody ’thout they can hear it, course,” she said when Sue praised her. “An’ please don’t put on my bib-collar with the crinkly lace be-cause I can’t help thinking ’bout it—it’s so lov-er-ly, you know; an’ I want to think ’bout the folks who don’t love God. I’ve asked Him to make my verses help ’em. Have you?”
“Oh, dear, no! I forget all about it only when Miss Marvin is talking,” said Sue sorrowfully.
“I s’pose that’s why there isn’t more stepping-stones to help folks up to heaven,—’cause other folks forget, don’t you? But you might ask Him now before we go, you know.”
So they knelt down together, and two earnest little prayers went up into God’s great, loving ear.
Even talkative Nanny felt the influence of Maybee’s quiet, happy face, as the classes took their respective seats, and listened attentively while the superintendent read a chapter and the pastor prayed. Then the school sang the hymn beginning,—
“Our joyful notes we gladly raise,
To Him whose name we love.”
After which the superintendent announced the subject of the concert by reading the following anecdote.
III.
JESUS’ NAME.
“And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”
“NONE OTHER NAME.
“FROM THE GERMAN, BY H. H. H.
“A blind man sat before the door of his hut and read in his Bible. He did not read with his eyes, but with his fingers. With his fingers? Exactly so. Blind people have an unusually keen sense of feeling, so that books have been printed for these unfortunate ones with letters which stand out from the page. In an incredibly short space of time they learn the different forms of the letters so thoroughly that as their fingers swiftly follow the lines, their mouths pronounce syllables, words, and sentences. Of course this requires much toil and much patience.
“My reader will now believe what I said, that the blind man who sat before his hut was reading his Bible. Many people, old and young, stood near and listened to him with amazement. A gentleman who was passing was attracted by curiosity and reached the place just as the blind man who was reading in Acts iv., had apparently lost his place. While he was searching the lines with his fingers he repeated several times the words, ‘None other name—none other name—none other name!’
“Several of the bystanders laughed at the bewilderment of the blind man, but the strange gentleman, sunk in deep thought, left the place at once. For several weeks the grace of God had been working in the mind of this man, and had awakened in him the consciousness that he was a sinner. In vain had he tried one way after another to bring peace and rest to his heart. All his religious work, his good resolutions, his altered life,—nothing had availed to free his conscience from so unendurable a burden and to make his heart truly happy. “In this frame of mind he had drawn near to the blind man, and like the sound of solemn music these words had struck upon his ear, ‘None other name!’ And as he reached his home and sat down to rest, the words rang still in his soul like the sound of distant bells, ‘None other name—none other name!’ The longer he meditated upon these wonderful words, the brighter glimmered the light of grace in his heart, hitherto so unquiet, so that at last he cried out in wonder and delight, ‘Now I understand it, now I see it! I have sought my salvation in my own works, in my prayers, in my own improvement. Now I see my error clearly. Only Jesus can save and bless. Henceforth I will look to Him. Beside Him there is no way of life,’ ‘for there is none other name—none other name—none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved!’”
The moment the superintendent paused the school began singing,—
“There is no name so sweet on earth,
No name so sweet in heaven,—
The name, before his wondrous birth,
To Christ, the Saviour, given.
We love to sing around our King,
And hail him blessed Jesus;
For there’s no word ear ever heard,
So dear, so sweet as Jesus.”
And then Maybee, slowly, earnestly, and so clearly not a word was lost, repeated the first verse of the hymn,—
“I love to hear the story
Which angel voices tell,
How once the King of glory
Came down on earth to dwell.
I am both weak and sinful,
But this I surely know,—
The Lord came down to save me
Because He loved me so.”
Like a low, sweet echo, the whole class of little girls began singing,—
“Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but He is strong.”
Then Maybee went on,—
“I’m glad my blessed Saviour
Was once a child like me,
To show how pure and holy
His little ones might be;
And if I try to follow
His footsteps here below,
He never will forget me
Because He loved me so.”
And the class sang again,—
“Jesus loves me, He will stay
Close besides me all the way,
If I love Him, when I die
He will take me home on high.”
Maybee:—
“To sing His love and mercy
Our sweetest songs we’ll raise,
And though we cannot see Him
We know He hears our praise;
For He has kindly promised
That we shall surely go
To sing among His angels
Because He loves me so.”
Class, singing:—
“Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide,
He will wash away our sin,
Let His little child come in.”
And as the last note died away, the choir took up the sweet refrain and softly chanted,
“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.” Mr. Vance, who had listened indifferently to the prayer and reading, leaned eagerly forward as Maybee’s clear, earnest tones fell on his ear; but when the class took their seats, and Dick looked around inquiringly, his father’s head was bowed on the front of the pew. Asleep, was he? Dick thought so, with a keen pang of disappointment.
Recitation followed recitation. At the last came Sue Sherman, trembling a little, for Sue was very timid, but with a strong hope in her heart that God would remember her prayer.
IV.
THE INVITATION.
[RECITED BY SUE SHERMAN.]
“But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God and an everlasting king.”
I have a Friend, a precious Friend, unchanging, wise, and true,
The chief among ten thousand. Oh, that you knew Him too!
When all the woes that wait on me relax each feeble limb,
I know who waits to welcome me. Have you a friend like Him?
He comforts me, He strengthens me. How can I then repine?
He loveth me. This faithful Friend in life and death is mine!
I have a Father, true and fond. He cares for all my needs;
His patience bore my faithless ways, my mad and foolish deeds.
To me He sends sweet messages, He waiteth but to bless.
Have you a father like to mine in such deep tenderness?
For me a kingdom doth He keep, for me a crown is won.
I was a rebel once: He calls the rebel child His son.
I have a proved, unerring Guide, whose love I often grieve;
He brings me golden promises my heart can scarce receive;
He leadeth me, and hope and cheer doth for my path provide
For dreary nights and days of drought. Have you so sure a guide?
Quench not the faintest whisper that the heavenly dove may bring:
He seeks with holy love to lure the wanderer ’neath His wing.
I have a home,—a home so bright its beauties none can know;
Its sapphire pavement and such palms none ever saw below;
Its golden streets resound with joy; its pearly gates with praise;
A temple standeth in the midst no human hands could raise;
And there unfailing fountains flow, and pleasures never end.
Who makes that home so glorious? It is my loving Friend.
My Friend, my Father, and my Guide, and this our radiant home
Are offered you. Turn not away! To-day I pray you “Come.”
My Father yearns to welcome you His heart, His house to share;
My Friend is yours, my home is yours, my Guide will lead you there.
Behold One altogether fair, the faithful and the true!
He pleadeth with you for your love; He gave His life for you.
Oh, leave the worthless things you seek! they perish in a day.
Serve now the true and living God, from idols turn away.
Watch for the Lord, who comes to reign; enter the open door;
Give Him thine heart, thy broken heart: thou’lt ask it back no more.
Trust Him for grace and strength and love, and all your troubles end.
Oh, come to Jesus! and behold in Him a loving Friend.
As the school began the closing hymn, Mr. Vance took his hat and slipped quietly out. All the evening Maybee’s words had been ringing in his ear,—
“The Lord came down to save me
Because He loved me so.”
And now, as he walked slowly down the street, he found himself repeating, “None other name, none other name.” Back and forth, past the farm-house gate, he paced; then striding hastily through the garden and orchard, he flung himself on the grass, under a clump of maples.
“My Friend, my Father, and my Guide, and this our radiant home
Are offered you. Turn not away! To-day I pray you ‘Come!’”
He would settle the matter now. Big drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. He heard the little gate shut. Dick had come home; he and his mother would be anxious; but still the man sat motionless. The proud heart was so unwilling to own he had been mistaken, that he needed a Guide, that the “living God” had any claim upon him.
Fifteen minutes—twenty—half an hour. Mrs. Vance looked up as her husband entered the door, her questioning eyes met his; he answered her with a smile and the words from Sue’s hymn,—
“I was a rebel once; He calls the rebel child His son.”
How glad Sue and Maybee will always be that they asked God to make “stepping-stones” of their verses for somebody, and that the somebody was Dick’s father!
V.
DICK’S “YOKE.”
“Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
You would suppose, now, Dick would be more in earnest than ever; but we all have to learn that when circumstances are most favorable and pleasant is the very time Satan will contrive to lay a temptation in our way and trip us if he can. For some time Dick had been very regular at the prayer-meeting. The boys sneered and laughed, but Dick had never minded, and now that his father went with him and Deacon Carter frequently commended his perseverance, and even the minister occasionally added a word of approval, Dick began to pride himself on the fact.
“Remember, we go against the Lyntown Winners to-morrow night. Don’t fail us for the world!” said Tom Lawrence to him one day. Dick was decidedly the best player in the base-ball club.
“I must,” said Dick, “because I can’t get back in time for our meeting.”
Possibly Dick did not know how grand a tone he assumed.
“Our meeting!” mimicked Tom. “S’pose they couldn’t run the thing without his lordship. I say, Dick, it will be a shame! Carter’ll be hopping mad.”
“I can’t help it. Carter knows nothing will take me away that night!” and Dick walked rather consequentially off, quite right in his refusal, but entirely wrong in the spirit of it.
“Won’t, hey!” muttered Tom. “We’ll see!”
Somehow Dick did not enjoy the meeting that evening half as much as usual. He would keep thinking about the “base-ball players,” wondering which side had come out ahead, what kind of new uniforms the “Winners” had, and how soon the “Catapults” could afford the same. It was queer, after that, how many things happened on Thursday night. All the croquet parties, the boating, fishing, riding. Perhaps Tom could have explained the “happen,”—Tom and Will Carter.
The prayer-meetings grew duller and duller to Dick. There were only a few there regularly, and they always said the same thing. Dea. Carter’s prayers were dreadfully long, and the minister talked as if he never would stop. And then the minister must go and start a young people’s meeting on Tuesday evening. Tuesday, Thursday, and a Bible-class Saturday nights! What was he thinking of? As if it wasn’t hard enough to bone down to rules and walk Spanish all day long without having every other minute full of prayer-meetings and that sort of thing. Dick’s father, too, as if to make amends for the long, prayerless years, had prayers twice a day. Dea. Carter only had them in the morning. Really, it seemed as if duty was leading poor Dick a slave’s life. “Be over to the Squire’s, to-morrow night I suppose?” said Tom, the day before the annual party given by Esq. Ellis to the young people in “peach time.”
“Yes, after meeting. I must do my sums before that. May get over in time for the spread,” rejoined Dick somewhat dubiously.
“Pho! that won’t answer. Didn’t you know the Squire had set up half a dozen croquet sets, and we’re to be prompt at six o’clock? The best player has some sort of a gim-crack, and nobody stands half a chance beside you. I told the Squire so. He’ll think you backed out. Most likely Carter’ll come in next. Better be on hand.”
“Well, perhaps. I’ll think it over.”
And Dick thought it over,—how Dea. Phelps and Dr. Sault and Mr. Bugbee were very seldom at the prayer-meeting; how many church-members never came at all; how even Miss Cox stayed away for lectures and concerts. How many of us, young and old, like Dea. Phelps and Mr. Bugbee and Miss Cox, will find, away on in eternity, that we have helped somebody to just such a wrong decision as Dick came to!
He was on the croquet-grounds precisely at six, and played his best. The Squire applauded vociferously, and there was no end of complimentary remarks, enough to turn an older head than Dick’s.
“Worst of it is, I stayed too late,” he said to Tom the next morning; “and there’s those examples,—not a single one done. Had to help father every blessed minute after I got up.”
“Never mind, here’s my key. Just copy ’em right out,—everybody does. Don’t be squeamish now; just for once, you know.”
“Pity to fail, so near the end of the term,” said Will Carter. Will would not have used a key for the world; he was very particular on such points; but he had not the least scruple about tempting Dick to forfeit his honor. And after a little hesitation, Dick yielded.
Once it would have seemed cute and quite the thing to deceive Mr. Blackman; now, it made him feel mean and uneasy, especially when that gentleman remarked, “I think you are almost sure to take the prize in mathematics, Dick.”
But for that remark, however, I don’t believe Dick would ever have touched the horrid old key again. As it was, Tom would lay it so “handy,” and Satan was sure to raise a doubt in Dick’s mind about the correctness of a certain multiple or divisor. Just one glance would determine; and so the glances multiplied and divided into a very common denominator.
“You’ll be over to base ball to-night, won’t you?” asked Tom one Thursday morning, not long after.
“Of course he will,” remarked Will Carter passing by, “or he’ll be turned out of the Catapults; that’s sure.”
Turned out! just as they’d got their new uniforms! Of course he must go.
“And look here,” continued Tom, “didn’t you see me have a paper, my grammar exercise, in my hand all finished, when we came over the marsh yesterday?” “No, I didn’t,” said Dick. “You said you hadn’t once thought of it.”
“Oh, fudge, now! What a poor memory! Why, man, don’t you remember seeing me lose it? slipped on the stones, you know. Come now, if you don’t, Blackman’ll keep me in to-night, sure as pop.”
“But you wouldn’t have me tell a lie, I hope?”
“Oh, no; we don’t do such things now, we’re too good,—only when it comes to them examples,” said Tom, forgetting the practical part of his grammar. “But mind, now, if you don’t trump up something to get me off—you used to be up to that sort of thing—I’ll let on to Blackman all about that key; and then where’s your prize?”
Dick turned it over and over in his mind as he walked slowly home at noon.
“My guesses you doesn’t know what this is,” called Tod from his father’s steps, holding up a leathern belt with something like shoulder-straps attached.
“No; what is it?” said Dick absently. “It’s what my mamma used to tied me up wif, when my was vewy little, so my wouldn’t eat gween apples and curwants an’ goo-woose-berries. Her don’t have to, now.”
“Why not? Don’t you like ’em?”
“Yes, but my likes my mamma better-er; an’ her says th’ other fings is weal much nicer, so my doesn’t want ’em. Here’s anover some-fing,”—Tod was helping Jackson overhaul the tool-room. “It’s to catch fings in; and once my mamma said, my mustn’t touch, an’ my did, and it pinched—awful. My couldn’t get away one bit; the more my pulled, the tighter-er it wouldn’t let go.”
“Quite a lesson for you and me in all that,” remarked Miss Marvin, overtaking and walking along with Dick.
“Was there?”
“Yes; did you never think how full Moses’ law is, of ‘Thou shalt not’s’? while Jesus’ commands are, Do this and that ‘because you love me.’ The Jews were like children, knowing so little about God they had to be ‘tied up,’ as it were, with strict laws; but when Christ came, He set His people free from rites and ceremonies, and made love the motive power. And that trap reminded me how Satan catches and holds us,—the ‘tighter-er’ the more we try to get away, you know.”
Yes, Dick knew. He, Satan, was holding him fast now, at least Tom Lawrence was, for him; and if he tried to get away, oh, how hard it would pull! How did he ever come to put his hand in?
“Miss Marvin,” he broke out suddenly, “if we love God shall we like to do everything He tells us?”
“I think so, when we love Him with all our hearts.”
“But—there’s the prayer-meetings, you know. Don’t they ever seem dull and tiresome to you?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marvin frankly. “I think God knew His service would sometimes conflict with our selfish and worldly hearts when He said, ‘Take my yoke upon you’; a yoke, more or less restrains and compels; but almost in the same breath He added, ‘My yoke is easy.’ You and I, who once wore Satan’s yoke, know that Christ’s is easy, in comparison, don’t we, Dick? And the more we love Him the easier it becomes.”
“Yes,—I mean I did,” stammered Dick when she paused for a reply. “You see, I used to go to meeting, at first, because I loved to, but lately it’s been more because I had to. I’ve just left the love right out, and that’s where I fell in. Miss Marvin, please excuse me. I don’t dare wait a minute for fear it’ll pull so hard I sha’n’t get clear away.”
He ran down the street to Mr. Blackman’s, surprised that gentleman at dinner, made a full confession, and although with no hope of winning the prize, went away happier than he had been for weeks.
“Got that little thing all arranged for me?” asked Tom, with a wink, as they went up the school-house steps together. “No, Tom. I don’t wonder you thought I could lie or do anything, but I’m just going to begin all over again,” said Dick meekly.
“No objections, I suppose, to my telling Mr. Blackman a few things to start with?” “Not in the least, Tom, for I’ve told him the whole story myself. And I don’t mean to draw, in that ‘yoke’ again right away.”
VI.
MAYBEE’S PLEDGE.
“I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord.”
The temperance wave sweeping over the country sent a little ripple into our quiet village of Whithaven. There were a few meetings held, a few beer-saloons closed, a small amount of earnest, personal effort, and then the tide of evil flowed on, stronger, if anything, than before.
“Patient, persevering effort—where is it to come from?” said Dr. Helps, despairingly.
“From the wives and daughters,” said Miss Marvin, hopefully. “We will pray and work in our quiet way, trusting God for the result. Poor aunty is almost heart-broken over Warren’s disgrace. You know he was picked up drunk on the street last week.”
So the ladies met weekly, not for discussion, but for prayer; they reorganized the children’s “Band of Hope,” they talked temperance at their tea-parties; and it was Miss Marvin’s suggestion that each member of the Sabbath School should try to get one new name on their pledge a week. Even the smallest scholar had his printed pledge with a pencil attached.
“I shall never dare ask anybody who drinks,” said Sue Sherman.
Maybee said nothing. That some grave matter was working behind the troubled little forehead, mamma knew very well, but she was quite willing her little girl should solve the problem herself if she could.
The secret was this: Waiting in the post-office one day, Maybee overheard one gentleman say to another, “So Dan Harte’s been drinking again? How did it happen?”
“Oh, he was at work for ’Squire Ellis, had a slight ill turn, and was dosed with liquor the first thing. To use Dan’s own words, it set him on fire. He couldn’t eat nor sleep till he’d been down to Caffrey’s and drank himself dead drunk.”
“All over with him now, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. He seems more determined than ever. But there’s no safety for such poor fellows unless we can put the temptation quite out of their way.”
“Which you won’t be likely to do at present. Of course the ’squire didn’t mean any harm?”
“Oh, no! and he didn’t mean any harm to Warren Forbush, I suppose.”
“It’s a pity about him. There wasn’t a finer young man anywhere round when he graduated last fall; talented, too.”
“Yes; and that gay new billiard-room on Pleasant Street is doing for him exactly what Caffrey’s did for poor Harte; but, mind you, he took his first glass at the ’squire’s last New Year’s. He visits there frequently now; the ’squire has an adopted daughter, you know. That affair last week may open her eyes to the mischief their wines are working. What’s the use battling against whiskey and lager beer, and letting wine and ale alone? I believe in trying to save even the poorest specimen of humanity, but I tell you, all the while the best blood in our country is going to fill drunkards’ graves.”
“I’ll get ’Squire Ellis to sign my pledge,” thought Maybee, her black eyes flashing with her new-born purpose.
But how? That was the problem.
The two families did not even exchange calls. The ’squire had some trouble, years ago, with his brother, Say Ellis’s father, in which Mr. Sherman had been involved.
Maybee walked around by the big store and looked in. Could she ever speak to the big, broad-shouldered man, ordering, overseeing, directing, with his sharp eye and quick, decided utterance?
The next night she coaxed Tod around that way.
“Suppose we go in,” she ventured.
“No, my won’t,” rejoined Tod, emphatically. Evidently she need expect no help from that quarter.
“If I could meet him on the street,” she thought; but the portly business man passed her as indifferently as he did the hand-organ on the next corner.
Every day, for two weeks, she extended her walk past the big store on her way to and from school. Every night after her usual prayer went up the whispered petition, “Please, dear Father, show me how.”
At last she made a confidant of Sue.
“Mercy on me! Nobody ever could, and besides, you won’t have any chance.”
Quite crushed by this chilling response, Maybee fled to mamma.
“He’d ought to; he’s hurting folks when he don’t know it,” she sobbed. “Won’t you or papa or some big body ask him to please stop?”
“May be,” said mamma, wiping away the tears, “it is this little body’s special work, and if it is, God will provide a way. When He has a work for us to do He always opens the door. Only be patient, and watch and wait.”
A week or two afterwards, Tod, neat and clean as a pin, started for papa’s shop. Esq. Ellis stood in his store door. It had been an unusually profitable day, and the merchant was in the best of humor.
“Well, my little man, where are you bound?” he smilingly remarked, as Tod came along.
“My isn’t your little man. Her said my was, but my isn’t; and my isn’t a beggar neither,” rejoined Tod, straightening up.
“Well, ’pon my word! if it isn’t the little fellow who wanted fifty cents one day, and I was in such a hurry—”
“Own-y-to-ny papas stop hurwying when their little boys ask weal hard,” persisted Tod.
The merchant’s lip quivered: there came to him so suddenly the touch of little fingers hidden away in the grave for more than twenty years, the sound of childish voices to which he had never answered “Nay.” He sat down on the steps and drew Tod to him.
“I used to love little boys,” he said, huskily, “but it’s so many years ago. Will you tell me your name, and come and dine with me some day?”
“But my shall be my own papa’s little boy.”
“Yes, yes; but you could come and see me because I haven’t any little boys. You shall have something nice.”
“Choc’late ca’mels and ice-cweam?”
“Yes, and I’ll send the carriage for you,—let me see, to-morrow. Wait a minute and I’ll write mamma a note.”
“Can’t Maybee come too?”
“Who is Maybee?”
“Why, don’t you know Maybee Sherman, my cousin?” asked Tod, in astonishment.
“Sherman, Sherman? Oh, well! she’s only a small chip, and it is time bygones were bygones. Yes, I’ll write Maybee’s mamma a note, too.” Wasn’t Tod on tiptoe with expectation, and didn’t he and Maybee sit back so straight in the grand carriage, behind the colored driver, as almost to break their dear little necks? And how splendid everything was,—the pictures, the fountains and flowers, the china and silver, Mrs. Ellis in her silk and laces, Miss Georgiana with her diamond rings and soft, slender hands.
“I wonder if I dare,” thought Maybee, her heart giving a sudden bound as the waiter came in with the dainty tray of wine-glasses. “If you please, Mr. ’Squire, would you—so other folks wouldn’t—’cause they can’t help it,” she broke out earnestly, slipping her little pledge on top of the glass her host was raising to his lips.
“What? How? Nonsense! What does such a little midget as you know about such things?”
“Please—I do know; it’s so very bad. You see, they were both drunk,—Phosy’s father and Bell Forbush’s big brother; an’ he’s so nice; an’ you’ve only to write your name under there, and never give anybody any more.”
If she had coupled Dan Harte with Walter Forbush! But she had said “Phosy’s father.” The ’squire looked at his daughter. She leaned forward, with crimsoning cheeks.
“We have wanted so much not to use it any more,” she said in a low tone.
He turned to his wife.
“I think it would be better every way,” she ventured. She would never have dreamed of making the suggestion, knowing how hard and selfish the worldly heart had grown, missing the touch of those baby fingers.
Walter Forbush and Dan Harte! He coupled them now in his own mind. Was it a common weakness, and would the one ever sink as low as the other? Suppose his boys had lived—and been tempted? Even old Dan Harte was once somebody’s boy, fair and promising.
“Take the wine away,” he said to the waiter, at the same time picking up Maybee’s little pencil and writing his name in full under the simple promise.
“I knew there’d be a ‘door,’ somewhere! Mamma said God could make one,” said Maybee, joyously. “And to think you ’vited me your own self!”
VII.
THE “NEW SONG.”
“And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”
“It’s coming up fast!”
“Work lively, boys! Do your best and you shan’t be sorry.”
How they raked—great, heaping winrows! How they tossed—huge fork-fulls, half covering the men on the loads! How they hurried the fat, lazy horses and slow, plodding oxen hither and thither across the fields!
Meanwhile the low muttering of the thunder grew louder and louder, and large drops of rain came thicker and faster.
“Pitch on what you can and make for the barn,” called out farmer Vance. “It’s no use trying for the rest, and we’ve got the heft of it. Drive up! Steady, Joe!”
“I reckon there’d a been some pretty tall swearing if the shower’d come fifteen minutes sooner,” said one of the men, swinging his coat over his shoulder and walking leisurely after.
“Vance may do a little in that line yet,” rejoined another, who was shouldering rakes, forks, and a pile of hay-caps. “Look at that load, will you? Just a lee-tle—there it goes!”
A stone on one side, a slight depression on the other, the unwieldy mass swayed, toppled, and slid to the ground, carrying with it the driver and Dan Harte, who floundered out of the drift as the rain began to fall in torrents.
“Now look out for breakers! Take Dan and Vance together, they’ll make it hot for Joe.”
These two had helped the farmer through more than one haying season, and were accustomed to the passionate outbreaks of a naturally quick temper.
“An’ if there’s one thing more aggravatin’ than another it’s to have a lot of hay, jest in complete order, get a right down soakin’,” remarked the first speaker, as they hurried up to the scene of the disaster.
Joe, the driver, was staring bewilderedly around; Dan had already seized a pitchfork; the farmer stood by the horses’ heads.
“You ought to have looked out for that low place,” he was saying. “Where were your eyes, Joe? Never mind now, the mischief’s done. Scrabble up, and drive on with what’s left,—no use crying for spilt milk. We’ll pick up the pieces some other time. It’s coming, boys! Into the barn all of you!”
The man in the shirt-sleeves looked at his companion and gave a low whistle of astonishment.
“Beats all!” said the other; and then, as the tree-tops began to reel in the oncoming tempest, everybody rushed for shelter. There was ample room on the broad barn-floor. The horses quietly munched their oats, the men disposed of themselves here and there, some astride of milking-stools, some stretched at full length on the soft, sweet-smelling hay, some propped up against the open door, till the shifting wind obliged even that to be closed against the rain and hail.
“I say, Harte, tune up; give us a rouser. Haven’t heard you sing for an age; wish you had your fiddle.”
All the frequenters of Caffrey’s groggery knew Dan’s musical powers, which were really of no mean order, albeit for years they had served to gratify the lowest passions of vile, half-drunken men. Many a time he had helped the speaker make night hideous.
The man nudged Dan now, showing the neck of a small flask in his pocket, as he whispered, “Give us a regular high one, and here’s for you.”
Farmer Vance was busy with his horses. Dan waited a moment, a flush of red showing through his bronzed cheek. Then in a full, clear voice, he broke out with—
“Ho! my comrades, see the signal
Waving in the sky,
Reinforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh!
Cho:—“Hold the fort for I am coming,
Jesus signals still.
Wave the answer back to heaven,
By Thy grace we will!”
Farmer Vance was the first to strike in on the chorus; he sang a tolerably good bass. Very soon two or three of the others caught the strain, and the barn fairly rang with the soul-inspiring words.
“I give it up,” whispered Joe Derrick to our friend of the shirt-sleeves. “Think of Dan Harte singing psalm tunes! There must be a something to turn him right square about so. An’ the old place, too. Been by there lately? Looks like a garding—all the front yard does. An’ he’s built on a shed for his wife to wash in; actu’ly has a carpet in t’other room.”
“I suppose you an’ me could have carpets, Joe, if we’d let drink alone,” said the other, soberly. “But what beats me is the way Vance held in out there in the hay-field. ’Tain’t natural, ’n I can’t account for ’t. If anybody’d a told me that man would stand there and see that hay as good as sp’iled and never say a word—he looked kind a riled, you could see that—I’d a risked my best hat!”
“But seein’’s believin’, and as for hearin’—Hark, now!”
Dan had struck into,
“No surrender to the foe!
Shout the cry where’er you go.
Falter never! we must win,
No surrendering to sin.
No surrender! Let it be
Battle cry for you and me.
God will help us, He is near,
He is with us, do not fear.
“No surrender! then at last
All our conflicts over-past,
Glad will be our welcoming
To the city of the King.
Forward, then! fall into line!
Bright the conqueror’s crown will shine.
Storm the camp of sin and wrong,
Sweet will be the victor’s song.”
“I ain’t sure but we’d better enlist,” said Joe, half-laughing, but drawing his sleeve suspiciously across his eyes. “I never thought much of psalm-singing an’ new doings; but when you see they’re good for something—I tell you what: if Vance says anything more about our going to church, I’m his man. I believe I’ll try a hand at that myself.”
VIII.
THE WONDERFUL BOOK.
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
“Aunty McFane is real sick,” whispered Dick to Sue Sherman in the Sabbath School class. “I stopped there this morning. The doctor says she can’t live a great while.”
“I’m so sorry. Who is with her?” asked Sue, her face full of real concern.
“Judy Ryan. Father has hired her to stay all the time. Isn’t it nice?”
“Splendid! Judy is so neat,—and she likes what Aunty McFane likes.” Sue added the last in a still lower whisper.
“I know,” said Dick. “She had just been reading a chapter in the Bible out loud, and Aunty McFane said there was a promise for every ache she had. Isn’t it funny,” he continued, turning to Miss Marvin, “that folks just as different as can be find exactly what they want in the Bible?”
“It was provided for everybody by One who knew all hearts,” rejoined Miss Marvin; “and the more we study it, the more wonderful it seems. I remember reading once about a silver egg, prepared as a present to a Saxon queen. You opened the silver by a secret spring, and there was found a yolk of gold. You found the spring of the gold, and it flew open and disclosed a beautiful bird. Press the wings of the bird, and in its breast was found a crown, jewelled and radiant. And within the crown, upheld by a spring like the rest, was a ring of diamonds which fitted the finger of the princess. ‘So,’ said the author, ‘there is many a promise within a promise, in the Bible, the silver around the gold, the gold around the jewels; and too few of God’s children ever find their way far enough among the springs to discover the crown of His rejoicing or the ring of His covenant of peace.’” “There are great minds who don’t believe a word of the Bible,” said Will Carter.
“Yes; but in spite of all these great minds can do and say, men, women, and children go on, year after year, finding comfort, happiness, and help, as well as eternal life, in its pages.”
“Oh! it’s all well enough for poor, low, ignorant people, who haven’t any other comfort,” rejoined Will, carelessly.
“Poor, low, ignorant people like you and me, Will,” said Miss Marvin, quietly. “So poor, we have no right to a foot of God’s great earth nor one breath of His pure air, save as He suffers us to use it; so ignorant, we cannot trace one step of the way back to our Father’s house. I remember an anecdote like this:—
“‘Young Harry was sent on an errand one evening in early winter. After giving him his message his mother said, “Be sure you take the lantern with you, Harry.”
“‘“Bother the lantern!” answered the boy, gruffly and disrespectfully; and he started, muttering to himself, “What do I want with a lantern? I guess I know the way well enough!”
“‘Very soon Master Harry, in crossing the street, stumbled into a hole which had been made by a recent rain. By this fall he knocked the flesh from his shin-bone and covered his clothing with mud.
“‘On his way back he forgot the fence had fallen in near the edge of the ravine. As he groped his way along the bank, he fell over, and went sprawling to the bottom of the ravine.
“‘With much ado and after many bruisings, he got into the road once more; but when he finally reached his mother’s door, he looked more like a scarecrow than a living boy.
“‘The lantern would have saved him from all this: wasn’t he a foolish fellow not to take it?
“‘But what shall be said of those boys and girls who know the Bible to be the only lamp which can guide their feet safely through the paths of life to their home in heaven, and yet refuse to carry it! Are they not still more foolish?’”
“I remember a story something like that,” said Jenny King. “It said,—
“‘A boy was once sailing down a river in which there was a very dangerous channel. He watched the old steersman with great interest, and observed that whenever he came near a ball of painted wood, he changed his course.
“‘“Why do you turn out of your way for these painted balls?” asked the boy.
“‘The old man looked up from under his shaggy brows, too much taken up with his task to talk, and simply growled out, “Rocks.”
“‘“Well, I would not turn out for those bits of wood,” said the boy; “I would go right over them.”
“‘The old man replied only by a look. “Poor, foolish lad,” it said, “how little you know about rocks!”’” “Yes,” said Miss Marvin, “many a poor soul has looked at the buoys in the Bible, pointing out some danger, and said, ‘I know better; I shall sail right along,’ and has gone down in a sea of darkness and desolation. Remember, too, a good sailor studies his course: he is not content with a glance at the map or chart now and then. So, my dear boys and girls, let us study God’s Word, searching in it for hidden treasures, for only those who find its pearl of great price can ever be truly rich or wise or happy. Sceptics and unbelievers seldom search the Scriptures. They deny without examination and reject without trial. Their Bibles have no ‘pins’ in them like the old lady’s, of whom I read not long since. As her sight began to fail, she found it hard to find her favorite verses; but she could not live without them; so what did she do? She stuck a pin in them, one by one, and after her death they counted one hundred and sixty-eight. When people went to see her, she would feel over the page after her pin, and say, ‘Read here,’ or ‘Read there’; and she knew pretty well what promise was by this pin and what by that.”
“I think Aunty McFane knows her Bible almost by heart,” said Susy, with a tear in her eye. “And did you ever hear her repeat that beautiful hymn? I learned it from her one day, it was so pretty.”
“Tell it to us, please. I think there will be just time enough before the bell rings.”
IX.
AUNTY McFANE’S HYMN.
“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
Weary of earth and laden with my sin,
I look at heaven and long to enter in;
But there no evil thing may find a home,
And yet I hear a voice that bids me come.
So vile I am, how dare I hope to stand
In the pure glory of that holy land,—
Before the whiteness of that throne appear?
Yet there are hands stretched out to draw me near.
The while I fain would tread the heavenly way,
Evil is ever with me day by day:
Yet on mine ears the gracious tidings fall,—
Repent, confess, thou shalt be loosed from all.
It is the voice of Jesus that I hear,
His are the hands stretched out to draw me near;
And His the blood that can for all atone,
And set me faultless, there, before the throne.
’Twas He who found me on the deathly wild,
And made me heir of heaven, the Father’s child;
And day by day, whereby my soul may live,
Gives me His grace of pardon, and will give.
Yea, thou wilt answer for me, righteous Lord!
Thine all the merit, mine the great reward;
Thine the sharp thorns, and mine the golden crown;
Mine the life won, and thine the life laid down.
X.
HOW TO BE GOOD.
“Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
“Oh, dear! I wish I had something to do,” sighed Maybee one afternoon. “I think it’s real mean for Tod to have the measles ’fore I catched ’em too; ’cause we could have played sick all together; and now, mamma stays over there and leaves me all alone—”
“That is just like some little girls,—wanting to make their mothers all the trouble they can,” remarked Aunt Cynthia, severely. “Get your little chair and I’ll read you a story out of my basket.” There were always a great many slips of paper in the “patch-work basket,” mostly poetry, with now and then a story.
“Mamma always holds me,” pouted Maybee, dragging up her little rocker rather reluctantly.
“Such a great big girl! I should be ashamed. I never wanted to tire my mother that way,” said Aunt Cynthia, turning over one paper after another.
“I don’t believe she ever wanted you to,” muttered Maybee, curling her head down on the sofa-pillow, and preparing to listen.
Aunt Cynthia put on her glasses, cleared her throat, and began:—
“‘Ma! get me the Bible, ma! I’m going to commence to be good, for there is a comet coming that’s going to strike the earth and burn it up!’ said little Frank one day, as he ran with great haste into the room where his mother was sitting.
“‘There is a Bible on the table, my son,’ said his mother; ‘but who has been talking with you about the comet?’
“‘Oh! I heard the men in the yard say so. Where shall I read? It has opened here itself. Shall I read aloud, ma?’ “Frank answered his mother’s question, and then without waiting for his mother to reply to what he had asked her, began to read from the book of Malachi as follows: ‘For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts.’ Here he paused, and seemed to be reading to himself; then in a manner more composed he said, ‘Is that about the comet, ma?’
“But his mother was prevented from replying by the entrance of her brother, who presently, noticing Frank was reading the Bible, inquired if he was studying his Sabbath School lesson.
“Frank replied that he was not, and added ‘I’m afraid the comet is coming to burn the earth, uncle.’
“‘And where is Charles?’ said his uncle. ‘Is he not afraid, too?’
“‘Charles is out in the yard piling wood. I told him he’d better come in and read the Bible, but he said pa had told us to pile the wood, and that he remembered his last Sabbath School lesson, and could think of that if he wanted to, without reading the Bible; but I meant to be good, so I came right in as soon as I could. And now shall I call Charles, uncle?’
“‘Has he got the wood all piled?’
“‘I don’t know, uncle, but I don’t think he can have piled it all by this time.’
“‘And if he comes in, who will pile the wood?’ asked his uncle.
“‘I don’t know; perhaps pa will,’ said Frank, somewhat thoughtfully.
“‘And would it be better for your father to pile the wood than for his two little boys to do it?’ inquired his uncle.
“Frank waited awhile before he replied, and then said, in a tone of earnest surprise, ‘Why, Uncle Thompson, do you think it is being as good to pile wood as to read the Bible?’
“His uncle replied, ‘To pile wood when it is the proper time to pile wood is as much an act of goodness as to read the Bible in the proper time.’
“‘Why, uncle, I thought it was always proper to read the Bible at any time. Isn’t it?’
“‘The truths of the Bible you should have stored in your mind,’ replied his uncle, ‘and be always ready to act upon the precepts which it teaches; but duty can never call you two ways at the same time, so there may be times when it is more proper to do something else than to read the Bible. As you have the Bible before you, you may turn to the sixth chapter of Ephesians and read me the first three verses.’
“‘I can tell without looking, uncle, for that was our last Sabbath School lesson. It is, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. That it ‘may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth.’” I said that last Sabbath to my teacher; isn’t that right, uncle?’ “‘Yes, you have the precept in your mind; you can repeat it very correctly. You can repeat the fifth commandment, too, can you not, Frank?’
“‘Yes, sir, I can say them all,’ replied Frank, in a very happy tone.
“‘And what does the fifth teach you to do?’
“‘To obey my father and mother. Is that right, uncle?’
“‘Yes, Frank. The Old Testament and the New give you the same instruction. Now, when must you obey?’
“‘My teacher said we must obey when we hear the command.’
“‘Yes, that is the time; not like a little boy I knew of last winter, who went into the room where his mother was sitting, with a snowball in his hand which he was eating. His mother bade him put it into the urn, for she was afraid it would make him sick. He kept taking bite after bite, and at length, when asked which he loved best, the snowball or his mother, replied, “I love my mother best, but I can’t eat my mother.” Then to please himself he dropped the small piece he had left into the urn. He might have said he loved himself the best, for we always try to please those most that we love best.’
“‘That was me, uncle; I remember it,’ Frank replied. ‘And can it be, uncle, that my heavenly Father is as well pleased with me when I pile wood as when I read the Bible?’
“His uncle replied, ‘To perform any duty with the spirit of obedience is pleasing to your heavenly Father. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” and great knowledge of the Scripture without practising it cannot make a Christian any more than great knowledge of geography can make a voyager of one who never leaves his home. The supposition that a comet is about to destroy the earth is groundless; but if you fear God and keep His commandments, not forgetting to do your duty after you have closed your Bible, you will be prepared for any event that may await you. Do you understand me, Frank?’ “‘Yes, sir,’ replied Frank, smiling, ‘and I’m going to help Charles, and to tell him what you say.’
“There! isn’t that a nice story?” said Aunt Cynthia, complacently. “You see, what God wants is for every little boy, and girl, too, to mind their fathers and mothers. Praying and reading the Bible doesn’t do the least mite of good unless we do all our stents without fretting, and remember to hang up our hats, and when mother wants—”
“I don’t like morals stuck on behind,” said Maybee, with a defiant toss of her head. “It’s a good ’nough story, an’ I’d just as lieves not hear any more about it.”
XI.
BELL’S BIBLE READING.
“For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.”
“Wasn’t it perfectly splendid?” said Bell Forbush, coming out of church.
“Did you think so?” queried Jenny King, stretching her neck for another glimpse of Miss Georgiana’s new fall hat. “I thought it looked for all the world like an L with a French roof, built right on to the back of her head.”
“Oh! I meant the sermon,” said Bell, coloring, with a consciousness how much more frequently it was bonnets than sermons she meant. “I do think it was lovely. Don’t you, Cousin Mate?”
“‘Whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things,’” returned Miss Marvin, smiling, and dropping behind to speak with Judy Ryan.
“Do you suppose we could read the Bible to poor folks and show them how to be real nice, as he said that beautiful young lady did?” resumed Bell, walking along with Jenny.
“I don’t know. It’s always ‘beautiful young ladies’ in books. Don’t you remember in ‘Ministering Children’ about the ‘snow-white pony,’ and the children all running to meet her, and the old blind women so glad to see—hear her, I mean—”
“You know,” broke in Bell, “there’s lots of poor folks down to the Mills.”
“Yes; but they wouldn’t like it, I don’t believe; we’re so small.”
“Why, I’m most as tall as my mother, Jenny King; and besides, doesn’t Cousin Mate say the Bible can help everybody? That’s enough to convert them, of course.”
They stopped to ask Sue Sherman to join them.
“We’ll go separately, and see who reads the most chapters to the most folks,” said Bell.
“Does Miss Marvin approve?” asked Sue.
“Yes, indeed. She told us we ought to first,” returned Bell, enlarging a little upon her cousin’s suggestion.
They set out promptly Monday afternoon,—Sue with some misgivings, as Bell would not allow her to consult her mother, because no one was to know anything about it till all the folks down at the Mills began to come to church. Wouldn’t people be so surprised!
At the first house Bell found a big, red-faced woman, washing, with a dozen children, more or less, rolling around on the floor. “Wouldn’t you like to send the dear little things to Sabbath School?” inquired Bell, in her sweetest manner.
“Faith, an’ haven’t they a church of their own, an’ a praste to look after them, letting alone it isn’t your business at all, at all?” was the rather indignant response.
“Perhaps you would like to hear me read a chapter in the Bible,” persisted Bell, very graciously, at the same time drawing her light muslin dress away from the wooden chair one of the “little dears” pushed towards her, without the dusting process so common in stories.
“Get out wid your hiritic books, an’ you a turning up your noses at the likes of us!” snapped the frowzle-headed woman, facing her visitor with arms akimbo. Bell took a rather informal leave, and hurried on to the next house. A little, meek-faced woman, who had evidently been crying, opened the door.
“Shure, an’ I wish you’d do something to make my poor Tommy feel aisier! The docther says he’ll die for sure,” and she broke out in violent demonstrations of grief.
“I’m certain he’ll be glad to hear some of these beautiful verses,” rejoined Bell, opening her Bible,—“only,” she added, as a sudden thought struck her, “I hope it isn’t anything catching?”
“It’s some kind of a faver with a quare name. Poor little Tommy! he’ll be so glad to see somebody.” And the mother opened the door into a small, close, although passably clean room.
“I—I don’t believe I can stay now,” stammered Bell. “Here’s a nice tract. I really can’t stop.” And away she went, thinking to herself, “It may be the yellow fever or something horrid, and I should certainly catch it. Dear me! look at the children’s heads in that large tenement house; it will be such a bedlam it’s no use to go in. And next comes Molly Dinah’s; she’s so dreadfully dirty, I shall just lay a tract right in at that open window.” As she did so, a coarse, tawdrily-dressed woman looked out of the house opposite.
“Molly’s not at home. Won’t you come in and wait, dear? It’s seldom so purty a face comes our way. An’ I should know you was a born lady just by your walk. Do sit down, miss,” and she wiped a chair with her ragged dress, after the most approved style.
Bell was on tiptoe at once. Here was just the opportunity. “Would you like to hear a chapter from the Bible?”
“Sure, wouldn’t I? It’s long since the likes of me has been that lucky. You have beautiful eyes, miss, and such a lovely complexion!”
Bell, highly gratified, selected the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm.
“How beautifully you read!” exclaimed her listener when she had finished. “Haven’t you a bit of loose change a body could buy a sup of tea with? What with the hard times, it’s meself hasn’t tasted tea for months, an’ you see how the old room looks.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Bell, dignifiedly. “I was just thinking how much better it would be if only the windows were washed and those shelves cleared up. Your dress, too, is very ragged, and it doesn’t take money to keep ourselves clean and neat. I am not allowed to drink tea, and—”
Presto! what a change! Bell was glad to get out of hearing. “Is that you?” called Jenny King, from across the street. “How do you make out?”
“I’ve called at four houses,” returned Bell, evasively.
“Honor bright? Why, I’ve been reading the whole time to one real old man. Had to holler like anything. I declare! here comes Sue with a big pail and a mite of a boy. Where have you started for now?”
“Berrying. Want to go?” laughed Sue.
“A queer way to read the Bible,” remarked Bell, loftily.
“Well, it all seemed to go together. I found a little girl with a sprained ankle and read her some Bible stories; one was about the healing of Jairus’ daughter, and she cried right out and said, ‘O mother! don’t you wish that Man would make me well? we want the berries so bad!’ and I coaxed her to tell me all about it. Some crusty old woman has engaged to buy all the berries they will bring her every day for two weeks, and the money is to pay their rent; but she’s so fussy if they disappoint her one single night they’ll lose the chance. Saturday night Abby hurt her foot, and this little chap can’t go alone, although he’s a dabster at picking, aren’t you, Bub? To-day and to-morrow the mother has to wash for folks; after that she can go herself; so I’ve offered. Let’s all go and get them a lot.”
“The idea of my picking berries to sell!” exclaimed Bell.
“Or to give away, either,” laughed Jenny. “Never mind, I’ll go with Sue, and you can call at all the other houses, you get along so fast, Bell.”
“I do believe that good Man sent you,” said little Abby, clapping her hands, when Sue came back with three well-filled pails.
“I think He did,” whispered Sue, with tears in her eyes. “And you must be all ready early in the morning, Jaky, before it is so hot.”
“And will you bring the Book and read another bit?” asked Jaky’s mother. “I’ve never believed a word of it before, but it sounded wonderful comfortin’ to-day with your doing and all. I’ll never say ’em nay again when they ask for the childers to go to Sabbath School.”
“It needed the berries and Bible both, didn’t it?” said Jenny, thoughtfully, as they walked home. “How came you to think to offer? I never should.”
Sue hesitated.
“I guess I know,” said Jenny, hurriedly. “You prayed beforehand, and I forgot all about it. I do believe that makes all the difference in the world.”
XII.
WHAT COUSIN MATE SAID.
“For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.”
“I don’t think reading the Bible to folks is any sort of use,” said Bell, coming out on the piazza where her cousin was sitting, the next Saturday night.
“Have you been trying it?” asked Miss Marvin.
“Why, yes; last Monday I went all the whole afternoon, and I never saw such hateful, disagreeable people in all my life,—they didn’t seem to care the least bit; and then Sue and Jenny went off berrying—”
“I met Sue this afternoon, and she says some little boy and his mother are coming to Sabbath School to-morrow.”
“They are? Dear me, I couldn’t get a single one to say they would come. I don’t think the Bible is so very powerful.”
“Let me read you a bit of poetry,” said Cousin Mate, opening her book.
“Let me hear, too,” said Jenny King, coming up the path and sitting down on the steps.
“Thy Word, a wondrous guiding star
On pilgrim hearts doth rise,
Leads to their Lord, who dwells afar,
And makes the simple, wise.
“Thy Word, O Lord! like gentle dews
Falls soft on hearts that pine.
Lord, to thy garden ne’er refuse
This heavenly balm of thine.
Watered for Thee, let every tree
Break forth and blossom to thy praise,
And bear much fruit in after days.
“Thy Word is like a flaming sword,
A wedge that cleaveth stone;
Keen as a fire so burns thy Word,
And pierceth flesh and bone.
Let it go forth o’er all the earth,
To purify all hearts within
And shatter all the might of sin.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with our Bible-reading,” said Bell, peevishly. “I was thinking,” said Miss Marvin, “how carefully the gardener needs to loosen the earth around his plants to help the dew in its work; and how, although the sword may be keen and studded with jewels, there must be a strong, willing arm, obedient to a wise captain, before it can accomplish its whole mission.”
“But what has it to do with us?” repeated Bell, impatiently.
“Why, can’t you see?” said Jenny. “We didn’t do our part of the work right.”
“I should like to know why.”
“Well, for one thing, I forgot to pray,” said Jenny, hesitatingly; “and—well, to make folks love the Bible I guess you have to show them you love their bodies, somehow, don’t you, Miss Marvin?”
“Exactly. When God sent the apostles out to preach the gospel, He gave them, not only the Word, but power to heal the sick and work many miracles. They had also, what you forgot to ask for, the help of God’s Holy Spirit.” “But you told me your own self about a man who found just a torn page of the Bible, and it made him a Christian,” said Bell, sulkily.
“Yes, God can make His Word accomplish what He will in any way He pleases. But we need, when we use it, the Holy Spirit, and warm, sympathizing, helping, human hands as well.”
“I’m going to try again,” said Jenny. “I’ve been picking out some verses for my old man, and I’ve made him a little pocket for his spectacles; he said he was always losing them.”
XIII.
“CHRIST” OR “SELF.”
“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
“Let me read you something else, Bell, dear,” said Miss Marvin, after Jenny had gone. “Perhaps it will show you another reason why you met with so little success, last Monday.
“THE MASTER’S FACE.
“A great artist called together his friends to view a magnificent work, on which he had been long engaged.
“‘Tell me,’ he said to the friend on whose judgment he most relied, ‘what do you think is the best point in my picture?’
“‘O brother,’ said the enraptured artist, ‘it is all beautiful; but that chalice,—that is a perfect masterpiece, a gem!’ “Sorrowfully the artist took his brush and dashed it over the toil of weary days, and turning to his friends, he said, ‘O brothers, if there is anything in my piece more beautiful than the Master’s face I have sought to put there, let it be gone!’”
“St. Bernard once preached an eloquent sermon which all the great and learned went away applauding; but he walked sadly home with downcast eyes, while occasional sighs revealed a mind deeply dejected.
“The next day he preached a plain but earnest discourse, which touched the hearts of many, but elicited no applause. That day his heart was glad and his countenance glowing. On being questioned why he should be sad when so applauded, and yet so cheerful when he received no praise, he answered, ‘Yesterday I preached Bernard; to-day, Jesus Christ.’
“So we shall have most comfort ourselves in our teachings when we have most of Christ in them; then, too, we shall do most good to the souls of others.”
Bell sat still, listlessly twirling her rings.
“My dear little cousin,” said Miss Marvin, “was it God’s glory or your own you thought of, when you set out to draw all the people of Mill Village into our Sabbath School? Did you want them to admire and love yourself, or the Lord Jesus of whom you read? Was it Self or Christ you were trying to serve?”
“You always make me out wrong! but I shan’t trouble people reading the Bible any more,” said Bell, flinging herself into the house.
Cousin Mate resumed her book with a sigh. “Poor little Bell!” she thought. “How much harder a master Self is than Christ! One makes us willing servants to our fellow-men, the other makes us miserable slaves to our own passions.”
XIV.
MISS LOMY’S SERMON.
“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”
Miss Lomy was helping Mrs. Sherman with her fall sewing. There were three sisters who lived in the square two-story house on the hill. The house full of old-fashioned furniture was all their father left them, so Miss Lomy “went out” sewing, Miss Nancy “took in” work, and Dolly, the youngest, a staid, sober woman of fifty-five, attended to the housekeeping.
Miss Lomy had lost all her teeth, which puckered her mouth into the funniest little O; there were wrinkles all around her eyes,—in fact her face was so covered with wrinkles that when she laughed, as she did every five minutes, it made you think of the ripples chasing each other over a lake after a handful of pebbles has been thrown in, and her two merry blue eyes lighted them up for all the world like the sunshine. Everybody was glad when Miss Lomy came, and nobody could decide which flew the faster, her tongue or her needle.
“You know you promised to make my dollie a severless jacket to-day,” said Maybee, one morning.
“Yes, dear, if I get through with this mending before your ma has that other suit cut and basted,” returned Miss Shelomith, cheerily.
Maybee watched her needle creep in and out of the frayed edges of a fearfully long gash.
“I tore that getting through the hedge. It’s my every-day dress though: what makes you take such teenty-tonty stitches?”
“So it’ll look nice, to be sure.”
“Nobody’ll ever see it, because most always I wear an apron.”
“I reckon the Lord’ll know about it,” said Miss Lomy, with so much reverence in her tone you knew there was no levity in her meaning. Involuntarily, Maybee’s eyes went up to the ceiling, and then her wee bit of a nose followed, disbelievingly.
“You don’t suppose God looks at such things! Of course He don’t,” she said, slowly.
“Well, now, if He cares for the sparrows and the weeds and all such, and numbers the very hairs of our heads, it stands to reason He’ll notice whether little girls’ dresses are neat and whole,—which they wouldn’t be ketched together the way some folks do their darning. I reckon He sees all we do, big and little, and it ain’t so much the ‘what’ as the ‘how’ he takes account of.”
“But, Miss Lomy, He has to see to the sun and the rain, and the ocean full of ships, and the things growing, enough to feed everybody.”
“To be sure; and that’s what’s so wonderful,—to think of His holding the sea in the hollow of His hand, and not forgetting to show the little ant where to find its supper.”
“But He has to do that; and He don’t have to notice everything we do.”
“No, He just wants to, and that’s the most wonderful of all. Because, you see, it’s as easy again to do things well when you are trying to please Him. Pleasing folks is a doubtful matter: you may, and then again, you mayn’t,—accordin’ as they’re cross or over-particular or feeling down in the mouth; and there may be times you mean well and don’t make out much, an’ they’ll blame you all the same. But the Lord knows just what we try to do, and gives us credit for that. He ain’t never out of patience neither. Then there’s another thing. Folks can’t watch you all the whole time, and there’s a temptation to sort of slip things over, the way we oughtn’t; but the Lord, He’s looking every minit, there’s no getting away from His eye; and so when you’re working to please Him, you’ll just do your best right straight along.”
It was a short sermon, so short and simple Maybee could stow it all away in her busy little brain. Some time afterwards she went with Sue to see Molly Dinah. Molly Dinah had happened in to Mrs. Flynn’s one day when Sue was reading to Abby.
“I’ve most forgot all I knowed of the Bible,” she said, sorrowfully. “You see, I can’t read a word, myself. I’m a member of the church, though, in good an’ reg’lar standin’, if I ain’t sot down in one for years. I ain’t lost my hope, neither, but it’s so old, sometimes I’m most afeared it’s worn out. I wish you’d come and read to me onct in a while, to sort of patch it up.”
So Sue went. Poor Molly! Cleanliness, like godliness, was with her a thing of the past. Once a year, perhaps, some of her neater neighbors, out of pity, gave her the benefit of a little lime and soap. Otherwise, dirt and disorder reigned undisturbed. Sue longed, but did not quite dare, to suggest a reform, although Molly listened very attentively to her reading.
That day, however, when Sue had shut up her Bible, Maybee broke out with, “Do you s’pose the Lord likes the way your house looks?”
“Well, whatever does the dear child mean?” said Molly, holding up both hands.
“Why, Miss Lomy says we ought to do things to please God, ’stead of men; so now, I don’t darst to throw in whole pods when I’m shelling beans. You get through quicker, but you don’t feel so nice when you shirk. Of course, if He’s looking, you want to do everything just perzactly right.”
“Well, to be sure! I never thought of that; but I don’t really think He sees in here much.”
“I shouldn’t think He could, through that window,” said Maybee, severely; “but if He counts the hairs on our heads, don’t you s’pose He’ll know whether our faces are clean?”
“Well, I do declare! Didn’t seem as if it paid to slick up, so few folks come in; but if I thought the Lord really minded—”
“I’ll help you wash the window,” said Sue.
What a busy time they all had for the next two hours! The sun actually looked in and laughed before he said good-night. And at the end of the week—for Molly was capable enough when she set out—you would scarcely have known the place.
That Saturday afternoon it was that the minister sat in his study, utterly discouraged. What had his year’s work amounted to? Not one soul saved or comforted that he knew of. His eye fell upon his church manual; he took it up and read the name, Molly D. Inan. Some one had said that was the woman down at the Mills known as Molly Dinah. Some one ought to have looked her up, long ago. He took his hat and went out.
“To think the minister has actu’lly come to see me!” said Molly, drawing out her one wooden rocking-chair. “I do suppose if the church folks had only noticed me a leetle more, I shouldn’t never have stopped going. You see, I hadn’t thought then about the Lord’s minding. I’m proper glad I’m slicked up. You ain’t no idee how it looked, an’ I never even mistrustin’ the Lord cared, till that little Miss put it into my head, how we should do everything to please Him instid of folks. And it does help wonderful, to think He’s lookin’ and mindin’. I jest scrub with a will, now.”
“You’ve cheered me up, ’mazingly,” she said, as the minister took his leave; but he carried away more cheer than he brought. He, too, could go to work “with a will,” remembering it was the Lord, not men, he was seeking to please.
And the next Monday morning little Benny Cargill, when he opened the store, swept down all the cobwebs he could reach, and brushed out all the corners, because the minister said in his sermon, “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.”
