C
“CAN one object be a type of more than one thing, mamma?” asked Lucius, “for there is something which we have just spoken of as being a type of what heals our souls—I mean by that, true living faith in the Lord; and I have thought of something quite different, of which it seems also a type.”
“Are you speaking of the river Jordan?” asked Agnes, through whose mind the same thought had been passing.
“Yes, the river in which Naaman dipped seven times and was cleansed,” replied Lucius. “When the Israelites, after their long wanderings in the desert, came to that same river Jordan, there was nothing but its waters between them and the Promised Land, which mother told me to-day is a type of heaven.”
“And the waters were divided to let the people pass over quite easily and safely,” interrupted little Elsie, who never missed an opportunity of bringing out any knowledge which she had gleaned.
“Hush, Elsie! you distract my thoughts,” said her brother, “and make me forget with your prattle what I was going to say. Oh, it is this! When Christians have almost got over their long life-journey, there is only one thing at lastthat divides them from heaven, their Promised Land; and that thing is death. Mother, is not Jordan a type of death?”
“I believe that it is,” said his mother and Amy silently thought of those beautiful verses which allude to this type:—
“Oh! could we bid our doubts remove,Those gloomy doubts that rise,And view the Canaan that we loveWith Faith’s unclouded eyes;“Could we but stand where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,Nor Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,Could fright us from the shore.”
“Oh! could we bid our doubts remove,Those gloomy doubts that rise,And view the Canaan that we loveWith Faith’s unclouded eyes;“Could we but stand where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,Nor Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,Could fright us from the shore.”
“Oh! could we bid our doubts remove,Those gloomy doubts that rise,And view the Canaan that we loveWith Faith’s unclouded eyes;
“Oh! could we bid our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And view the Canaan that we love
With Faith’s unclouded eyes;
“Could we but stand where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,Nor Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,Could fright us from the shore.”
“Could we but stand where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Nor Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,
Could fright us from the shore.”
“I also believe,” continued the lady, “that the dividing of the waters, which enabled the Israelites to pass over without so much as wetting their feet, is a type of the terrors of death being taken away from the Christian. Safe through the atoning sacrifice and happy in the love ofhis Lord, the believer can peacefully pass on to his promised land—heaven—with as little cause for fear as the Israelites had in crossing the dry bed of the Jordan.”
“Ah! the Israelites were a happy people,” said Amy, softly. “Think of their having God always to guide them by the pillar of fire and cloud, and holy Moses always to pray for them; and the beautiful promised land Canaan before them, and so many wonderful miracles worked for their good! I almost wish,” she added, “that I had lived in those days.”
“Happier are Christians in these days, my child,” said her mother, “for they know more, far more, of the Saviour’s love than was ever made known to the people of Israel. We have God’s sure Word to guide us in our wanderings through thedesert of life, and we have beyond that desert a far brighter land than Canaan, even heaven, promised and purchased by Him who prepares good things for those who love Him; and we have One far greater than Moses—One who ever liveth to plead for us at the right hand of God while we fight our battles against sin. Moses was a being of flesh and blood as we are; his arms grew tired, he needed to have them held up by Aaron and Hur; but the Lord Jesus in praying for His people never grows weary, and His love never grows cold. My children, when life was most like a desert to me, when your father had crossed the Jordan and left me behind, I cannot tell you what comfort and support I found in the knowledge of that prayer and the thought of that love!”
Mrs. Temple’s voice faltered, and Amy felt the hand which she was clasping tremble. The lady now very seldom gave way to any outward burst of sorrow in the presence of her children; her manner was usually cheerful and bright; but the elder ones could well remember how great had been her grief in the first sad days of her widowhood, when their father’s useful life had been closed by a peaceful death. The young Temples all respected their mother’s sorrow, and when she paused from emotion the room was so still that the crackling of the fire and the tick of the clock were the only sounds to be heard. But Mrs. Temple was not willing to throw even a brief shadow over the cheerfulness of her little family circle, and would not now have given way to herfeelings had not bodily weariness and pain made her less able to control them. Mrs. Temple very quickly recovered her usual tone, and said in her wonted cheerful manner, “My little Elsie’s eyes are growing sleepy, she can hardly manage to keep them open! My birdie had better fly up to her snug warm nest, and prepare by a good long rest for a busy to-morrow.”
“Oh, yes, to-morrow will indeed be a busy day!” exclaimed Lucius; “I mean to be up with the lark. I hope, mother,” he added, “that you won’t mind the noise of my hammer?”
Mrs. Temple with a smile assured her boy that she would not mind anything; she had not been a mother so long without becoming accustomed to noise, and shewould be just as much interested in the progress of the work of her children as they themselves could be.
“You will like me to get on with my little red curtains?” said Elsie, in rather a drowsy tone.
A fond kiss was the mother’s reply; and then Mrs. Temple herself took her youngest child up to her bed-room, for the lady always liked to hear Elsie repeat her evening prayer.
About an hour afterwards all the other young Temples had wished their mother good-night, and retired to the several apartments in which they slept. The twins shared the same room. It was a very pretty one, adorned with framed pictures painted by their Aunt Theodora, and lighted by candles in elegant greenglass candlesticks, which had been a birthday present to them from their mother. Both the girls were, on the night in question, more silent than usual, but from different causes.
As Agnes sat slowly brushing out her long plaits of brown hair, stopped every now and then by her cough, her thoughts dwelt much on the subject of the Israelites and their journey through the wilderness, which she was now taught to regard, not only as a historical fact, but also as a type of the life-journey of Christians.
Agnes was not by natural disposition so merry and light-hearted as her brother and sisters, and this difference between her and the rest of the family was all the more marked at the time of which I am writing, from the health of the elder twinbeing a good deal shaken by her illness. Agnes had naturally a peevish, passionate temper, which greatly marred her own peace of mind, and which prevented her from winning much love from her young companions. Agnes had many faults, and she knew that she had them; they were to her a trouble and burden. The young girl honestly wished to get rid of and conquer these faults, but she wanted energy and spirit to make a really good battle against her besetting sins. Agnes was too much disposed to conclude that because she was ill-tempered she must always continue ill-tempered, that there was no use in striving to subdue her evil nature. Mrs. Temple’s elder twin was wont to feel vexed and to look sullen because Lucius never cared to sit andchat with her as he would with Dora; and because Elsie never threw her arms round her neck as she would round Amy’s. It grieved Agnes to notice that no one ever called her “pet,” or seemed to take delight in having her near.
“I know that it is partly my own fault,” Agnes would often say to herself, in bitterness of soul; “but I don’t think that if I were to leave home for months, there is any one but mamma who would miss me or want me back.”
Such thoughts had only the effect of making the poor girl’s temper more cross, and her manner more peevish; it is so hard for the face to look bright and sweet when gloom is within the heart.
But better thoughts were in the mind of Agnes on that Sunday night, as she satsilently brushing her hair. Sweet and comforting was the reflection that she was not left to fight her battle alone, that there was One who would not only hear her prayer, but who would Himself pray for His feeble child—who would both watch her struggle against sin, and give her strength in that struggle. It was sweet to poor Agnes, when she afterwards knelt down to pray by the side of her bed, to feel that if she was, like an Israelite, bitten by the serpent of sin, she knew where to look for a cure; that if she was like Naaman the leper, there was the Fountain open to her, in which she could wash and be clean. Hope had sprung up in the young girl’s heart, and with hope came increase of courage. Agnes remembered that the Lord who had supplied all theneed of the Israelites could supply hers also; and when temptations assailed her, as the enemy assailed that people, make her also more than conqueror through the power of His Holy Spirit.
Very, very different were the thoughts passing through the mind of Dora, though outwardly she was doing exactly the same things as were done by her twin sister. Dora wasnotmaking a brave battle against inward sin, but was, like a coward and traitor, going over to the enemy’s side. It is true that she still intended to unpick on the Monday morning all that she had sewn on the Sunday afternoon; but this resolve was made on the false principle of punishing herself for the sin she would not honestly confess, and of which she had never truly repented. This idea of self-inflictedpunishment was merely Dora’s contrivance for quieting conscience, that conscience which had been very uneasy during the conversation on the subject of leprosy, the terrible type of sin. But Dora was trying, and with tolerable success, to banish from her mind all thought of that conversation. It was far more pleasant to think of the pattern of the Tabernacle curtains than of the holy things of which that Tabernacle should remind us.
A great many persons—even grown-up persons—act, alas! like Dora. They so fix their attention on outward things in religion that they quite overlook the inward meaning. Such self-deceivers are ready enough to work at what pleases the eye and amuses the fancy, and believe thatthey are making an offering to God; but the cleansing of the heart, the giving up sin—these are duties which they shrink from, and which they willingly put off to “a more convenient season.”
A
ALMOST every inmate of Cedar Lodge was up very early on Monday morning, Agnes being the only member of the family who did not rise till her usual hour. The first crow of the cock, strutting about in the yard behind the house, roused little Elsie from sleep. The child was restless and impatient in her white-curtained cot, until she was suffered to rise, dress, and set about her Turkey-red work for the model. Amy was bending over her strip of whitelinen almost before there was sufficient light for her to see how to thread her fine needle, for the morning was dark and rainy; indeed the sun never showed his face during the whole of that cheerless day.
Drip, drip! fell the rain, but none of the children regretted that they were not likely to go out of the house. “I don’t mind the rain one bit!” cried Elsie. “I’m glad that it rains; we’ll get on so famously with our work!”
Drip, drip! fell the rain; clink, clink! fell the hammer of Lucius; and blithe sounded his whistle, as he labored in the midst of his squares of pasteboard, strips of wood, and lengths of wire. The schoolboy set to his work with a will; and how pleasant is work when we have strengthand spirit to do it, and feel that we have a worthy object before us!
No one was up earlier than Dora. She sprang from her bed before twilight had given place to day-light, so impatient was she to get to her embroidery pattern again. The noise of Dora’s rising awoke Agnes, who had not passed so good a night as her more vigorous twin had done, the sickly girl having been several times disturbed by her cough.
“What are you about, Dora?” murmured Agnes, in a drowsy and rather complaining tone; “I’m sure that it can’t be nearly time to get up.”
“Oh, I like to set about my new work quickly, and get a good piece of it done before breakfast,” was Dora’s reply.
“There will be plenty of time for workbetween this and Christmas; I wish that you would keep quiet and let me rest,” yawned Agnes.
“You can rest if you wish it; I won’t make a noise,” replied Dora. “But for my part I like to be up and doing. You know that:
‘Early to bed, and early to rise,Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.’”
‘Early to bed, and early to rise,Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.’”
‘Early to bed, and early to rise,
Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.’”
Agnes said nothing in contradiction of the old proverb which her sister had quoted, but turned round on her pillow, and with a weary yawn composed herself again to sleep. She thought that it would be time enough to get up when Susan should call her at a quarter to seven, and she only wished that Dora had thought so also, for it fidgeted Agnes to hear her moving about in the room. ButDora had cared as little about disturbing the sleep of a sickly sister as she had about letting her mother go out in the rain. Dora admired her own energy, and looked upon Agnes almost with scorn, as being lazy, cold, and dull, with not a bit of enthusiasm in her nature.
“We should not have had a model worth looking at had the embroidery been left to her,” said Dora to herself, not without a feeling of self-complacence, as she glanced at her twin who had again sunk into slumber.
It will be remembered that Dora had resolved to unpick all the work that she had sewn upon the preceding Sunday. As soon as the little girl had hastily finished her toilet, so hastily that she forgot to button her sleeves or put on hercollar, she opened her workbox, took out her work, and seated herself as close to the window as possible, in order to catch as much as she could of the dim light of dawn. It might have been expected that Dora would also have forgotten to say her prayers, but such was not the case. She remembered to kneel down by her bedside and hurry through a mere form of words, without paying the slightest attention to their meaning, thinking of her embroidery all the time. It was a satisfaction to the conscience of Dora that she had repeated a prayer, and she never stopped to ask herself whether that prayer were not in itself a sin.
Dora with needle and scissors set first to her work of unpicking. But every one who has tried such an occupation mustknow it to be one of the most tedious and disagreeable of tasks. It was doubly so to Dora, because she greatly admired the embroidery work which she was thus beginning to spoil.
“It is a great pity to undo this,” Dora said to herself before she had been for two minutes plying the scissors. “I won’t go on with this foolish unpicking. After all, my undoing every stitch of my pretty work would not undo the fault of my having put it in on Sunday.”
This was indeed true. A fault once committed, no human being has power to undo; but while looking to the Lord alone for forgiveness, we are bound to prove the sincerity of our regret for a fault by making what amends lie in our power. Dora took the easier, but far more dangerousway, of trying to forget the fault altogether, or to make up for it by what she considered to be her zeal in charity work. She certainly sewed very diligently on that dull morning, scarcely lifting her eyes from the pattern which she had neatly traced on the linen. She was filling up the pencilled outlines with chain-stitch, satin-stitch, and other stitches, in bright-colored silks and a brilliant thread of gold.
“Oh, look!—just look how famously Dora has been getting on with her work!” exclaimed the admiring Elsie, when, summoned by the bell at half-past eight, the children had assembled in the breakfast-room, awaiting their mother’s coming down to prayers.
“Why, you don’t mean to say that youhave worked all that this morning?” said Lucius to Dora.
The question was rather an awkward one for Dora to answer—it took the girl by surprise. Dora replied to it by an evasion, which was another act of deceit. “I couldn’t begin my embroidery on Saturday night,” she said, actually congratulating herself that she had this time spokenthe exact truth, as if it were not the very essence of falsehood todeceive, even though the lips may utter no lie. As Dora had not sewn on Saturday, she knew that Lucius would take it for granted that she had been so clever and industrious as to do all the work which he saw on the Monday morning, for he would certainly never suspect her of having put in one stitch upon Sunday.
“Don’t you admire Dora’s curtain, is it not lovely?” said Amy to Agnes, who was examining the work of her twin.
“Rather,” was the reply, uttered in a hesitating tone.
Agnes could not truthfully have expressed warmer admiration, for she did not think that the figures of the cherubim were at all gracefully drawn, nor did she consider that the colors were perfectly blended, there being too little scarlet in proportion to the purple and blue. But the cold praise of the twin was not unnaturally set down by her family as coming from a mean, unworthy motive.
“She is as jealous as a cat!” exclaimed Lucius; “Agnes can’t forgive poor Dora for having been trusted with the most difficult part of the work.”
The irritable temper of Agnes fired up in a moment at an observation which she felt to be unjust as well as unkind. But Agnes on that Monday morning had not merely said her prayers, she had really prayed for grace to conquer besetting sin, and now, though she could not help her cheeks flushing scarlet at the taunt of her brother, she pressed her lips closely together, and kept down the passionate reply which it was so hard, so very hard, not to utter.
“How much of your work have you done this morning, Agnes?” asked Elsie, rather proudly, showing her own three inches of seam in the Turkey-red cloth.
“I have cut out my mohair curtains,” said Agnes, who had also, though she did not choose to say so, been mending hergloves, in obedience to the known wish of her mother.
“Cut out—only cut out?” laughed Lucius, who had been doing great things in the nailing and hammering line; “if you take the matter so easily, Agnes, every one willcut you out, though you may not be made into curtains!”
Agnes was provoked at the joke, and all the more so because Dora and Elsie laughed, and Amy could not help smiling. Few persons like to be laughed at, and the peevish-tempered Agnes was certainly not one of the few. But the girl had made a resolve, not in vain trust in her own power of carrying it out, but in a spirit of humble prayer, to set a watch before her lips; and if she could not speak kindly, not to utter a single word.Agnes could not, indeed, yet manage to take a disagreeable joke with smiling good humor, but she bore it in resolute silence, she did not utter any retort.
No one admired Agnes Temple, no one praised her self-command: she was thought lazy because she had not eagerly rushed into an occupation in which she took no particular pleasure, and for which she knew that she would find plenty of time without neglecting more homely duties; she was thought jealous because she had simply spoken the truth; and yet on that day Agnes had begun a nobler work than that of embroidering in purple and gold, and her offering was a far more acceptable one than that of which Dora was proud.
W
“WHAT a busy, cheerful little party!” exclaimed Mrs. Temple, as she entered the study on the afternoon of that same day, and found all her children sitting together, sewing, cutting, gilding, and chatting merrily as they worked. “You remind me of the busy, happy scene outside Jerusalem, beheld every year when the Feast of Tabernacles was kept.”
“What was the Feast of Tabernacles, mamma?” inquired Amy. Lucius wouldhave asked the same question, but he dared not speak at that moment lest his breath should blow away the sheet of gold-leaf with which he was trying to cover his wires.
“The Feast of Tabernacles was a yearly festival held by the Israelites in remembrance of the time spent by their fathers in tabernacles or tents in the desert,” replied the lady. “This was the most cheerful of all the feasts, and was kept in a remarkable manner. The people made booths for themselves of the branches of palm, willow, and other trees, and for seven days lived in these booths. There were processions, glad hosannas, and sounds of singing and mirth. The people enjoyed their out-of-door life, and blessed the Lord for His goodness in guidingthe Israelites through the wilderness to the good land in which their children now dwelt.”
“One could hardly keep such a feast in England,” observed Agnes, glancing out of the window at the gray sky and the dripping trees, which were dimly reflected in the pools left by the morning’s rain.
“I think that living in green leafy booths would be delightful in summer, even in England!” exclaimed Lucius, who had managed to fix his gold-leaf. “I should have liked, had I been a Jew, to have kept the Feast of Tabernacles—better perhaps than to have helped to make this model Tabernacle,” added the boy, who, after several hours of steady work, was beginning to feel rather tired. “I should much prefer hewing down branches,and doing the rough carpentering part of the business, to gilding these tiresome, fidgety wires, which I am sure to ungild again as soon as I attempt to fix them into their frame.”
“What, you are weary of your work already!” exclaimed Dora, as she paused in her sewing to thread her needle.
“Not exactly weary of it now,” answered Lucius, “but I guess that I shall be so long before this model is finished. It is all very well,” he continued, taking up his knife to hack away at some stubborn pasteboard—“it is all very well to make pillars and curtains while the sky is cloudy, and the rain falls fast, and I am kept prisoner at home; but suppose that the rain should stop, and the sun shine out, and the weather become settled at last, wouldn’t everyone of us like running about in the fields all day, playing at cricket, or croquet, or rounders, better than measuring and cutting and——there! snap goes my knife, my new knife!” and with a gesture of impatience the boy flung the unmanageable pasteboard down on the table.
There was much to justify the suspicion expressed by Lucius that the work so eagerly begun by the Temples would, before it could be finished, become a burden and a tax upon the patience of all. On the very next day began a season of warmth and sunshine, which did more to drive away coughs and restore vigor to late invalids than could all the skill of the doctor. Even Agnes was able to spend hours in the open air; and, except at mealtimes, Lucius liked to be out all the day.His fidgety work, as he called it, could scarcely be done but indoors, and the boy found it a grievous task.
“But it would be a shame not to go on with the model now, after putting mamma to so much trouble and expense,” observed Lucius one morning to Dora. “Besides, I engaged to do it, and no English boy must flinch back from keeping his word. The new knife which I bought yesterday is not to be compared to that which I so unluckily snapped over the pasteboard; but I must hack away steadily, and show a good example to that lazy puss Elsie, who since the fine weather began has not put another stitch into her Turkey-red curtains.”
“She has stowed them away in her doll’s cradle,” observed Dora, laughing.
Mrs. Temple was not surprised to find that the making of the model now progressed more slowly; she was rather pleased to see the amount of perseverance shown by her children after the charm of novelty had worn off. Even the “lazy puss” drew her work from its hiding-place, and would sew—for five minutes at a time—“just to please dear mamma.” All the five Temples continued to work, when work had ceased to be an amusement; but they worked from different motives. Those which influenced Lucius—a manly, honorable boy—have been mentioned already, as well as the simple wish to please mother which made Elsie prick her plump little finger under her Turkey-red cloth. But if you could glance into the hearts of the three other girlsas they sit together industriously plying their needles, we should find an example of how the very same effect may be produced by different causes.
Amy had from the very first considered her humble work as something to be done for her Heavenly Master, and this sweet thought made her take pleasure in labor, which without it would have been wearisome indeed. It was this thought which made Amy put fine hemming and stitching into the long strips of white lawn which represented the linen curtains surrounding the court of the Tabernacle, and even unpick any portion which did not seem to her to be sewn neatly enough. Amy tried to give her best, her very best work, because she was giving it to the Lord, and some of the happiest hours which the littlegirl ever had known were spent over her tedious curtains.
“I cannot think, Amy, how you can go on so patiently with what is so tiresome, with no variety in it, and a kind of work which will not look striking when all is done,” exclaimed Dora one day, as she unrolled some glittering gold thread from her reel.
Amy smiled as she glanced up at her sister’s far more amusing occupation. “If I could have worked anything so pretty as the veil which you are making, I daresay that I should have liked it much better,” she observed. “But I am pleased to do the plain work as well as I can, as the embroidery would have been far too difficult for me.”
Amy’s curtains might seem plain to theeyes of most people, but her mother looked upon them with special pleasure; for, as she said to herself, “they are embroided all over with faith and love.”
Agnes also made steady progress with her not very inviting work, though she took in it no great pleasure. Agnes regarded the sewing as a matter of duty, and therefore plied her needle in the same spirit as that in which she struggled to subdue her temper, and tried to put a bridle on her tongue. It was the work which had been given to her, and she would do it, without asking herself whether she liked it or not.
“This material, neither smooth nor pretty, is something like a type of me,” thought Agnes, as she put the finishing stitch into one of her mohair curtains;“but the goats’-hair had just as much its appointed place in the Tabernacle as loops of silver and sockets of gold. I shall never be as much liked and admired as Dora is—I may as well make up my mind to that; but if God help me by His grace, I too may lead a useful life, and be dear—at least to my mother.”
And more and more dear was Agnes becoming to her mother, who watched with the keen eye of affection the struggle made by her eldest daughter against her besetting sins. Mrs. Temple guessed what it cost Agnes to bear a rough joke in silence, to lend pretty things which she feared that the borrower might spoil, to give up her own way, and to show no jealous anger when another was preferred before her.
“My girl’s character is becomingstronger and nobler every day,” thought Mrs. Temple; “I thank the Lord for my Agnes, for I am sure that it is His grace that is working in her heart. Agnes promises to grow up into a really valuable woman, one whom her mother can trust.”
Mrs. Temple could not have said as much for her dearly loved Dora. The lady was perplexed and pained to feel that something—she knew not what it could be—seemed to have come between her and her bright, clever, affectionate child. Dora, indeed, gave Mrs. Temple no cause to find fault with her conduct; her lessons were well learned, her temper was good, she was a favorite still with her brother and sisters; and yet her mother felt that there was a change in her Dora for which she could not account. Mrs.Temple was wont to have little quiet conversations separately with each of her children at night: in these meetings they were able to open their hearts more freely to their mother than they could have done had a third person been present, and their parent could speak upon religious subjects in the way best suited to the character and age of each. These quiet moments spent alone with mamma had been greatly prized by all the children; but Dora could take pleasure in them no more, and her parent was conscious that such was the case. The girl generally managed, only too easily, to forget all about her unrepented sin when the remembrance of it was not forced upon her now half-deadened conscience, but when her mother sat by her bedside and softly talked to her aboutheaven, Dora grew uneasy in spirit. She did not like to be reminded of the holy God whose law she had broken—what pleasure could the knowledge of His truth bring to one who was conscious of unrepented falsehood! The returns of Sundays, nay, even the hour for family prayer, were never welcome to Dora. When she repeated texts or hymns, as the rest of the family did, she had the wretched consciousness that she was acting a hypocrite’s part, and taking God’s name in vain. Dora’s life was becoming one long act of deceit. She was secretly ashamed of herself for appearing so much better than she in reality was.
“But my work—my beautiful work—my work for the poor—I’ll make up for what I’ve done wrong by taking extra painswith that!” thought Dora. And so the poor girl usually succeeded in winning much praise from others, and in deceiving her own sinful heart, only too willing to be thus deceived.
T
“THERE is one thing which we can’t do, it is too hard for even Dora,” observed Elsie one morning at breakfast, when, as was often the case, the Children’s Tabernacle had formed a topic of conversation. “We can’t make models of the Ark, or the Altar, or the Table of Showbread; our pretty curtains won’t cover anything, the Tabernacle will be quite empty!”
“I really could not undertake to do more than I am doing, even if my fingerscould manage to make such tiny models,” said Lucius, who, as we have seen, already found that he had engaged in a difficult task.
Agnes, Dora, and Amy were silent; they all felt that there would certainly be a great want in their Tabernacle, but they did not see how that want could possibly be supplied.
The young Temples little guessed that while their mother was in her own room, engaged, as they supposed, in reading or writing, or making up her household accounts, she was preparing for them a pleasant surprise. Mrs. Temple was not less with her family than usual, she did not neglect her house affairs, she never forgot either to order the dinner or to pay the butcher and baker, but she stole timefor her novel employment from her sleep, and from her favorite amusement of reading library books.
On the day when the model was completed, when the last silver socket had been fastened, and the last little curtain hemmed, the children had the pleasure of setting up the Tabernacle in the study, to see how it looked. There was great satisfaction in surveying the finished work; every one felt glad that the long labor was over, and that he had had a share in the work.
“How pleased auntie will be!” cried Elsie.
“And the ragged children, too,” joined in Amy.
“And now go out for your walk, my dear ones,” said their mother; “themorning is so frosty and bright that you may make your walk a long one; I should not be surprised should you wander as far as Burnley woods. I shall not expect you back for a couple of hours.”
“Mother, you will go with us,” said Lucius.
“I will be particularly engaged this morning,” replied Mrs. Temple, as she shook her head with a smile. Elsie remarked afterwards that it had been “a knowing kind of smile,” as if there had been some very particular reason indeed for her mamma’s stopping at home. The reason was clear enough to all the party when they returned from their walk, and with their cheeks rosy from the fresh air and exercise re-entered the study. The children found their mother standing besidethe model. Elsie, who was the first to run up to it, gave almost a scream of delight.
“Oh! see—see what mamma has been making! Clever mamma!” she cried, clapping her hands, and jumping for joy.
“What lovely little models!” exclaimed Lucius. “Mother, it is you who have cut us all out.”
“You have done what none of us could have done,” said Agnes.
“And so quietly too,” observed Dora.
“There is nothing wanting now!” cried Amy, putting her arm fondly around the parent who had so kindly entered into the little pleasures of her children.
“I thought that one thing more was wanting,” said Mrs. Temple. The lady seated herself beside the table, and tookoff the cover of a little pasteboard box which she held in her hand. The children looked on with mingled curiosity and pleasure as their mother carefully drew out from it a beautiful little figure about two inches long, exquisitely dressed in miniature garments, representing those which were worn by the high-priest of Israel. To imitate these garments in a size so small, had taxed the utmost skill of the ingenious and neat-fingered lady.
I need not set down all the exclamations of wonder and pleasure which were uttered by the younger Temples. If their mother’s great object had been to gratify her children, that object was certainly attained.
“The dress which I have tried to imitate,” said the lady, “is that in whichthe high-priest appeared on solemn occasions. The Day of Atonement was, however, an exception; on that most solemn day in the year, when the high-priest ventured into the Holy of holies, he did so in simple garments of pure white linen.”
The mother then showed and explained to her family the different articles of dress on her curious model. The under-tunic, or shirt, of linen, and above it the mantle of sky-blue color, having at the bottom an ornamental border or fringe.
“This fringe, which, as you see, I have cut out in the form of tiny pomegranates, ought to be interspersed with bells of gold,” said Mrs. Temple; “but my fingers could not succeed in making anything so very minute.”
“And unless we had looked through amicroscope, we could not have distinguished bells no bigger than needles’ eyes,” observed Lucius.
“And what is this fine uppermost garment, reaching to the knees?” inquired Dora, looking admiringly on the delicate embroidery in gold and colors similar to that which she had herself worked for the Veil, only a great deal finer.
“This is the Ephod,” replied Mrs. Temple. “On the front of it I have, as you see, worked in very small beads of various colors an imitation of the high-priest’s breastplate, which was formed of twelve precious stones.”
The minute breastplate excited more attention than any other part of the high-priest’s dress, and had, perhaps, given the skilful worker more troublethan all the rest. Every one of the little beads was of a different tint. They were closely set together in rows, so as to form a square ornament, and were fastened to the shoulder parts of the Ephod by little threads of gold.
“How very splendid the real breastplate must have been!” exclaimed Dora Temple.
“Had it also some typical meaning?” asked Lucius. “I suppose so,” he added, “as everything about the Tabernacle and the high-priest seems to have been a type of something greater.”
“On each of the precious stones in the splendid breastplate was inscribed the names of one of the twelve tribes of Israel,” replied Mrs. Temple. “I believe that the breastplate was worn by the high-priest, who was to pray in the Tabernacle for thepeople, and then to come forward and bless them, as a token that he bore their names on his heart.”
“Oh, that is a beautiful meaning!” cried Amy; “especially when we think,” she continued, more softly, “that the high-priest was a type of our blessed Saviour Himself.”
“Who bears all His people’s names on his heart,” observed Mrs. Temple; “both when He pleads for them in heaven, and when He blesses them upon earth.”
“The high-priest must have looked very noble and grand in his rich garments,” observed Lucius; “and yet it seems too much honor for any mere man to be called a type of the Son of God.”
“Ah, my boy! poor and mean indeed must any earthly type appear when comparedto the heavenly Antitype!” exclaimed Mrs. Temple. “That thought came strongly to my mind as I was sewing together these little worthless glass beads to form the model of the glorious breastplate. ‘Can these wretched little atoms of colored glass,’ I said to myself, ‘give any idea of magnificent jewels, sparkling in light, set in gold, and each engraved with a name?’ But even so mean, and small, and insignificant was Aaron, in all his splendor, compared to the sacred Being who deigns to call Himself our High-Priest, and to make intercession for us above!”
All the party were silent for several moments, looking down at the little model, and thinking over the words of their mother. Elsie then pointed to the curioushead-dress which appeared on the figure. It was not exactly a turban, though it was formed of tight rolls of linen. It had the representation of a plate of gold in front, fastened on to it by a blue thread.
“That head-dress is called the high-priest’s bonnet or mitre,” observed Mrs. Temple. “There are rather different opinions regarding its exact shape. It cost me a good deal of thought to contrive it, and here again I felt how impossible it is to give anything like a just idea of the real object in a model so small as this. You see that I have not neglected to put a little gold plate on the front of the mitre; but I had no power to form letters so minute as to represent on it what was engraved on that which the high-priest wore. This was ‘Holiness to the Lord.’”
“Then the high-priest had the Lord’s Name written over his brow,” observed Agnes. “It makes one think of the promise in the Bible, that saints in heaven shall have His Name written on their foreheads.” (Rev. xxii. 4.)
“All will be ‘Holiness to the Lord’ in that happy place!” observed Amy.
It was pleasanter to Dora to examine the little model before her, and to admire and praise her mother’s skill, than to think of what was inscribed on the mitre worn by Aaron and his successors. It is the sad, sad effect of sin concealed in the heart, that it keeps those who indulge it from daring even towishto be holy.
The Tabernacle was now carefully taken down, piece by piece, to be packed in a box, ready to be carried along with therest of their luggage when the family should quit their home for awhile. Every curtain was neatly folded, and all the pillars carefully wrapped up in paper. The figure representing the high-priest was gently put back into its own little box, and all the other little objects were packed in cotton, so as to bear without injury a little jolting on the journey before them.
With additional pleasure the young Temples now looked forward to the coming Christmas season, and the long-expected visit which they were to pay to their Aunt Theodora.