S
SEVERAL months have passed away since the Temples began making their model of the Tabernacle of Israel. The leaves which were then green on the trees, have become yellow, have faded and fallen; save those on the evergreens, which wear a silver crusting of frost. But it is not to Cedar Lodge that I shall take my young readers, but to a large and rather plain brick house in the city of Chester. It is a house by no means beautiful to the eye, and its onlylook-out is into a narrow paved street; but still that house has a charm of its own, it is dear to many a heart, for its owner, Miss Theodora Clare, is the friend and benefactress of the poor around. Many have entered sadly through the dark green door of that red-brick house, who have left it cheerfully, blessing the kind heart and liberal hand of its lady.
It is just two days before Christmas: on the morrow Miss Clare’s Ragged School is to have its annual treat. A feast and gifts of warm socks or mittens knitted for each child by the lady’s own hands, are not to form the only, or perhaps the chief attractions of the treat; the little scholars have been promised a sight of the model Tabernacle, which its young makers are to bring from their country home, aboutten miles away. Christmas Eve has been fixed upon by Miss Clare as the time for her Ragged School Fête, because it is the birthday of her twin nieces, the younger of whom is her namesake. The arrival of the Temple family is expected almost every minute, and Miss Clare sits by the window, with the red glow of a December sun upon her, glancing up with a look of pleasant expectation whenever she hears the rattle of wheels along the narrow paved street. You might guess at once by the likeness between them that Miss Clare is the sister of Mrs. Temple, though her figure is a little taller, and her locks a little whiter than those of the widow lady.
Miss Clare is evidently thinking; she looks a little perplexed and doubtful as she examines the contents of a large old-fashionedebony box which holds her little treasures. Not treasures of silver or gold; there are but few indeed of such things in the possession of Theodora Clare: her silver spoons have fed the hungry; her gold chain has paid for the benches on which her ragged scholars sit, and her bracelets for the books which they learn from, and the big blackboard on the wall. A good many pairs of stout little shoes have come out of Miss Clare’s silver tea-pot! But there is one article of jewellery which the lady still possesses, and this is to her the most precious of all. It is the likeness of her sister, Mrs. Temple, in a brooch, set round with pearls. This was the gift of Mr. Temple on his wedding-day to the bridesmaid, Theodora; it is very beautiful as an ornament, and asa likeness almost perfect. But not even this jewel does the generous lady intend to keep for herself; it is to be her birthday present on the following day to Dora.
Miss Clare has for years settled in her own mind that her god-daughter should receive the precious brooch on completing the twelfth year of her age; it is no doubt upon this subject that perplexes her now; (for the lady does look a little perplexed as she searches her old-fashioned box for something which she seems to have some difficulty in finding). She opens this little packet, then that little packet, then silently shakes her head, or murmurs “No, that will not do,” as she replaces it in the large box. The reader knows that Dora has a twin sister, and that the birthday of the one is also the birthday of the other.Miss Clare does not like to give to Dora without also giving to Agnes, and as her hospitality and her charities leave her very little money for buying presents, she wishes to find some suitable article already in her possession of which to make a birthday remembrance. But what should that article be? Almost everything that would please a young girl had already been given away.
“I have nothing—nothing that can be compared in value or in beauty with the brooch,” said Miss Clare to herself, as she locked the box where she had been vainly searching amongst locks of hair neatly wrapped in separate papers, old letters, and little pictures faded and yellow with time. “I hope that Agnes is too sensible a girl to expect that my preciousbrooch should be given to herself instead of to my namesake, who is to me almost as a daughter; but still Agnes is the elder of the twins; she is, I fear, of rather a jealous temper; her character has not—or had not a year ago—the generosity and sweetness of that of my Dora. I should be grieved to hurt the feelings of either of the dear girls; what can I find that will really please Agnes?”
Miss Clare had really given the subject a good deal of consideration, though apparently to little purpose, when a thought occurred to her mind which brought a smile of satisfaction to her kind pleasant face. Miss Clare rose from her seat by the window, and went to a table which had in it a drawer, hidden by the neat brown cloth that hung over the sides.The lady lifted the cloth, drew open the drawer, and then took from it a flat parcel wrapped in a peculiar kind of yellowish paper, with that scent about it which usually pervades articles which have come from India.
“Here is the delicate little embroidered neck-scarf which was sent to me years ago, and which I have always thought much too fine for my wear,” said the lady, as she opened the parcel. “This will of course be a gift not to be compared to the brooch; but still it is pretty, very pretty; I think that Agnes is sure to admire it.”
It was indeed impossible not to admire the exquisite embroidery in gold and colors on the small India-muslin scarf. The natives of India excel in this kind of work, and the little scarf was a gem ofbeauty for richness of pattern and brightness of hue. Miss Clare’s only doubt was whether such an article of dress were not too gay to be given to her young niece.
Miss Clare had little time to think over this matter, for hardly had she put back the pretty piece of embroidery into its paper wrapping, and then replaced it in the drawer, when the rattle of wheels was heard on the stones, and a large carriage, well filled within, and with plenty of luggage without, was driven up to the door. Well Miss Clare knew the smiling eager faces which crowded the carriage window, and the merry young voices which sounded through the clear cold winter air. The lady ran hurriedly to meet and welcome the party, and was at the open door, notwithstanding the cold of frosty December,before Mrs. Temple and her five children could manage to get out of the carriage in which they had been too closely packed for comfort, but in which they had been very noisy and merry. All trace of whooping cough had long since departed, and the sounds which had been heard in the carriage had been only those of talking, laughing, and singing!
M
“MIND, coachman, mind! You must hand down that box very carefully!” shouted out Lucius to the driver, who was now engaged in taking down the luggage. The boy had been the first of the party to spring out of the carriage, but he was the last to enter the house, for all his thoughts seemed to be taken up by the long, flat deal box which had been put under the special care of the coachman, with many a charge to see that no harm should cometo it on the journey. Had the box been a cradle containing a baby, it could hardly have been more gently and carefully received from the coachman’s hands, and then carried up the door-steps and into the red-brick house by Lucius. Did it not hold the result of the labor of many weeks!—was there not in it the work completed by the family’s united efforts, the beautiful model of the Tabernacle made by the children of Israel!
“Oh, auntie, here is our great work—our model! Where shall we set it up? Have you a table ready? It is all finished—every loop! Oh, you must see it! you must see it!” Such were the exclamations which burst from the children as Lucius appeared in the hall, laden with the long, flat deal box.
Miss Clare had not yet seen the model, though she had heard a great deal about it, and had given notice to many friends and neighbors of the little exhibition of it,[B]to be held in her house through the following week, for the benefit of her school. She was amused at the eager impatience shown by the youthful workers. Except Agnes, who took the matter more quietly, none of the Temples cared even to warm themselves by the blazing fire after their wintry journey until the model Tabernacle had been unpacked from its box.
“Please, auntie, please don’t look at it till it’s all set up!” exclaimed Elsie, in atone of entreaty. “You can talk to mamma, you know, while we are unrolling the little curtains (I did the Turkey-red curtains)—and fastening them up on the gilded pillars by the wee wee loops which are made of silver thread!”
Miss Clare was quite willing to indulge the humor of her young guests, so that she did not even remain in the room while the Tabernacle was being put up on the table set apart for the purpose. She took her sister, Mrs. Temple, up-stairs, and helped her to take off her cloak and furs, and talked over many subjects with her, while the young people below were busily engaged with their model. It was not until nearly two hours had elapsed, and after the party had all partaken of a dinner of roast beef and plum-pudding,that Miss Clare re-entered her own sitting-room to have her first sight of the wonderful work.
For wonderful it was in the eyes of its youthful contrivers, who knew the trouble which it had cost them to finish and fix those numerous pillars and curtains, with sockets and loops. The Temples regarded their model as a triumph of art and patience, much as the builder of one of the Pyramids may have regarded his own gigantic work. Miss Clare was expected to look and feel a good deal more astonished than she could in sincerity do; but if she was not astonished, at least she was pleased, and showed that she was so.
“It’s a pity, auntie, that you can’t see more of my Turkey-red curtains; I wish they’d been the top ones,” cried Elsie,lifting up a corner of the merino covering to show her own work beneath.
“These linen curtains round the court of the Tabernacle are neatly, very neatly made,” observed Miss Clare; “with so many silver loops they must have required a great deal of patience in the worker.”
Amy colored with pleasure at the praise; she had not expected her own share of the work to attract much notice. She now silently drew her aunt’s attention to the pretty little gilded pillars upon which her curtains were hung.
“But the beauty part—the real beauty part—is the ’broidery, the inner curtains, and the veil!” exclaimed Elsie. “Oh, auntie, you will be astonished at them. Just stoop down and look in—just lookin! We’ve managed to leave the front open, and the veil is half-drawn aside, so that you can see the inner part quite well. No one could see the inner part of the real Tabernacle, you know; but then ours is only a model.”
The lady stooped, as requested, and looked through the space between the front pillars, not only into the outer Tabernacle, but beyond the veil into what, in the model, represented the Holy of holies. Dora, who had for months been looking forward to this moment, listened eagerly to hear what her darling aunt would say of her work.
Miss Clare, it will be remembered, had that day been examining a lovely specimen of some of the most finished embroidery to be found in any part of the world.Dora’s work was clever, regarded as that of a girl not twelve years of age, who had had to contrive her own pattern; but it was, of course, very poor compared to that on the Indian scarf.
“Is it not splendid ’broidery?” persisted Elsie, who wished others to share her own unbounded admiration for the work of a favorite sister.
“It is nice,” said Aunt Theodora, quietly, “but wants a little more scarlet, I think.”
And was this all that could be said of that which had cost Dora hours of thought, and many hours of patient labor—these few words of qualified praise! Dora was bitterly disappointed, far more disappointed than Agnes, whose curtains, whether mohair or merino, seemed to win no notice at all. There was good reason whyDora should feel pain which Agnes was spared. It was not time and labor only which the younger twin had given to gain success; she had made a sacrifice of conscience, she had forfeited her own self-respect, she had lost the blessing of confidential intercourse with her mother, and all pleasure and comfort in prayer! Dora had given up all this, and for what? To hear the observation, by no means unkindly uttered, “It is nice, but wants a little more scarlet.”
If Dora had ever believed that in working her embroidery she had really been laboring for anything higher than earthly pleasure or human praise, the extreme vexation which she now experienced must surely have undeceived her. Why should she care so much for what was said ofher performance if her real object was but to please her Heavenly Master? Agnes and Amy, who had worked from motives of duty and love, were safe from any such keen disappointment. They both looked with pleasure on the completed model, in forming which they had taken inferior parts; while Dora had to walk to the window to hide from the eyes of her family the mortification which she felt.
That day was a very happy one to all the members of the Temple family, Dora alone excepted. She felt a kind of dread of the evening conversation which she knew that she would have with her aunt. The eve of her last birthday Dora remembered as, perhaps, the happiest time of her life. Aunt Theodora had come to sit with her, and talk to her of her coming birthday—anew milestone, as she called it, on the pilgrim’s path towards heaven. Dora had on that evening opened her heart to her aunt, and the two had loved each other more fondly than they ever had loved before, and their parting embrace had been so sweet that Dora had felt that she could never forget it. Miss Clare was certain to come again this evening into her room—in this house Dora had a little room to herself—and must the niece act the hypocrite’s part to an aunt so loving and true; must the girl so trusted and loved make a show of openness while concealing a secret from her aunt, which, if confessed, must lower her in the eyes of that tender relative and friend?
Miss Clare did indeed come that night, as Dora had expected that she wouldcome. The girl soon found herself sitting on a stool with her arms resting on her aunt’s knee, as they had rested twelve months before; and she heard the same dear voice speaking to her of holy things, as she had heard on that well-remembered night. The room was the same, the furniture, the pictures were all the same, but Dora felt in her own heart a miserable change. Half a dozen times was the poor girl on the point of laying her head on her aunt’s knee, and sobbing forth a full confession to relieve her burdened heart. But to own repeated falsehood and long deceit to one herself so truthful, to lose the good opinion of one whose regard she so greatly valued, oh! Dora could not muster up courage sufficient for this!
“And now that you are making a newstart in life’s journey, my child,” such were the aunt’s concluding words as she rose to depart, “give yourself anew to the best of Masters, the most tender of Friends. Ask His blessing upon all that you do: without that blessing our best works are but like building on sand, or writing on water—all end in vanity and vexation of spirit. The great lesson taught us by the history of ancient Israel is this: the path of obedience is the path of safety and happiness also. When God’s people followed where He led, and did what He commanded, then were their hearts filled with joy, and their harps tuned to glad songs of triumph; but when the Israelites turned aside to paths of disobedience, sorrow followed close upon sin; they hung their harps on the willows, and, exilesfrom their beautiful land, they wept when they remembered the blessings which would still have been theirs, had they not forsaken their God!”
FOOTNOTE:[B]A. L. O. E. remembers attending, many years ago, exactly such an exhibition at the house of a friend, of a model of the Tabernacle made by a lady and her children for some charitable purpose.
[B]A. L. O. E. remembers attending, many years ago, exactly such an exhibition at the house of a friend, of a model of the Tabernacle made by a lady and her children for some charitable purpose.
[B]A. L. O. E. remembers attending, many years ago, exactly such an exhibition at the house of a friend, of a model of the Tabernacle made by a lady and her children for some charitable purpose.
T
The birthday of the twins had arrived; but the sun rises late on the twenty-fourth of December, and Dora was up, dressing by candlelight, long before his first beams shone on the sheet of pure white snow which had fallen during the night. It might be supposed that Dora’s thoughts would be on the words of advice which she had heard on the previous night; but though these words had made some impression at the time, it was by no meansupon them that the girl’s mind was running when she awoke in the morning. Dora was thinking of her embroidery work—that work of which she had been so proud, that work which had cost her so dear. Nothing that Miss Clare had said dwelt so much on the memory of her niece as the simple observation, “It wants a little more scarlet, I think.”
For on the mantelpiece of the room now occupied by Dora, there chanced to stand a glass bottle, corked and labelled; and by the light of her candle Dora had noticed that “SCARLET INK” was printed upon the label. The sight of that little bottle had roused in the mind of the girl new hopes, and again turned her energies into the channel of work.
“My supply of scarlet silk ran short,and I was not able to get another skein at the shop,” thought Dora. “Aunt is quite right, there is not enough of scarlet mixed with the purple and blue; it is that which spoils the effect of my curtains. I wonder that no one noticed that before! But I have a skein of white silk with me, and why should I not dye it myself with that beautiful scarlet ink? This is a capital idea! The school children do not come till the afternoon; I should have time to dye my silk before breakfast, and after breakfast to work enough scarlet into my pattern to give a brilliant effect to all that part which is most easily seen. How pleased Aunt Theodora will be to find that I have taken her hint, and that I grudge no extra trouble to make my work complete!How very lucky it is that she put that ink into my room!”
Dora actually forgot both her prayers and her Scripture reading on that birthday morning, in her impatience to get down-stairs and quietly remove her inner veil and curtains from the model, before any other member of the family should enter the room where it was kept. With rough hair, and dress only half-buttoned, Dora noiselessly opened her door, and then crept down the staircase, and into the sitting-room in which the Tabernacle stood, covered from the dust by large sheets of silver paper. There was no one in the room except the housemaid, who was employed in opening the shutters to let in the light of morning.
The model, as we know, was made to betaken to pieces at will; but as Dora’s set of curtains was the innermost of all, it cost her some time and trouble to remove them. She pursued her occupation, while the housemaid went on with that of lighting the fire and dusting the room, and was at last able to disengage the whole of the embroidered portion of the drapery of the little Tabernacle. With this Dora returned to her own apartment, and she laid her work on the pretty little table which her aunt had placed for her convenience.
“I must be quick about the dyeing,” said Dora to herself, “for I can hear Lucius whistling up-stairs in the passage, and little Elsie running about in the room just over my head. The family is now all astir, and in a quarter of an hour the prayer-bell will ring. If I don’t dye mysilk scarlet at once I shall be sadly delayed in my work, for I cannot, of course, use it for sewing until it is perfectly dry.”
So Dora took the bottle of ink down from its place on the mantelpiece, and in a great hurry set about removing the sealing-wax which covered the cork, for the bottle had not yet been opened. It was a tolerably easy matter to break off the edges of the red wax, but Dora did not find it easy at all to pull out the cork, which was low in the narrow neck of the bottle, and happened to be a very tight fit.
“Dear! dear! how troublesome this is!” exclaimed Dora, hunting about for her stout pair of nail scissors to help her in forcing out the obstinate cork.
“Good morning, Dora dear, manyhappy returns of the day to you!” cried the merry voice of Elsie, as she tapped at the door of her sister.
“Thank you, darling, don’t come in now; I’ll soon be down-stairs—I’m not quite ready!” called out Dora, who had just succeeded in finding the scissors. She heard the little feet patter down the stairs.
“Happy birthday to you, Dora! Mind you’re not late, Miss Twelve-years-old!” This time it was the voice of Lucius at the door.
“No, no, I’ll not be late; I’ll be down in ten minutes!” cried Dora, digging her scissors vigorously into the cork. The clatter of Lucius’s boots showed that he had followed little Elsie.
“Oh, this cork, this tiresome cork!”exclaimed Dora; “there, it’s out at last;” and setting the opened bottle on the table, she turned round in a great flurry to get from her box the skein of silk which was to be changed from white to scarlet.
“More haste, less speed.” Dora was not the first who has proved the truth of that proverb. She whisked round so rapidly that her dress struck the top of the bottle which she had carelessly set down in a place that was not very safe. The bottle was knocked over, but it fell upon something soft which lay on the table, so that it was neither broken, nor did it make enough noise in falling to attract the attention of Dora. It was not till she had found the skein (which she had some trouble in doing), that on turning back tothe table she perceived the mischief caused by her hasty movement.
What a start and exclamation of distress were given by poor Dora when she saw on the table her embroidery lying actually under the overturned bottle, and soaked through and through with the scarlet ink which had flowed in abundance from it!
Dora stood for a moment as if rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe her own eyes. She then darted forward, caught up the half-emptied bottle in one hand, and the stained, dripping linen in the other. The first glance at the embroidery showed the poor girl that the mischief done was utterly beyond repairing; in one minute the fruit of all her long toil had been completely destroyed!
“Oh, it is all my own fault—all my own fault—it could not have prospered!” cried out Dora, in a loud tone of anguish, as she put down first the bottle, then the embroidery, and then, hiding her face with her scarlet-stained fingers, she burst into a passion of weeping.
That cry, that weeping, reached the ears of her aunt, who had just approached her door, carrying with her the destined gifts for the twins—the Indian scarf, and the brooch with the miniature set in pearls.
“My darling girl, what is the matter?” exclaimed Miss Clare, opening the door in alarm. There was no need to repeat the unanswered question; the bottle, the little heap of embroidered linen dripping with scarlet ink, told their own story plainlyenough. Miss Clare saw the nature of the accident which had happened, and, with kind sympathy for her niece’s great disappointment, folded her affectionately in her arms.
I
“IT is vexatious, my Dora, very vexatious,” said Miss Clare, in a tone of condolence; “it is trying to you, after all the pains which you have bestowed on your work, to see that work suddenly spoiled. But still take comfort, dear child, in the thought that no labor undertaken for our Master can really be lost.”
Dora sobbed more bitterly than before, for she knew that hers had not been labor undertaken for the Master, and she feltthat her time and toil had been worse than lost.
Miss Clare did all that she could to comfort her favorite niece. She showed Dora the beautiful brooch which she herself valued so greatly; she told her that she had brought it as a birthday remembrance; but, much to the lady’s surprise, Dora only shook her head sadly, and sobbed forth, “Not for me—not for me! Oh, that model, I wish that I never had touched it—I wish that I had never set a stitch in one of those curtains!”
“I see that you are distressed, very naturally distressed, by the mishap which has befallen your curtains, fearing that thereby the whole model may be spoilt,” observed Theodora. “You are thinking of the disappointment of your brother andsisters, of the Ragged-school children who are coming to-day, of my friends who are invited to see the model. You think that there is no time to repair the effects of the spilling the scarlet ink; but I think that I see a way to remedy the mischief;” and Miss Clare, as she spoke, placed before the weeping girl her beautiful embroidered scarf. “I had intended to give this to Agnes when I gave you the miniature brooch, but I will now alter my plan. I will try to find out, or purchase, some other remembrance for Agnes; and, with a little alteration, do you not think, my sweet girl, that this work will do nicely for the inner curtains and veil?”
“A thousand times better than mine could have done!” exclaimed Dora, darting a glance of almost fierce dislike at theembroidery, now stained and marred, which she had once surveyed with such proud admiration.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Clare, very kindly; “for though the Indian scarf may be—certainly is in itself more beautiful than your curtains, we cannot see in it the same token of patient perseverance in making what was intended to be a humble offering of love to the Lord.”
“Oh, Aunt Theodora, I can stand this no longer!” exclaimed Dora, almost choking with the violence of her emotion; “you must know all, I can hide it no more; you must hear what a naughty, naughty girl I have been!”
Then, as well as she could through her tears and her sobs, Dora relieved herself of the burden of concealment which hadbecome at last intolerable. She told everything to her aunt—the first fault, the breaking of the fourth commandment; then the falsehood, the deceit which had followed, for when did an unrepented sin ever stand alone! Dora concluded by passionately exclaiming, “You cannot, you must not, give me the brooch—Agnes has deserved it much better; she has been conquering her temper and doing all that she can to please mamma, while I have been only a hypocrite! Please give the brooch to Agnes, and the scarf for the model; I could not bear now to take either—I who have only deserved to be punished!”
Miss Clare was surprised, pained, disappointed by what she now heard; yet there was comfort to her in seeing thatnow at least her poor niece was heartily repenting.
“I cannot tell you, my child, how thankful I am that this accident has happened to your work, and that you have been led to speak out bravely at last,” said her aunt, putting her arm round Dora, and drawing her tenderly towards her, so that the poor girl could weep on her bosom.
“Then you don’t despise me—you won’t give me up?” murmured Dora, crying still, but much more softly.
“Give you up—never!” cried the aunt, and she pressed a kiss upon Dora’s brow. “It may be a question, indeed, whether I had not better reserve the brooch till next birthday.”
“Oh, I never could take it, never!”cried Dora, excitedly; “let it be given to Agnes.”
“Do you think, Dora, that by giving up the brooch you are winning a claim to forgiveness—that by this sacrifice you are atoning for what you have done wrong?” asked Miss Clare. “If so, I am bound to tell you that you are mistaken.”
“No, aunt,” replied Dora, for the first time raising her eyes, heavy with weeping, and looking her godmother full in the face; “I know that nothing that I can do can atone for my sin—that there is but one Atonement; but I feel as if I could not take the brooch which you meant to give to a good girl, and which I have so little”— Dora could not finish the sentence, tears came again, and she hid her face on the bosom of her aunt.
Miss Clare hesitated no longer. She felt that it would deeply impress on the mind of Dora the painful lesson which she was learning, if she saw the brooch in the possession of her elder twin. What Theodora had heard from Mrs. Temple of the marked improvement in the character of Agnes, convinced her that she was the sister who best deserved to receive the miniature of her mother. Miss Clare made a sacrifice of her own inclination in thus deciding to follow her judgment, but she was in the habit of doing what she thought right, instead of what she thought pleasant.
“I will confess all to mamma, now, just as I have done to you—I won’t be a hypocrite any longer,” murmured Dora, as soon as she had recovered power to speak.
“And there is Another to whom my child must also confess,” said Miss Clare, still with her arm round her niece, still with Dora’s head on her breast; “there is One who is ready freely to forgive every penitent who approaches the Mercy-seat pleading the merits of Christ. We have no power to remove one spot from our souls;” the eyes of Miss Clare chanced to rest, as she spoke, on the embroidery, stained and destroyed; “but there is the Lord’s promise to comfort the broken and contrite heart, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow—though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
Dora and her aunt knelt down together and together prayed, but in silence. When Dora rose from her knees, thoughshe was still very sad and subdued, there was a peace in her heart, a sense of sin forgiven, which she had not experienced for months.
decoraition
D
“DORA is late—shockingly late—on her birthday too! Iamsurprised!” exclaimed Elsie, who was in a fidget of impatience to present her sister with a marker which she had made.
“And Aunt has kept us twenty—more than twenty minutes waiting for prayers!” cried Amy; “I am surprised, for she always is so punctual.”
“And Agnes has employed the time mending my gloves, the most surprising thing of all,” laughed Lucius.
“Why so surprising?” asked Elsie.
“Because a few months ago Agnes was much more given to picking holes than to sewing them up,” answered the boy. “I liked to plague her and she to tease me, and I thought that we should always live a kind of cat-and-dog life together. But now we’re going to be grand allies,” added the merry boy, clapping Agnes upon the shoulder; “by your example you’ll help to mend my manners as well as my gloves!”
Lucius spoke in his saucy playful way, but “there’s many a true word spoken in jest,” and he was but expressing what all the family had observed, that there was gradual but steady improvement in the outer conduct of the once peevish and selfish girl.
But the sharpest conflict of Agnes upon her twelfth birthday had been against a jealous spirit within. From a few words dropped by her aunt on the previous evening, Agnes felt sure that her mother’s likeness would be given as a birthday present to one of the twins, and she had not a doubt that the younger would be the one thus favored.
“It was just the same last birthday,” thought Agnes with bitterness: “I am given some makeshift, Dora has what is really of value. It is rather hard that she should always be preferred before her elder sister because she is called after my aunt, whilst I am named after my mother. But oh! how wicked is this feeling of jealousy, how sinful these unkind and covetous thoughts! Lord! help me toovercome this secret temptation, and to feel pleasure, real pleasure, when I see Dora wearing that which is so precious to us both!”
As the thought, or rather the prayer, passed through the mind of Agnes, the door opened and Miss Clare entered, followed by Dora. The lady held the beautiful brooch in her hand, and going up to the elder twin whom she had not met before on that morning, with a kiss and a whispered blessing, fastened the precious jewel on her breast.
That twenty-fourth day of December was a day long remembered with delight by many a poor child in Chester, for large was the number of scholars (it would be scarcely just to call them ragged) who enjoyedthe feast and the varied amusements provided for them in the large red house by their benefactress, Miss Clare.
Specially was the beautiful, the wonderful model which the young gentlefolk had made, the theme of many a conversation in the low courts and lanes from which the guests had been gathered. Worn, weary mothers, at their sewing or washing, paused, needle in hand, or with arms whitened with soap-suds, to hear of the golden pillars, and silver loops, and above all of the splendid embroidery that adorned the inner part of the model, that part which, as Miss Clare had told them, was called the Holy of holies.
“And the young ladies looked just as pleased and happy as we,” a bare-footed little urchin observed at the end of alively narration of all the wonders that he had seen; “all but one, and her eyes were red as if she’d been a-crying,—what couldshehave had to make her cry? But she smiled, too, when we clapped our hands and shouted for joy as we saw the beautiful tent!”
What delighted their eyes, and pleased their fancy, was what naturally made the greatest impression on the ragged scholars who had stared in wondering admiration on the model of the Tabernacle of Israel. But the concluding words of a little address made by Miss Clare to the children were what sank deepest into the memories and hearts of her twin nieces.
“I have described to you, my dear young pupils, the various parts of this model,” she said: “let me now brieflypoint out a few lessons which we should all carry away. In Israel’s Tabernacle we see aTYPEof every Christian, in whose body, as St. Paul tells us, God’s Holy Spirit deigns to dwell (1 Cor. iii. 16). In that living Tabernacle, the lowly heart is the Holy of holies, because it is cleansed by the blood of sprinkling, in it the Commandments of God are treasured, and the light of His love shines within. But as the Tabernacle was not intended to last forever, but to give place to a far more splendid building, so is it with these bodies of ours. As Solomon’s magnificent temple, glorious and fair, and firm on its deep foundation, far surpassed the Tabernacle made to be moved from place to place; so will the glorified bodies of saints, when they are raised from theirgraves, surpass these weak, mortal bodies in which they served their Lord upon earth. For what saith the Apostle St. Paul:—‘We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’” (2 Cor. v. 1.)
H
“HE is just like a bear!” that is a very common expression when we talk of some ill-tempered man or boy, who takes a pleasure in saying rude things, and who seems bent upon making every one near him as uncomfortable as he can.
But we may be unjust even to bears. Could you have gone to wintry Greenland, and seen Mrs. Bruin amidst her family of little white cubs, each scarcely bigger than a rabbit, you would have agreed thata bear can be a kind and tender mother, and provide for her four-footed babies a snug and comfortable home.
You would, indeed, have had some difficulty in finding Bear Hall, or Bear Hole, as we rather should call it. Perhaps in wandering over the dreary snow-covered plains of Greenland, you might have come upon a little hole in the snow, edged with hoar-frost, without ever guessing that the hole was formed by the warm breath of an Arctic bear, or that Mrs. Bruin and her promising family were living in a burrow beneath you.[C]How wonderfully does Instinct teach this rough, strange-looking creature to provide for her cubs! The mother-bear scrapes and burrows under the snow, till she hasformed a small but snug home, where she dwells with her baby-bears during the sharpest cold of an Arctic winter. So wonderfully has Providence cared for the comfort even of wild beasts, that the mother needs no food for three months! She is so fat when she settles down in her under-snow home, that her own plumpness serves her instead of breakfast, dinner, and supper; so that when at last she comes out to break her long fast, she is not starved, but has merely grown thin.
I need hardly remind my reader that the Arctic bear is provided by Nature with a thick, warm, close-fitting coat of white fur; and the snow itself, strange as it seems to say so, serves as a blanket to keep the piercing air from her narrow den.
Yes, Mrs. Bruin was a happy motherthough her cell was small to hold her and her children, and the cold above was so terrible that water froze in the dwellings of men even in a room with a fire. Mrs Bruin found enough of amusement in licking her cubs, which was her fashion of washing, combing, and dressing, and making them look like respectable bears. She let them know that she loved them dearly in that kind of language which little ones, whether they be babies or bear-cubs, so soon understand.
But when March came, Mrs. Bruin began to grow hungry, and think that it was full time to scramble out of her under-snow den, and look out for some fish, or a fat young seal, to eat for her breakfast. The weather was still most fearfully cold, and the red sun seemed to have no powerat all, save to light up an endless waste of snow, in which not a tree was to be seen save here and there a stunted fir, half crusted over with ice.
Safe, however, and pretty warm in their shaggy furs, over the dreary wilds walked Mrs. Bruin, and the young bears trotted at her heels. They went along for some time, when they came to a round swelling in the snow; at least so a little hut appeared to the eyes of a bear. Indeed, had our own eyes looked on that snow-covered hillock, we should scarcely at first have guessed that it was a human dwelling.
Perhaps some scent of food came up from the chimney-hole, which made Mrs. Bruin think about breakfast, for she went close up to the hut, then trotted around it—her rough white nose in the air. Shethen uttered a low short growl, which made her cubs scramble up to her side.
Oh, with what terror the sound of that growl filled the heart of poor Aneekah, the Esquimaux woman, who was with her little children crouching together for warmth in that hut!
“Did you hear that noise?” exclaimed Aleekan, the eldest boy, stopping suddenly in the midst of a tale which he had been telling.
“There’s a bear outside!” cried all the younger children at once.
Aneekah rose, and hastily strengthened the fastenings of her rude door with a thick piece of rope, while her children breathlessly listened to catch again the sound which had filled them with fear.
“The bear is climbing up outside!”cried little Vraga, clinging in terror to her mother. “I can hear the scraping of its claws!”
There was an anxious pause for several minutes, all listening too intently to break the silence by even a word. Then, to the great alarm of the Esquimaux, the white head of an Arctic bear could be plainly seen, looking down upon them from above. The animal had, after clambering up to the top of the hut, enlarged the hole which had been left in the roof to let out the smoke.
“We’re lost!” exclaimed Aneekah.
“O mother let us pray! Will not God help us?” cried one of the children.[D]
The prayer could have been but a veryshort one, but the presence of mind which the mother showed may have been given as the instant answer to it. Aneekah caught up a piece of moss, stuck it on a stick, set it on fire, and held the blazing mass as close as she could to the nose of the bear.
Now fire was a new thing to Mrs. Bruin, and so was smoke; and if the bear had frightened the Esquimaux, the Esquimaux now frightened the bear. With a snort and a shake of her shaggy fur, the animal drew back her head, and, to the surprise and delight of the trembling family, they soon heard their unwelcome visitor scrambling down faster than she had clambered up. Mrs. Bruin trotted off to seek her breakfast elsewhere; let us hope that she and her cubs found a fine supplyof fish frozen in a cleft in some iceberg floating away in the sea. At any rate they never again were seen near the Esquimaux home.
Do you wonder how the poor Esquimaux child had learned the value of prayer? Would any one go to the dreary wilds of Greenland to carry the blessed gospel to the natives of that desolate shore?
Yes, even to “Greenland’s icy mountains” have missionaries gone from brighter, happier lands. There are pastors now laboring amongst the poor Esquimaux, for they know that the soul of each savage is precious. The light of the gospel is shining now in Esquimaux homes, and, amidst all their hardships, sufferings, and dangers, Esquimaux have learned to show pious trust when in peril, and thankfulnessafter deliverance. It is from the pen of a missionary that we have learned the story which I have just related of the Esquimaux woman and the white bear.