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"Deliver us from evil."
"THE very sight of his handwriting makes me feel uneasy," thought Goldie, as the postman placed in his hand a letter, bearing the London post-mark. He walked into his parlour, and broke open the seal, and with many an expression of annoyance, and even anger, read the contents of the letter.
"Why, this is worse than I even feared! Evil tidings indeed! That boy seems to have been born to be the torment of my life! What a world this is—full of vexations and troubles! Here am I, who have been labouring all my life for my children, doing all, sparing nothing, making every effort; and just when I hoped that I should have some comfort at last, one of them is taken away, and the other—worse! Well," continued he, violently ringing the bell, "something must be done, and at once. Aleck is prosperous and rich, that is one good thing, he will do something; I must see him directly. There is no use in showing this letter to my wife, she is fretting herself to death already."
The servant-girl hurriedly answered the bell.
"Bring my boots and great-coat," said Goldie, "and tell your mistress that I'm called away on business, and may not be back till to-night or to-morrow morning. I think I'll sleep at Aleck's," he continued, speaking to himself. "The nights are so bitterly cold at this season, and I've no mind to get an attack of rheumatism."
With a heavy heart the fruiterer took his place in the railway train that was about to start for Brighton. It was a bleak November day, and the dull prospect and the chill biting wind seemed quite in harmony with his feelings. When the Christian suffers, he can look to Heaven, and comfort himself with the thought that his portion is not here; but when the worldly man loses earthly joy, he is losing his all, his only treasure, he has nothing to hope for beyond! The only comfort to Goldie's mind in his distress was the prosperity of Aleck, his favourite son; and even in the midst of his sorrow for the two others, it was a proud feeling to the father that he was going for the first time to see him settled in a home of his own, a wealthy man, a distinguished man, one who could help to raise the whole family.
Goldie took a conveyance from the station, he had never yet been to his son's house in Brighton, and, indeed, was a stranger to the whole place, as he had rarely quitted his shop in E—. As he stopped at the door of a comfortable-looking dwelling, a carriage containing a lady drove off; he had but a glimpse of her face in a fine bonnet, whose crape flowers and shining bugles seemed expressly designed to make mourning look as lively as possible; he knew her to be the wife of his son, and not a little proud the fruiterer felt to be able to call such a fine lady his daughter.
Goldie's loud knock at the door was answered by a servant in livery. Even the painful errand upon which the father had come could not prevent his exulting in the idea of grandeur so new to him! He would have passed in at once, as into his own shop, but the footman stood in the doorway, eyeing him saucily from head to foot.
"Is your master at home?" said Goldie, trying to push forwards into the hall.
"Not at home," replied the man, half-closing the door.
"Then I'll wait till he comes in. I must see him. Where has he gone?"
"You can't see him; he sees no one, he's expecting his hairdresser."
"His hairdresser!" exclaimed Goldie. "But I am his father!" And pushing the astonished footman aside, he entered the house, and was at once guided by the sound of a well-known whistled air to the room in which Aleck was seated.
"Is that you, de la Rue? Why—how—can it be!" exclaimed the young man, rising in surprise on the sudden entrance of his father. He had not been him since the death of poor Ned, and scarcely knew in what manner to meet him.
"You did not think to see me here," said Goldie, grasping his hand; "but I have come upon business, urgent business, Aleck. Sit down, my dear boy, I will let you know all. I could not rest till I had consulted with you."
Aleck throw himself down again on his luxurious arm-chair, with an uncomfortable persuasion that something disagreeable was coming, us his father drew from the pocket of his coat a letter, which he knew to be in the handwriting of his brother.
"That will tell its own tale," said Goldie, handing it with a sigh to his son.
Frowning and biting his lip, Aleck read the letter to himself "This is bad indeed—very bad," he said, as he handed it back to his father. "What an unreasonable sum he requires—he shows very little consideration for you."
"And I have not the money!" cried Goldie, earnestly. "I really have not the money, were it to save him from the gallows. My house did not let well this year—the season is over—I have had heavy expenses—poor Ned's funeral—your mother's constant illness—everything seems to go wrong with me now! Your brother's ruined—positively ruined, if he cannot command this large sum, and I've no one to look to—but you."
"Me!" exclaimed Aleck, raising his eyebrows, and pushing back his chair a little. "It is impossible that I can help you, quite impossible; you had better understand that clearly at once; I have a wife to think of, you know."
"He is your only brother now—"
"An extravagant, unprincipled fellow! Are those who have gone on steadily through life to pay for the follies of such!"
"If you would but assist me—"
"I tell you, it's impossible!" cried Aleck, raising his voice.
"You will live in luxury," said Goldie, glancing reproachfully round at the elegant, luxurious apartment of his son, "and leave your brother to be ruined, disgraced—"
"That is his own fault, not mine," replied Aleck.
"If not for his sake," cried Goldie more earnestly, "for mine—for your mother's—your poor afflicted mother's! She is almost broken-hearted already with her loss; a blow like this would bring her to her grave."
"All this is very unpleasant," said Aleck, rising impatiently. "I tell you it's not to be done."
"You forget," said his father, his face flushing with anger, "you forget all the sacrifices made for yourself. How I scraped every pound, every sixpence together to place you at an expensive school, to give you an education without which you could never have risen as you have done; how I was in debt for years to raise the sum required to set you out in life to such advantage; how I—"
"There's the hairdresser!" cried Aleck, with a look of relief. "I'm sorry that I shall be engaged this evening. Won't you take a glass of wine before you go? Shall I order my servant to call a fly? I really am afraid of your delaying your return, for at this time of year, it is dangerous for persons of your age to be out in the cold night-air."
Goldie could not for a minute speak—he was actually choking with mingled passion and grief. Then recovering himself, he went up close to his son, and said in a low, thrilling tone, "If no other motive will touch you, think of yourself. The disgrace of your family must be shared by you; remember that you bear the same name!"
"That decides me upon doing what I have thought of before—changing it for that of my wife."
Goldie rushed from the house, as from the den of a serpent, with a determination never to enter it again. The reed on which he had leaned had pierced him to the heart, all that he had hoped for once had been attained only to make him more wretched. Vanity of vanities was written upon what he had most loved! And yet what right had the worldly man to complain! He had taught his children to break the Fourth Commandment, could he wonder that they disregarded the Fifth: he had lived all his life in rebellion and disobedience to his Heavenly Father and dare he hope to find affection in his own children!
Evils were thickening upon him—troubles unsanctified, and therefore intolerable. The ruin of Mat gave the finishing stroke to the misery of his unhappy mother. She lay on her death-bed, broken-hearted, desponding! Goldie had seen one son cut off in the flower of his days, another was dragging him down to poverty and shame, the third, his darling, the pride of his soul, had inflicted on the heart of his parent perhaps the deepest wound of all.
Sickness, bereavement, and far sharper poverty had visited the home of Viner; but to him every evil had brought forth good, every evil was certain to end in joy. In the words of the suffering apostle, he could say, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!" But oh! The bitterness of spirit of him who has lived for the world, and sought nothing beyond, when he finds at last that his idol is but dust and ashes? With regret for the past, disappointment in the present, and no hope to brighten the future—only age, and the grave, and the judgment before him—he, indeed, is tasting of the dregs of life—is reaping a harvest of woe! Poverty may rouse industry, sickness show forth patience, sorrow increase submission—death lead to glory—Sin is the one great evil to be feared. O Lord!—
"DELIVER US FROM EVIL."
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"For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory."
THE hail was falling fast, drifted by the piercing wind which howled in the chimneys, and seemed to shake the dwelling.
"I wish that my father had come back," said Nelly, as she returned again from the little gate whence she had been anxiously watching for her parent.
"Our good clergyman will keep him under shelter," said Walter, "he will not be back till this hailstorm is over!"
"I almost dread his return," sighed Nelly. "I know that I ought to wish him success in his endeavours to procure that situation for you in London—and yet—"
"You feel, surely, that it is right that I should go?"
"It is right, Walter," replied the girl. "To remain here in E— would be only to suffer with us, not to help us. If it should please Heaven that you should return—if you should over come back—." She could not go on, but turned her head aside to hide the tears that would have their course.
"I will return, Nelly—if I live, I will! It is only to relieve you of a burden that I quit you. I will work hard—save hard for your sake."
At this moment a poor, gray-headed man slowly made his way up the street. He seemed almost beaten back by the pelting hail, and stopping as he reached Viner's little shop, leaned on the gate as if for support.
"Let us ask him to come in to shelter," whispered Nelly—and Walter immediately invited him to step in.
The gray-haired man obeyed in silence—with a step so faltering, a look of such emotion, as though the voice of kindness were strange to him, that the hearts of the young people were touched with compassion. They had not read in vain the injunction in the Bible—"Use hospitality without grudging: be not forgetful to entertain strangers;" but without waiting for any request from the weary man, they brought him dry clothes, asked him into the parlour, and offered him a chair by the fire.
The guest was not yet past the strength of manhood, but all its life and spirit appeared gone. His face was wrinkled, its expression sad, his hand trembled as if with age, and when he at last spoke his voice was faltering and low.
"Here is one who has drunk deep of the cup of sorrow," thought Nelly, and her manner, ever gentle, became more kindly than before.
"Shall I set food before him?" she whispered to Walter.
"By all means—he looks ready to faint."
"But, Walter—we have but a half-loaf left in the house, and our till is to-day quite empty!"
There was a look of meek submission on her pale face, that went to the heart of Walter.
"Yet give to him, Nelly, let him share that loaf—'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.'"
Nelly smiled, and set the bread upon the table.
"God bless you, and reward you a thousandfold!" said the guest—not touching, however, the proffered food, but looking around the comfortless abode with an expression of interest and sadness.
"Is this house yours?" he at last said to Walter, fixing his dark eyes earnestly upon him.
"Oh no! It belongs to my adopted father, whose name you see over the gate."
"And your name?" said the stranger.
"Is Walter Binning."
The guest remained silent, and the silence lasted so long, that at length it became painful, and Nelly, in order to break it said:
"I fear that you have known much sorrow?"
"Such sorrow as I trust that you may never know!"
"But the Lord can bring light out of darkness," said Walter.
"He can indeed—bless you for the word!" cried the stranger suddenly, clasping his hands, and turning towards the young man with a look of mingled sorrow and joy. "God can bring light out of darkness—good out of evil! He can bring the sinner to His feet, and the rebel to a throne—all things are possible to Him! Were you to know my story," he continued more rapidly, "you would indeed wonder at the power of God, to whom belongs the kingdom over the hearts of men! If ever there was a sinner—I was one; if ever there was a soul stained by guilt—that soul was mine? I had struggled against conscience, I had turned from my God, I was rushing on in the broad way that leadeth to destruction, and yet the hand of mercy could find me even there!"
Walter and Nelly listened with interest and surprise to a confession so frank and so unexpected. The stranger went on, in his rapid, earnest manner, as though he found it a relief to his heart to pour out its fulness.
"It is well, my children, it is well that you should know something of the man whom you have welcomed to your hearth. I once was young, unsuspicious as yourselves; mine was a kind heart, and a free open hand; I neither thought of want nor feared temptation. From how slight a cause men's ruin may spring! At a place of amusement, I once met with a youth. I found him pleasant; we conversed—met again and again; he became my companion—most dangerous companion! He was one who despised religion, and laughed at the word conscience; he gained an influence over my young mind, and made use of it to ruin his so-called friend!"
"As you love your peace—as you love your own soul," continued the stranger, addressing himself earnestly to Walter, "oh! Avoid the society of such! Let my fate be to you like a beacon on a quicksand, to warn you from that which brings destruction!"
"He took me to scenes from which I once would have shrunk; he led me into habits which I should once have blushed to form; I acquired a thirst for amusement and excitement, and where was I to find means to gratify that thirst? I was then a poor apprentice in London; a generous friend had paid the sum required by my master, for I myself was a penniless orphan. I was not only without money, but in debt, and following a career which plunged me deeper and deeper into it. I had but little credit—no means of gaining money. Oh! When conscience is stifled, and religion set aside, how easy is the transition from the debtor to the thief! My companion first taught me to embezzle from my master. My guilt was suspected; I was seized, sent to prison; a day was appointed for my trial. As my character until now had been considered respectable, I was admitted to bail, and the same generous friend, who had helped me before on my setting out in life, became my security now."
"It is better, indeed, to relate what followed; but I wish you to know all—I would have nothing concealed. I felt that my case would not stand a trial. I was visited again by my evil companion, the tempter who had led me to disgrace. Urged by him, or rather by my own guilty fears, I broke faith with my friend, escaped into France, and led there a life the remembrance of which would bow me to the dust had I not learned to hope that even the chief of sinners might find mercy."
"I married, lost my wife in the first year of our union, then returned to my own country under a false name; and in company with men as guilty as myself, supported myself by the gains of dishonesty."
"Why should I tell all this," exclaimed the stranger, "but that you may shun the paths in which I fell—that you may learn from one who speaks from terrible experience, that there is no wretchedness on earth like that of guilt—and flee betimes from the approach of the tempter! There may be the loud laugh, the burst of wild mirth, the feast, the revel, the intoxicating draught; but oh! The bitterness, the sickening joylessness within, where the soul dare not turn its gaze on itself, when it seeks excitement to stifle thought, when solitude is terrible, reflection intolerable."
Walter thought of the miser's fifty-pound bank-note, and lifted his heart in gratitude to Him who had saved him in the hour of temptation.
"At last," resumed the stranger, "what I dreaded happened; the strong hand of the law arrested me in my wretched career of guilt. I was sent to Newgate, tried, condemned. I deserved my sentence—I knew that I deserved it; but my soul rebelled against its just punishment. I was becoming hardened and reckless in misery, hardened in despair."
"And thus might I have sunk lower and lower, till I had perished at last in my sin; but the day before I was sent from my country, leaving, as I believed, not one friend behind, I received a letter from the same benevolent man who had twice before been ready to aid me. At a time when I was brought down, crushed to the dust, when all the rest of the world shunned and despised me, that man came forwards, unwearied in well-doing, and offered to do me an important service, which I dared not have asked of a brother."
"The letter enclosed a little book, 'Baxter's Call to the Unconverted,' with an earnest request from the writer that I would read it once carefully over. At another time, I would have flung it aside with contempt, if not with anger; but my heart was softened by unmerited kindness—I could not refuse the only request made by one to whom I was indebted for so much. Doubtless that book was sent with prayer, and carried a blessing with it."
"I read it. It showed me my own fearful state, even more fearful than I had believed it to be; but it did not leave me to despair. It told of mercy and pardon even for the worst of sinners; it told of the blood that washes away guilt, of the Spirit that can give a new, clean heart; it told of the power of religion over the human soul; and I believed it; for the character of the man who had given it showed forth the reality of that power."
"Oh! That I could see and know that man!" exclaimed Nelly.
"You know him. That man is—your father!" cried the stranger, springing forwards to meet Viner, who entered at that moment, and throwing himself into his arms.
Viner had returned disheartened and sad, for he had been unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain a situation for his adopted son. There are times when even the true Christian feels his faith weak. Viner had found it difficult to strengthen his heart in the Lord; he seemed like Peter when sinking in the waves.
"Lord, help me!" was his silent prayer. He came back in sorrow, he was met by joy. The little seed which, ten years before, he had sown in faith, had sprung up to bear a thousandfold; the voice of thanksgiving was in the dwelling of the righteous; the Almighty had not been trusted in vain.
Oh! What a blessed answer to Walter's prayers! With what joy he looked upon his restored parent, and received the blessing of his long-lost father. It was some time before anything like composure was restored to the circle, or the older Binning could continue his account.
"Let no one presume on the goodness of God, because He has sometimes worked wonders of mercy, and saved him whom man would condemn. Terrible is its awakening to a soul that has long gone on in a course of sin; they who never have wandered so far from the right way know not the difficulty, the anguish of retracing their steps! If any would learn what it is to repent, let him study the fifty-first Psalm of King David; there the sorrows of a broken and contrite heart are expressed by one who himself had felt all the bitterness of deep remorse; how often, my son, have I wept over that Psalm, and applied every verse to myself; praised be God that I could also repeat words from the same inspired writer, and trust that might be written for me—'Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.'"
"After I had had reason humbly to hope that I had received pardon for my sins through the merits of my Saviour, my mind naturally turned to the thought how I could make some amends to man for all the wrongs that I had done him. My debt to Viner, above all, lay heavy on my conscience; and as soon as the term of my punishment was over, I determined never to return to my country till I had earned sufficient to pay it. I worked like a slave in a land where toil brings a far higher reward than it does here. I grudged myself even my necessary comforts; I broke on the hours of my needful rest, till the great object of my efforts was attained. God blessed my labours beyond my hopes; I gathered sufficient to cover my debt, and worked my way home as a common sailor, that I might not encroach on my earnings."
"And now, with what pleasure do I return what I owe," continued Binning, laying bank-note after bank-note on the table—"return what I owe! I can never return it! You helped me in trouble,—you saved me from despair, you have brought up my son to virtue, industry, and religion—were I to pour out my life's blood for you now I could never repay you what I owe!"
"O my God!" exclaimed Viner, looking upwards, while tears of gratitude forced their way down his cheeks. "To Thee be the honour, to Thee be the praise—"
"FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY!"
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"For ever and ever."
AGAIN nearly ten years have passed, and for the last time we revisit E—, now a thriving, populous town. Where is the little shop with its wooden gate, where Viner so long passed his humble but useful life, and bore the yoke of poverty so meekly? We now look in vain for the spot where it stood—like other earthly things, it has passed away, another building now occupies what was once its site, its place remembers it no more.
But the large shop on the opposite side of the street is standing yet, and looks more flourishing than ever, with its baskets of ripe plums and tempting peaches, decked out with branches of cut flowers in the windows. A young woman is within, engaged in tying up nosegays, herself fresh and blooming as the flowers. Her own little blossom, her first-born child, is perched upon the counter beside her; and often the mother stops in her pleasant employment to imprint a fond kiss on his dimpled cheek, or bid her little one try to call "Father!"
"Ah! Darling, you must not spoil the pretty flowers," she said playfully, as the child seized upon a rose. "Do you not know that this is mother's wedding-day, and when father comes in, he must find everything looking bright and beautiful for him! I must give you over to grandfather's care—if he will look after my troublesome pet! There, is he not a darling—are you not proud of him!" cried Nelly, as she placed her blooming boy in the arms of Viner.
Mrs. Winter at this moment entered the shop. She had grown old, and now wore widow's weeds, but her face was still placid and cheerful as before.
"I have brought you the cake, Nelly," said she, laying an elegant sugared pyramid before her. "Is it not fit for a wedding-day feast? Do you remember just this day twenty years ago, when you were no higher than this counter, your coming to my shop to buy half-a-dozen biscuits as a treat for your expected new brother? Ah! He is more to you now than he was then!"
"How can I remember so far back!" laughed Nelly.
"It seems to me as though it were scarce a day since! There stood Goldie—poor man! Who once owned this shop—a prosperous man he was then! He laughed, I remember, at your childish honesty, laughed at your father's kind adoption of Walter—he thought only of getting on in the world! And what has it all come to at last! There is now another name above his door, there is another face behind his counter—he lies in the churchyard beside his poor wife, and his very name is almost forgotten! And this is the end of his labours and his cares, his rising up early and late taking rest—his flattering, and toiling, and unscrupulous ways! All that is left to him now of his gains is a coffin, and a shroud, and a few feet of earth!"
"Alas! Poor Goldie," said Nelly sadly, "He was unfortunate!"
"Unhappy, if you will, but not unfortunate; fortune had nothing to do with either his lot or your father's. Worldliness, Sabbath-breaking, neglect of religion only brought forth their natural fruits to Goldie—while all Viner's present happiness and prosperity arose from—"
The old man turned towards her with glistening eyes, pressing his little grandchild closer to his heart, while he closed her sentence with Nelly's favourite text—"'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow thereto.'"
Walter now entered with a springing step and bright eye. His child stretched out his little arms to go to him, and Nelly greeted her husband with a smile.
"You see that I have not forgotten what day it is," he said, laying down on the counter a beautifully carved box, with his wife's name cut on the lid. "That is my wedding present for you, dear Nelly; as it has pleased God to prosper us so well in business, and between my carving and your fruit selling, we now have enough and to spare, I have resolved to keep a poor box from this time, and on the first day of the week, as St. Paul recommends, lay aside of our earnings for the needy."
"Well, Viner," observed Mrs. Winter, as she was leaving the place, and turned to bid farewell to the aged Christian, on whose silvery hair and venerable brow the rich glow of the setting sun was falling, "if I were asked to name a truly happy man, I should not have far to look for one—I should point to you in your arm-chair there, with your loving family around you."
Yes, the bright calm sunset was a beautiful type of the old age of the pious Christian! He looked back on an honest, well-spent life, he looked forwards to a better life to come; the present was full of richest blessings, but the richest of all was the hope of heaven that brightened the thoughts of the future! His adopted son was now his son indeed; his daughter was happy in the love of one whom he himself had trained to industry and piety; and now, honoured and beloved, he was drawing towards his home, at peace with his God, and at peace with mankind—his hoary head a crown of righteousness!
But think not that upon his faith or his good works Viner rested his hope of glory! He would have shrunk from the thought as much as the poor convict who now slumbered beneath the shadow of the church, with a single text inscribed on his tomb—"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin!"
And now, young reader, before you close these pages, pause and consider what was the difference between Viner and Goldie, between the man of the world and the servant of God. As Mrs. Winter had observed, it was no strange chance, no wonderful turn of fortune, that gave happiness to the one or misery to the other. Review their story, and you will see that exactly as they sowed, they reaped—that the portion which each chose, he received—that blessings naturally sprang from the conduct of the one, disappointment from the acts of the other.
And oh! If even in this world, God's children are the happiest, what will it be in the world which is to come! On this earth our harvest is only begun, whether of holy joy or the sorrows of sin. But when ages upon ages have rolled on, when the heavens and the earth have passed away, then still the unrepenting will be suffering, the faithful enjoying in eternity!
From this hour resolve which path you will choose—life or death are now set before you. If you choose the world and its pleasures of a season, oh! Remember that the wages of sin is death. Youth must pass, strength must pass, life itself must pass away, with all that it could give here below; but the Christian shall dwell in the mansions of light—shall rejoice in unchangeable bliss with his God—
"FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN!"
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THE LORD'S PRAYER.
Our Father in heaven,We hallow Thy name,May Thy kingdom holyOn earth be the same;Oh! Give to us dailyOur portion of bread;It is from Thy bountyThat all must be fed.Forgive our transgression,And teach us to knowThat humble compassionWhich pardons each foe.Keep us from temptation,From weakness, and sin;And Thine be the glory,For ever, Amen.