A Service of Obedience.
"I TOLD you he'd come, I told ye, mistress!" exclaimed Michael Garth, in a tone of triumph, as he glanced in through the open cottage door at his wife, who was darning her good man's stockings.
Up started old Martha at the words, the threaded needle dropped from her fingers, and the stockings from her knee.
"Maybe he's only taking a turn down the road," she began, as she hurried to the door.
But, before the sentence was finished, Harry Maude was striding up the narrow garden path which led up to the cottage, and, the next moment, he was heartily shaking the brown, hard hand of old Michael.
"So glad to see you both! Shall I come in?" asked Harry.
And, as Martha's smiles and curtseys gave the reply, the officer bent his tall head, and entered through the low doorway into the cottage.
Martha, in a flurry of pleasure, dusted with her apron the arm-chair which she had already twice dusted that morning; but Harry was too gallant to deprive the old dame of her accustomed seat, and took possession instead of a rush-bottomed chair. Michael stirred the wood-fire to a blaze, such being perhaps his idea of a warm welcome, and stood with his cap in his hand, pleasure written in every line of his wrinkled, but still rosy face.
"How well I remember this cottage!" cried Harry. "And what pleasant visits I used to pay here when I wanted my fishing-rod mended, or my kite put to rights, or advice about my sick rabbits! There is my old friend the owl with his staring glass eyes, the sampler framed on the wall, with the flowering tree worked on each side, and the text down the middle; the little crockery cow on the mantelpiece, the old prints of George III., Wellington, and Nelson, the kettle on the hob, the big log on the hearth, just as I used to see them all here ten years ago!"
"I wonders as how you han't forgotten such like things, Master Harry," said Mrs. Garth, with a smile of gratification, "such a power of fine sights as you must have come across in your travels."
"I have seen a good deal," observed Maude, "for I have been in all the four quarters of the globe since I last crossed this threshold. But of all the fine sights which have met my eyes, there was not one that pleased me like that of the faces of kind old friends."
"Ye'll not be leaving home in a hurry again, I take it, master," said old Michael Garth.
"I hope only for a very short time, but I must go up to London to-morrow."
"Go up to Lunnon!" repeated both the Garths in surprise; and Martha added, "Why, sir, ye only came from it yesterday."
"I must return thither to-morrow for all that, but only to remain there one night."
"It must be a mighty business to keep you tossing to and fro like a football, a hundred and fifty miles each way, as if Lunnon weren't farther off than yon church," said Garth. The honest labourer had never made one such journey in the course of all his long life.
"I should ha' thought as how ye'd ha' needed a little rest," observed Martha.
"I do need rest, for I've been much knocked about," replied the young sailor, "and I'd fever in the Channel, and have not yet picked up my strength. But for all that, sick or well, I'm bound for London to-morrow."
"Maybe you've a lot of money to get there," said old Michael Garth.
"Not a farthing; not even will my travelling expenses be paid," replied Harry.
"But sure and sartain, sir, ye can't go to-morrow, it's Miss Lily's wedding-day!" exclaimed Martha. "Don't you wish to be at the marriage?"
"I do wish it much," said Harry Maude. "It is a disappointment to me not to be present, but I am obliged to give up the wedding, for the train starts for London at eleven."
"Well—to be sure!" murmured Martha Garth, lifting up her hands in surprise.
Michael's curiosity was fairly aroused. "What, going all the way to Lunnon, and just for one night, and the wedding given up, too," he muttered. "Might I be bold enough to ask, Master Harry, what is hurrying ye hither and thither like this?"
"Simply an invitation to dinner," replied Harry, smiling at the looks of astonishment exchanged between Garth and his wife.
"Why, sir, ye can ha' dinners and to spare here—every house open to ye within ten miles round!" exclaimed Michael. "Sure and sartain, if I was you, I'd not go a-travellin' three hundred miles for one dinner!"
"Perhaps if you had received such an invitation as I have," replied the young naval officer, "you would hold a different opinion."
And, leaning back in his chair, Harry drew from his breast-pocket a large envelope with a red seal bearing the royal arms, which enclosed a card which he took out, and handed across the deal table to Martha Garth.
The old lady began fumbling for her spectacles, but her husband, whose sight was better, was at her side stooping to look over the card, before Martha had fixed her glasses on her nose.
"Her Majesty's commands! Well—if ever!" exclaimed the labourer.
"Dearie heart! To dine with the Queen! What an honour!" cried Martha, involuntarily half-rising from her seat.
"I don't wonder ye couldn't put aside such an invitation as that, sir," said Michael, "let what might come in the way!"
"My Sovereign's invitation is a command," replied the loyal young officer. "At whatever inconvenience or cost, loss of time or of pleasure, I am bound to obey it."
"And you'll be proud to obey it, I'll answer for that," said Michael Garth; "you'd go to the Queen's table, if you'd to travel all the three hundred miles a-foot, with shoes, or without 'em."
"Would you do so?" inquired Harry, turning a quick searching eye upon the old man.
"The Queen's not like to ask such as me," replied Michael, with a short laugh, and he looked down on his fustian jacket and hob-nailed boots.
"But if our Sovereign were to do so, if that card of invitation had come to you in your cottage with your and your wife's names upon it, so that there could be no room for mistake; would you have thrown it aside, and let the day pass without so much as taking any notice of the gracious message from your Queen?"
"No, surely," replied both of the Garths in a breath.
"Though," Martha added, "neither of us be fit at all to appear before Her Majesty. We should feel strange enough, I take it, amongst all the lords and ladies; we'd be no fit company for them."
"But ye see, wife," observed old Michael, "if the Queen invited poor folk like we, she'd not expect much from us, she'd put up with our country ways; but, if we disobeyed her, and flouted her kindness, the Queen, mind ye, might be angered."
"And with just cause," observed Harry Maude. "Now, will you forgive me," he continued, leaning his arms on the table, and bending forward in the earnestness of his speaking, "will you forgive me if I remind you that you both have received—not merely once—but very many times, a most gracious invitation, which is also a command, from your Heavenly Sovereign, the King of kings? He bids you appear before Him at His table to partake of His Holy Supper; you know better than I can know, how you have received the gracious invitation."
Both the cottagers were taken aback by this sudden turn which the conversation had taken.
Mrs. Garth uneasily twisted about in her fingers the card which she still retained.
Michael was silent for some moments before he replied, "Ye see, sir, there's such a difference!"
"A difference indeed," said the naval officer; "we are a thousand times more bound to obey a Heavenly than an earthly monarch, and the honour and privilege of being bidden to God's table are a thousand times greater than those of appearing at the Queen's."
"I don't gainsay that, sir, I don't gainsay it," replied Garth; "but there be some difficulties, you see—"
Harry waited for the labourer to finish his sentence, but as he either could not, or would not, the officer spoke again.
"I suppose that there are few duties, Michael, which we might not find some excuse for neglecting. For instance," he held out his hand for the card which was returned to him by Martha, "I might find plenty of excuses for not obeying my Queen by going up to London to-morrow. I might plead that I had just returned to my home after a very long absence, that my family were unwilling to part with me, that I was weary of travelling, that I was expected to attend at a wedding, and was very anxious to do so. I might make such excuses, and others besides, and even persuade myself that they were good ones; but in truth not one of them, nor all of them put together, would really be sufficient to acquit me of disloyal, undutiful neglect of my Queen. Now, my friends, suffer me to entreat you to ask yourselves honestly, as in the sight of the Lord, will your excuses for never attending His Holy Supper be such as you will venture to plead when you stand at the last great Day in the immediate presence of your King?"
"I never had it put to me afore like that," said Garth, looking fixedly into the fire.
"There are various lights in which we may regard the Lord's Supper," continued Harry, "the first and most simple, perhaps, is this; it is a feast to which His faithful subjects are specially called by the great King, whose invitations are commands. Turn to the parable which the Lord himself has given to us. * Observe the gracious invitation, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' Notice the excuses made by those who should have been joyful guests, the ground bought, the oxen to be proved, the wife that had lately been married. Were these excuses accepted?"
* Luke xiv.
Martha looked troubled and uneasy. "I al'ays say as how we should go up to the Table one of these days," she said, "but somehow or other, the time seems never to come."
"I fear that you are not sufficiently in earnest on the subject," observed Harry. "Were a message to be brought to you from our Queen, your mind would be fixed upon it, you would scarcely think of anything else."
"You see, sir," said Michael Garth, "if we neglected the Queen's invitation, we should never be likely to get a second; but there's not a month as passes but we have an opportunity of staying to Communion, and so, it may be wrong, I don't deny it, but one's more inclined to put off."
"Ah! You wait for the convenient season," observed Harry, gravely, "forgetting that present neglect may be sin, and that by future obedience, if we be permitted to live to show it, we cannot make up for the past. Opportunities lost are blessings thrown away, we cannot recall them again. Let us not forget, in regard to taking the Sacrament, that the same voice which bade us watch and pray and keep the commandments, said also, 'This do in remembrance of Me.'* And had we no other reason for partaking of the Holy Communion, no special benefits to hope for, it should suffice to make us do the bidding of our King that this is A SERVICE OF OBEDIENCE."
* Luke xxii. 19.
A Service of Hope.
THERE was silence in the cottage for a short space of time after Harry had finished the last sentence.
Michael Garth continued to look fixedly into the fire, with a thoughtful expression upon his weather-beaten face. His wife watched him anxiously, wishing that he should be the first to reply. Presently Garth turned from the fire, slowly seated himself beside it, and resting his hands on his knees, began—
"All you've said, sir, is true; but I don't feel us how I'm fit yet to take the Lord's Supper. I've been a hard-working man, I've no learning, and I don't think I'm good enough yet; that's the long and short of the matter."
"And there be such terrible words about taking the Communion unworthily," said Martha, timidly.
"Those terrible words were written to the Corinthians, who were actually guilty of intemperance when they met together for their love-feasts," replied Harry Maude. "It is impossible, as our services are conducted, that we could offend as they did."
"But sure, sir, we can take the Lord's Supper unworthily," observed Garth.
"Yes, assuredly, if we dare to approach the Table when living in wilful sin," said the officer. "If we keep the leaven of malice and wickedness in our hearts, we are unfit to partake of the feast. If we are acquiring money by fraud or theft, we are unfit to partake of the feast. If we are denying the Lord who bought us, we are unfit to partake of the feast."
"God forbid that we should do any of these things, sir!" exclaimed honest Garth. "I'm no better than others, I know, but I'd never touch a penny as was not my own, and I don't bear malice, I hope, towards any living creature."
"No, I'm sure he don't!" cried the goodwife.
"Depend upon it, my friends," said Harry, "there is nothing which unfits a believer for appearing at the Table of his Lord, but that which would unfit him for Heaven—self-righteousness and wilful sin. If a man be really unprepared to partake of the bread and the wine, he has cause to fear every hour of the day—he has cause to fear when he lies down at night, lest death should suddenly overtake him—because he is unprepared to die."
"But though we mayn't be living in wilful sin, yet we're far from being what we should be," said Michael Garth, thoughtfully shaking his head.
"And so were those whom our Lord Himself chose to appear at the very first Communion service that ever was held upon earth," cried Harry.
"Why, sir, they were the holy Apostles who took the bread and wine from our Lord's own hands," said Michael.
"And what were those Apostles but weak, erring men, whose spirit was willing, but whose flesh was weak?" asked young Maude. "Did not our Lord, when He called them around Him, know that some of them had just been disputing which should be the greatest? Did He not know that, in the course of a few hours, all would forsake Him and flee? Did He not know that one, the foremost amongst them, would deny Him with curses and oaths? The Lord knew all this, and yet He invited His Apostles to share His Holy supper. Would He have praised for humility, or rebuked for disobedience, any one of them who should have refused to come, saying, 'Lord, I feel that I am not worthy?'"
"There was no fear that they should refuse," murmured Martha, "they would not have dared to keep away when the Lord bade them come."
"But it seems that disciples in the present day dare to do that which Apostles would not have ventured to do, refuse their Lord's invitation," said Harry.
"But ye see, sir," observed Garth, after a pause, "it was all such a new thing with the Twelve; there had never been anything like the Communion before."
"Excuse me," said Harry, quickly; "the Christian feast of the Holy Supper is founded on the Jewish feast of the Passover, which our Lord Himself kept in obedience to God's command. If you turn to the 12th chapter of Exodus, you will find that on one particular evening in the year, every Israelitish household had to partake of a lamb, in remembrance of the firstborn of Israel being spared, through the sprinkled blood of a lamb, when the firstborn of Egypt were slain. 'This day shall be unto you for a memorial, said the Lord, all the congregation of Israel shall keep it.' * A Jew who should have neglected attending the Holy Feast would have shewn, by such neglect, that he cared not for the blood of sprinkling, that he did not choose to cast in his lot with that of the Lord's chosen people."
* Exodus xii. 14, 47.
"But surely, sir," said Michael, earnestly, "we Christians in Britain are not bound to keep a Jewish feast."
"No more than we are called upon to sacrifice a lamb," replied Harry, "and sprinkle its blood on our door-posts. Our sacrifice was offered once for all, when the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world, died on Calvary for us. But the feast which he ordained in place of the Jewish Passover, is to be kept 'till He come.' † What are the words of St. Paul on the subject? 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.'" ‡
† 1 Cor. xi. 26. ‡ 1 Cor. v. 7.
"I never understood afore that the Passover had anything to do with the Lord's Supper," said Michael.
"It was what is called a type of it," replied the officer. "The Israelites in the Passover celebrated their deliverance from death, and the bondage of Egypt; Christians celebrate in the Communion their deliverance from eternal death, and the bondage of sin. The Israelites rejoiced in the gift of Canaan, Christians rejoice in the gift of Heaven. The Israelites, when starting on their long journey through the desert, gained strength in body by partaking of the food which they ate by God's command. Christians, in their long journey through life, gain strength in soul by partaking also, by God's command, of bread and wine, with faith and repentance."
"Oh! My friends, let us never forget this. If we feel that we are sinful and weak, let us go to the Lord's Table for grace and strength to struggle against sin, grace and strength to press on towards Heaven. 'Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.' * The Christian Communion is not only a service of obedience, it is also a service of hope, and a service of joy."
* Heb. x. 22.
Harry rose as he finished the last sentence, but the old labourer did not rise; Michael did not wish his visitor to quit the cottage just yet.
"Then really I may be angering God by leaving this thing undone," he began, rather as if speaking to himself, than as addressing any other person present.
"I am afraid that wilful neglect of anything which we are bidden, in the Bible, to do is sin, a sin of omission," said Maude. "We are apt to think little of such sins; and if we abstain to a certain degree from doing what we ought not to do, we are seldom much troubled by the conviction that we have left undone that which we ought to have done. But God's Word teaches a different lesson. The barren fig tree cumbered the ground, not because it brought forth bad fruit, but because it bore no fruit at all. The man with one talent was reproved, not because he had misspent the money, but because he had not used it for good."
"In our Lord's own account of the Judgment, He tells us not of the sentence which will be passed upon those who have injured, robbed, or murdered His poor; but that which awaits those who have neglected to help them. This shews us most clearly that God marks our sins of omission. I would not have ventured thus to speak to you, my friends," continued the young officer earnestly, "had I not feared that, almost without knowing it, you might be committing this sin by neglecting an ordinance of God. I own that I have often myself thus offended by leaving known duties undone, and from the bottom of my heart I join in the dying prayer of Archbishop Usher, 'Oh! God, forgive me my sins, especially my sins of omission!'"
"Amen!" murmured the old labourer, and his wife, as she folded her wrinkled hands, faintly echoed the "Amen."
"And once more I ask your pardon for having spoken thus freely," said Harry Maude, holding out his hand to Garth with cordial frankness of manner. "But I had it on my heart to entreat you not to miss a blessing by neglecting a duty, and turning away from a service of obedience, of hope, and of joy. Every loyal subject of the Lord, when of ripe years, is invited to the Table of his Heavenly King, and it is his blessed privilege as well as his bounden duty to appear there as a thankful guest, looking forward to the time when he, through Christ's merits and death, shall be welcomed to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at the glorious feast in the Kingdom of Heaven."
A Service of Love.
HARRY MAUDE quitted the cottage, and Michael and Martha returned to their occupations, the one digging in the garden, the other mending stockings by the fireside. But the old man bending over his spade, and his good wife over her needle, were both reflecting on what they had heard.
"To think of his taking us to task like that! But he meant it kindly—yes, he meant it kindly," murmured Martha to herself as she darned. "He'd not have us treat our great and merciful God as we would never dare to treat our Queen. We've been a-shutting ourselves out from the feast in church; I pray God He mayn't shut us out from the Feast up above."
But though Michael and Martha thus pondered over the subject, neither of them felt inclined to talk about it.
When Mat came in from the plough, his grandmother told him that "young Master Harry" had come to see them, but not one word did she repeat of the conversation that had taken place, except that part which simply related to the invitation from the Queen. The husband and wife avoided even speaking to each other about that subject which was uppermost in the minds of both.
Evening closed in; the aged couple and their grandson sat down to their simple supper, and, while they ate, chatted about the morrow's wedding, and the sailor's return, and the Queen's invitation, and other topics of the day.
But when the meal was over, and Martha had cleared away the fragments, Michael, from his seat by the hearth, gravely addressed his wife.
"Martha, I've been a-thinking about what you and me was hearing to-day about these same sins of omission—that's the word—leaving undone what ought to be done. You and me—we reads our Bible on Sundays reg'lar enough; but I mind me that the parson told us in church that we should no more do without our daily reading of Scripture than without our daily food. Suppose now you bring the Book. It's late to begin the custom, seeing we're both growing old, but there's the less time for delay, so we'll read a bit o' the Bible to-night afore we go to our rest."
"Ah! Michael, I've often thought of this, but I didn't like to be the first to speak about doing it," said Martha, as, after dusting the large Bible with her apron, she set it on the deal table before her husband, and then pushed the little brass candlestick towards him, that the light from the candle might fall on the Book.
Michael slowly opened the holy volume, slowly turned over page after page, before he found the passage which he sought. Then, in a solemn tone, tracing the lines as he read with his finger, the old cottager began the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke.
Mat sat very quiet and attentive at his grandmother's side; the cottage seemed to the lad to have become as holy a place as the church; and though his grandfather certainly could not read like the parson, the lad thought to himself that somehow or other the words went just as straight to the heart.
Michael read on slowly and steadily till he came to the end of the 19th verse, and then his voice faltered, the finger which rested on the page trembled, and, with a deep sigh, the old man closed the Bible.
"Be you not well?" asked Martha, anxiously.
Her husband leant back in his chair, and pressed his hand over his eyes.
"It's not that, wife, it's not that," replied Michael, removing his hand. "It was those words—'twas the bidding us do this 'in remembrance of Me.' I couldn't abide the thought of having so long neglected the dear Saviour's dying wish, let alone it's being the King's command. You see," continued Michael, addressing himself to his grandson, "I have known what it was to receive a dying request, and to treasure it up, and keep it, as if 'twere a bit of my life. Your Granny knows the story well, but, maybe, you han't heard so much about it."
Then, after pushing back his chair from the table, and again passing his hand across his eyes, Michael Garth began his simple tale.
"I had as good and kind a mother as ever lived, and, I take it, never son loved mother more than I did. When I was a lad, not much older than you be, I sickened with the fever which was a-spreading all through the village. My mother she watched me day and night, and would scarce stir from my bedside till the doctor he said as how the worst was over.
"But the worst was not over," continued Michael with feeling, "for she had caught the fever from me, she had, and on the day when I first rose from my bed, my mother lay a-dying upon hers! I was just able to crawl to her side, to get her blessing, and to hear her last words. I half wished in my grief that the fever had taken us both away, so there would have been no sore parting for either. My mother drew from under her pillow my father's silver watch, which she had kept ever since she had lost him. She was so weak she scarcely could hold it, and her voice was so faint that I had to bend down close to catch her last words, 'Keep it for my sake;' they was the last words as ever she spoke. I could not answer, a lump was in my throat, but I vowed in my heart that I'd never part with that watch to my dying day!"
"And you never did!" exclaimed Martha. "So that there old watch is locked up safe in yon box at this moment."
"I treasured that watch, I wore it by day, I put it under my bolster by night, often and often did it bring my mother to my mind, it seemed like a bit of herself. If I was a-tempted to go wrong, the very sound of its ticking when I wound it up at bedtime seemed like a warning voice from her grave. Years passed on, and I married, and a family came—bless 'em—and after that great troubles. You mind that hard winter, wife, when I was ten weeks out of work, and we scarcely knew where to turn to get a crust to keep soul and body together!"
"I can never forget it," said Martha; "we lay down hungry, and we got up hungry, and were well-nigh driven to part with the bed beneath us for rent."
"I was well-nigh driven to part with something else," observed her husband. "Many and many's the time that I thought of my silver watch as the one thing that I could turn into money; but I al'ays shrank back from doing that, I counted it would be a'most like trampling over my mother's grave. One day I was pretty near desperate; there was the rent unpaid, and the little uns crying, and I started off for the town where the pawnbroker lived. When I came nigh the place, in sight of the three gilt balls, I pulled out my watch, it seemed to throb like a living thing in my hand. I stood stock still and looked on it, and all the deathbed scene came back upon me as fresh as if I had just left it, the pale face—the wistful eyes—the faint whisper, 'Keep it for my sake.'
"I turned back, Mat, I couldn't go on; I had had my long trudge for my pains; thinks I, it's rather starve outright I will, than break the last command of my mother."
The voice of Michael sounded husky, and Martha raised her apron to her eyes.
"And better times came," observed Mat.
"Ay, lad, better times came," said Michael; "but I've not finished the story of my watch. It was about seventeen years ago, the very winter when ye was born, lad, and a sharper winter never I knew. I was coming home one evening, a cutting wind was a-blowing, which seemed to pierce to the very marrow. The stream was quite frozen over, I thought it was hard enough to bear me, and to save going round by the bridge, I tried to cross on the ice. The first step I took there was a crack. The next—the ice gave way, and down I splashed into the water."
"The stream ain't very deep," observed Mat.
"Quite deep enough, lad, to make a plunge into it on a bitter cold evening no pleasuring matter," said Michael. "I was any way up to my arm-pits, and a bit cut by the ice besides. I scrambled out with a little trouble, shivering and wet, my teeth chattering with cold, and my hands a-bleeding with the ice. But the first thing as I thought on was my watch, I clapped my hand to the little pocket which your Granny had made in my jacket on purpose to hold it; the pocket was empty, the watch had slipped out into the stream in the struggle and scramble."
"It warn't likely to be worth much after being in the water," said Mat.
"Worth, lad! It warn't the money's worth as I cared for!" exclaimed the old man. "Had it been a brass farthing as had been given me as a keepsake by a dying parent, it would ha' been more to me than a purse of gold! I didn't take much time to think about it, the day was short, 'twas already getting dusk, if I waited, the under-current might drag my watch down where I never should find it again. Back I plunged into the deadly cold water, striking my arms right and left to break the ice, and to keep in the life which was well-nigh frozen out o' me, for a numbness was a-creeping over my body. I searched and searched, feeling about the bottom, now with my feet, now with my hand, and more than once I got right under the ice, and lost my breath, and thought it was all over with me. I've done many a hard day's work in my life, but the toughest job as ever I had was the seeking 'mid the ice for my watch on that piercing night in December."
"But you found it at last," said Martha.
"Ay, ay, I found it at last," rejoined the old man, a gleam of honest pleasure lighting up his weather-worn face; "warn't I glad when I found it warn't a round pebble as I had touched with my foot, as I was afeard at the first! I brought the watch up out of the water, after I'd been a-hunting, gasping and struggling, shivering and freezing, the best part of an hour. It was the thought of the words, 'Keep it for my sake,' as gave me strength to hold on; and though I had to lie in bed for a week, and had rheumatics that I didn't shake off till the summer, all along of that search under the water, there was something as out-matched the trouble and the pain—it was such a comfort to my heart to know that I'd kept the dying request of my mother!"
The tale was not a now one to Mat, but it was one which, by the family of Michael, was always heard with interest, and it had deepened in the minds of his children and grandchildren impressions of filial reverence and love. The old silver watch, thus handed down from generation to generation, was—and was likely long to be—a precious relic in the cottager's home.
When Michael had finished his story, his grandson observed, "I don't see why you should ha' thought about that watch when you was a-reading that chapter just now."
"Do you not see, lad, it's all plain enough to my mind!" exclaimed Martha. "Your grandfather was willing to suffer hunger and hardship, danger and chill, sickness and pain, rather than neglect the last wish of a dear mother who had taken her death from watching over him—"
"And yet," interrupted Michael Garth, finishing the sentence for his wife, "never till this night have I taken to heart the dying wish of One who has loved me better than ever did my mother, and has suffered more for me than ever a mother suffered! I've read His words, and scarce given them a thought—God have mercy upon me, a sinner—for my heart must have been more dead than a stone!"
"Ah! Michael," said old Martha, leaning forward on her chair, and laying her hand on the arm of her husband, "there was something which Master Harry missed out when he spoke to us to-day so anxious and earnest about attending the Holy Communion. He said that the Lord's Supper be a service of obedience, and a service of hope, and he was right enough there; but it's more than that, it's a service of love besides. How the holy angels must wonder that those for whom the loving Lord poured out His very life's blood, can go on year after year as—shame to us we have done, neglecting His dying command—as if He had never spoken, or they had never heard the words—'This do in remembrance of Me!'"
One Family.
BRIGHT and cloudless rose the sun on the following morning. The air was balmy as in May, and the budding leaves on the boughs, the early wild-flowers under the hedges, all seemed to rejoice.
Harry Maude was up as early as the sun life was too full of happiness for him, for the young officer to care to waste the fresh morning hours in sleep. He gave his early moments to God, and found that:
"His morning smiles bless all the day."
Though young Maude could not, on account of his journey to London, attend the wedding service, he accompanied his sisters, who were bridesmaids, to the Grange, before he started by the train. The Maudes found the family of their friends, the bride included, at their early breakfast, a cheerful meal, at which Harry and his sisters joined as welcome guests. The sight of the happiness of others was ever a source of happiness to the young lieutenant. One of the brightest hours of his life was that spent at the Grange amongst old friends and companions upon that bridal day. Pleasant is it to fulfil the command, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice."
Though the young officer quitted with regret the cheerful circle of his friends, yet it was, perhaps, with a feeling of yet deeper gratification that he appeared on the evening of that day in the presence of his Queen. He sat at the board of his Sovereign, a welcome and honoured guest, because he had nobly done his duty, because in the hour of trial and danger his courage had never failed. Thankfulness, and not pride, beat in the bosom of Harry; he gratefully acknowledged that it was God who had helped him in need, who had strengthened his arm and nerved his heart, who had carried him safe through dangers, and crowned him with honour and joy. That evening, when on the young officer rested the approving glance of his Queen, was one which to his dying day he would recall with gratification.
"Earth's pleasures are fleeting, and its honours are passing away; the bridal feast and the royal banquet may both be joyous, but they belong to those things which Time sweeps from our view at last, as though they had never been. God be praised, who hath prepared for His children pleasures that abide, and glory that never shall end!" So thought Harry on the following Sunday, when, for the first time since his departure ten years before, the pastor's family, as an unbroken family, met in the House of Prayer.
It was deep joy to the sailor to pass once more down the well-remembered aisle, with kind familiar faces around him, to occupy once more the very seat where so often, when a boy, he had listened with reverence to the voice of his father proclaiming the message of God. It was deep joy to join again in worship with the friends of his youth in that church, to which memory so often had turned during long years of absence.
Harry did not leave it after the sermon was ended, he and his family all remained to join in the service of obedience, the service of hope, the service of love. There, indeed, they could enjoy the sense of communion, not only with their Heavenly Father, but with all His family in heaven and earth—there they could realise that all true Christians are one in Christ, united with the angels above, and the spirits of the just made perfect.
If anything could have added to Harry's happiness at that sweet and solemn hour, it was to know that the Garths were worshipping near him. There were the grey-haired labourer and his wife, and their young grandson beside them, sharing for the first time, but not for the last, the privilege and blessing of drawing nigh to the Lord at His Table. As with meek reverence and love they obeyed their Master's command, faith raised their thoughts to the great Feast above, to which all God's servants are bidden. "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." * "Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb." †
* Luke xiv. 15. † Rev. xix. 9.
My reader, this is a solemn subject, and should it be one to which you have not yet given much thought, most earnestly would I commend it to your prayerful attention. May we duly prize the privilege of Christian Communion while yet we remain upon earth, nor refuse the loving invitation so graciously given to penitent sinners—"Come, for all things are now ready." * And when this life is over, and earth itself shall have passed away, may we, through our Saviour's merits, be received at the heavenly feast above, as rejoicing and thankful guests!
* Luke xiv. 17.
HYMN.OBEYING Christ's command, oh! Lord,I come, a thankful guest,In no polluted tattered robeOf human merits dressed,But in my Saviour's righteousness,The spotless wedding-vest.Unworthy as I own I am,Thy feast of love to share,For His sake hear my humble cry,For His sake grant my prayer;And let Thy mercy cleanse my soul.And shed Thy Spirit there!Oh! Make me one with Thy dear Son,To Him my soul unite,A branch of the Eternal Vine,Not fruitless in Thy sight:Thine own on earth—Thine own in heaven.Through ages infinite!