The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTwilight storiesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Twilight storiesAuthor: Catharine ShawRelease date: October 6, 2023 [eBook #71824]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd, 1904*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT STORIES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Twilight storiesAuthor: Catharine ShawRelease date: October 6, 2023 [eBook #71824]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd, 1904
Title: Twilight stories
Author: Catharine Shaw
Author: Catharine Shaw
Release date: October 6, 2023 [eBook #71824]
Language: English
Original publication: London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd, 1904
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT STORIES ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
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CHAP.
I. A TICKET FOR EACH
II. WHAT THE SHEPHERD KNOWS
III. FOLLOWING
IV. KEPT AT HOME
V. ROBBIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE
VI. THE FLOWER OF HOPE
VII. MILICENT'S MUSIC
VIII. SERVES HIM RIGHT
IX. NELLIE'S HINDRANCE
X. THE EARWIG
XI. LOST ON THE COMMON
XII. BLACKBERRYING
XIII. THE STOPPED WATCH
XIV. THE MIDNIGHT A, B, C
XV. VERA'S CONTENT
XVI. A SEARCH FOR VIOLETS
XVII. SUMMER DAYS
XVIII. BECAUSE
XIX. THE HAUNTED ROOM
XX. AGATHA'S STORY
XXI. UNDER THE STARS
XXII. KINDLED
XXIII. TOM'S PERSUASIONS
XXIV. A MESSAGE FROM AMERICA
XXV. HOW TO FIND
XXVI. WORTH WHILE
XXVII. MID-WINTER
"COME along, Auntie! The tea will not be in for a few minutes, and the fire is bright and the curtains are drawn. Just sit down and give us a twilight talk. It is New Year's day, and of course we want something to help us on our way."
Their Aunt smiled. She had come to stay with them for a long visit. The four gathered round her knew that she had passed through deep trials, and they also knew that she had come out of them nearer to the Celestial City, like "Christian" from "The Slough of Despond."
They did not guess that their love and sympathy helped her very much too.
"Well!" she said, brightly, "I was thinking this morning about God's promises, and I made up my mind to take one each day this year to live upon!"
"How do you mean?" asked Rose.
"Every morning to take some distinct promise, or assurance, out of the Bible, and think about it whenever I could, and remind God of it whenever I was in any difficulty. I'm going to call it my ticket!"
"Your 'ticket,' Auntie?" said Oswald, affectionately. "I do not believe you want a ticket to get into God's presence. Is that what you mean?"
The others smiled, and Aunt Ruth laughed a little.
"Well—it's just as well to have a ticket! The other day, do you remember? I went to a large concert. Inside was light and music, and friends; outside was cold, dull weather, and policemen and hall-keepers jealously guarding the way.
"I was glad to have a ticket then, I can tell you; and it struck me this morning that there is nothing Satan likes better than to say, as those hall-keepers did: 'This is not the way! Where's your ticket?'"
"And how is that like God's promises?" said Tom, bluntly.
"Like this. In God's presence is light and warmth and music. Satan would keep us outside; but when we can say to him 'God said so,' he has not a word to answer, and is obliged to let us pass!"
"I see!" said Tom.
"Let us all try this year to have a promise, or an assurance, every morning. I am sure it will bring happiness."
"Have you got one for to-day?" asked Jean, shyly.
"Yes," said Aunt Ruth, looking up. "It is 'Certainly I will be with thee.'"
"That's a ticket to a very good seat!" said Oswald, with his eyes shining. "I think your 'tickets' are a good idea, Auntie. We'll each see if we can't get some for ourselves."
"But are the promises always applicable?" asked Rose.
"I think I may say I have always found them so," said Aunt Ruth, "for when by a promise we get into God's presence, it is wonderful what a feast He spreads for us, 'enough and to spare'; worth all the trouble of getting in."
"Is it easy to find promises?" asked Tom, "For I should never know where to look."
"You would soon get used to it, especially as there are quite 30,000 promises in the Bible."
"Are there, Auntie?"
"Yes. Did you never hear the story of the old woman who put T.P. on pretty nearly every page of her Bible? Some one asked her what T. P. meant, and she said, with great satisfaction—'T. P., Tried and Proved. I've tried and proved every one of those promises, and found God faithful!'"
"I like that!" said Oswald. "Now let's get a promise each for to-day!"
"How would you like to have the same as mine?" said Aunt Ruth, "And to-morrow you can each get a fresh one for yourselves?"
This met with great approval, and Jean wrote on a strip of paper and slipped it into her Bible—
"Certainly I will be with thee!"
AUNT RUTH sat in the chimney corner. It was a cold, snowy day, and the children had come in from a walk, and said it was bitter.
They gathered close to the fire, and all seemed inclined to stop there, rather than seek for employment or amusement.
"The fields looked so bleak," said Rose, warming her hands for the twentieth time. "We saw a shepherd leading home his sheep, Auntie!" said Jean.
"Did you? How interesting! Not driving them, then?"
"No, that was what I noticed and I thought you'd perhaps have a twilight talk over that?"
Jean smiled as she said it, and Aunt Ruth smiled too.
"So you are beginning to look-out for spiritual lessons from everyday things?"
"I like that sort of lesson," said Jean, "so much better than geography and history!"
"Ah! But we cannot properly learn the spiritual, unless we are in touch with Christ in the everyday things!"
"Can't we, Auntie?" asked Tom, soberly.
She shook her head. "Well," she said, "directly Jean told me she had seen a shepherd leading his sheep, I thought of one of my favourite texts."
"And that was?" asked Oswald.
"'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'"
"Children! The sheep hear; and He knows them, each one; and they follow; and He gives. There is a world of meaning in every one of those short sentences. Many children and grown-up people, too, hear, and follow, and forget the clause that comes between. Do you remember what that is?"
"'I know them,'" said Rose, gently. She had been learning the whole verse, and could repeat it perfectly.
"Yes—and what do you think they miss by forgetting that clause?"
The children did not know, so they looked up earnestly.
"They miss assurance. The first clause and the third belong to themselves, 'they hear, they follow'; but the second clause is all Christ's, 'I know them.' Here is safety and peace."
"Once there was a revival in a large school that I knew of, and one of the naughtiest girls was brought to Christ. Most of the mistresses thought it impossible that Lizzie could be really converted, and laughed much at a younger teacher, who believed that there really was a change in the girl. This young teacher at last was driven into a corner in defending Lizzie's conversion, and said, in desperation, 'Well—Christ knows.' Very soon after the holidays came, and the young mistress left the school."
"But at the end of a year, she paid her friends there a visit; and when she was hearing all the news, one of them said, 'You remember Lizzie, who was such a naughty girl? Well, she is totally changed. Instead of being the most tiresome, she is the brightest of all the little Christians!"
"Then the mistress took heart, and remembered how she had said, 'Christ knows'?"
"Yes, dears, He knows His sheep, and they follow Him. And in proportion to our realising that He knows, so shall we be strong to follow Him closely!"
"That's very nice," said Tom. "Thank you, Auntie."
"Another day we will have 'following,' for I think it will help us."
They looked up gratefully. They did want to learn more of Christ, and this dear Aunt Ruth had learned in His School, and could help them because she had been close to Him herself.
"WHAT are you looking at, Auntie?" The children crowded out of the French window, and stood on the verandah by her side, the stars and the deep twilight sky sending a sort of thrill to their hearts.
"I was watching that old woman and her grandson on their way home. What do you think I heard the boy say as he passed the hedge?"
"What?" asked Rose, curiously. Auntie always had something pleasant to say.
"'I can't see the way, grannie, it's so dark!' he complained; and then a gentle voice came out of the gloom, and I heard these words: 'If you keep close behind, and follow me, we shall soon get into the light!'"
"And I thought, children, that here was our promised twilight talk about 'following' all ready to our hand!"
"Now it seems to me that little Ted Jones is a picture of us."
"There are often places in our everyday lives which are dark and mysterious to us ignorant ones; sorrows, or trials, misunderstandings, difficulties, sins, temptations—you can all put your own special difficulty into the story, and call it 'darkness.' The question often comes to each of us, how are we to get out of this dilemma, or this difficulty, or this bad temper, or temptation?"
"I know well that it seems very real and large and overwhelming to us. But the Lord Jesus bids us follow Him closely, assuring us with tenderness that is wonderful, 'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life!'"
"But," said Oswald, pressing closer to her side, "there are so many things that are so small, Auntie, and yet they worry you no end! Perhaps you've had a lesson to learn, and you've had a headache, or somebody has thrown you over, and made it ache, and so your lesson isn't half prepared, and you get up in the morning feeling that the world is dark and you cannot see any way out of the bother. Oh, there are heaps of things! That's only one! What can we do in such a case?"
There was a pause for an instant. Aunt Ruth was trying to put herself into Oswald's circumstances, and thinking how to bring her great Remedy down to his need. To make him understand that Jesus Christ is a remedy for all ills.
"I think," she said, slowly, "the best plan would be to go to God, our Father, and tell Him just how the difficulty came, and then ask Him definitely 'in the name of Jesus,' to make some way out of it—"
"And then?" asked Oswald, eagerly.
"Then I should do the next most obvious thing. Either look over the unfinished lesson if there is time, or go quietly into class if there isn't, and wait to see how God will help you. The answer may come in some very simple way, but if you look for it, it will surely come, and you must thank Him."
Oswald pressed her arm. Aunt Ruth was so comforting.
"Every one of us has our own special difficulty, and what is 'darkness' to Oswald may not appear at all bad to Tom!"
Tom could hear a smile in his Aunt's voice as she turned towards him.
"The timid child who hates to go upstairs after dusk, feels itself quite safe if father is in front! So little Ted Jones could not see the way to go, and he felt afraid in the dark lanes lest he was not going right. But grannie knew! She had been that way before too many times to mistake, and if little Ted would only keep close to her, and trust her, she would lead him safely home. Presently the cottage door would open, there would be a flood of light, and little Ted would be at home!"
"How nice!" said Jean, with her eyes shining in the darkness.
But Aunt Ruth was speaking again. "Jesus says 'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and whither I am, there shall My servant be!"
There was a moment's pause, and the children were looking up to the starlit sky.
"But, sometimes," said Tom, in a low voice, "the path seems difficult, and we lose sight of the Guide, perhaps, and cannot be sure He is there—"
"Yes," said Aunt Ruth, "I know that; but I think then the best way is to speak to our Guide. Tell Him we find the way rough and lonely, and ask Him by his Spirit to reveal His presence to us. As surely as we do, we shall get a comforting assurance that He is there; that He knows the way, that He has been through all our temptations, and that He is safely leading us Home! Oh, the rest of being sure that Jesus knows the way, children!"
"I suppose," said Rose, "that if we were more sure about Jesus we should not be half so afraid!"
"'Sure,'" echoed Tom; "how do you mean?"
"I mean," hesitated Rose, "that if we had more confidence in the way He was leading us we should be more satisfied with our circumstances—"
Rose had touched upon one of the great problems of life. The others did not know it, but Aunt Ruth did.
"Have I ever told you about the Alpine guide?" she asked suddenly.
"No, I think not," said Rose, wonderingly.
"When people want to make an ascent of a difficult mountain, the first thing they do is to secure the services of a guide."
"This guide must be thoroughly qualified, strong and reliable, have climbed that particular mountain many times before, and must be ready to undertake the charge of the traveller—"
"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Jean.
"And then, when the traveller and the guide have made the compact, the traveller gives himself over to do exactly as the guide says, doesn't he?"
"Of course he does," said Tom.
"And they start together, and the guide goes before in all the difficult places. He cares for the traveller; he holds him up; he assures him that he knows the way. As they mount higher, the guide cuts each step in the ice, and the traveller must put his foot where his guide's have been, with unquestioning faith: herein is his only safety."
"Will he grudge his confidence when the summit is reached, and they stand beneath the vault of heaven with nothing between?"
"So we, children, shall thank and praise our great Guide for His faithfulness, and shall know those words true by and bye—'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life'!"
TWO girls sat at a window in a cosy bedroom overlooking the snowy prospect; a bright fire burned in the grate, and a little table was spread with afternoon tea.
"I wish you could go out and skate, Mary!" said the elder of the two, laying a gentle hand on the other's white one, and looking in her face.
Mary shook her head with a little half-smile.
"I suppose I ought not to have said so," Dorothy went on, "for I expect it only makes you long the more—"
"No, it doesn't," said Mary. "You see, Dorothy, I'm willing, and that makes it so much easier."
"Easier to sit up there and mope, instead of going to parties, or skating, or even church? And then in front of you, perhaps, an operation in which you may lose your foot—"
And as she said the words, Dorothy buried her face on Mary's lap and gave a sob.
Mary's little hand stroked her hair tenderly. "Yes—all that," she said, "and yet I love God's will better than my own, and am sure He will allow nothing that He will not give me strength to bear."
Still Dorothy sobbed, and Mary went on in the same tender, even tone, which had come to her because her heart was at rest in the heart and will of God.
"I'll tell you what comforts me, Dorothy, most of all. I've two texts that I live on just now; would you care to hear them?"
Dorothy nodded, and sat up, drying her eyes. "I've no business to depress you!" she exclaimed. "Only I am so sorry!"
"I know," answered Mary, "but now listen to my texts and get comforted. One is the down-hearted text, and the other is the triumphant one. Listen! This is the down-hearted text—I mean when Satan tries to make me down-hearted:—'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee!'"
"And the triumphant one is this,—'I will trust, and not be afraid!' Which will you have, Dorothy?"
Dorothy smiled at her tone, and Mary said, "Will you take the comfort that Jesus wants to give you about me, and be sure He is doing His best for me? I'm at the triumphant text to-night, you see!"
There were bright tears glittering in her soft eyes for all that, and Dorothy kissed her almost reverently.
"Well—I'll take one of your texts, if I can't take the other!" she said, "At present!"
"God must teach you Himself," said Mary, "and then you will be able!"
"WHY, Mother, it is almost as light as day!" said Robin, as the two came out from the shade of the trees close to the village church. "I was never out so late before. Look at the church clock, it's just upon a quarter past eleven."
"Yes," said his mother, trying to quicken her tired footsteps; "and we'll soon be home now, Robbie."
"I don't care," said Robin, a little sadly. "I was never so old as this before, and I thought Christmas was always a happy day to everybody, and I'm sure it won't be to us to-morrow, Mammie! We've got nothing to keep it with, and then there's father so ill, too."
"Yes, Robbie, I know that—" she assented, settling her great bundle of sticks more firmly in her arms, "but the Lord has been speaking to me while I've been picking up the sticks in the moonlight, and I feel less tired."
"Has He?" asked Robin in a voice of awe. He had been a very wretched little boy all that bright, crisp, Christmas Eve; like Christian and Hopeful, he had got into Doubting Castle, and Giant Despair had been beating him about cruelly! He had looked round on his circumstances, and had decided they were too hard to bear. There was mother with that tired face working for them all, and tidying up "for Christmas," as she said, waiting on their sick father, and washing and mending their threadbare clothes once again. He had looked in the cupboard and not a bit of fresh food for Christmas fare appeared to be there. He had peeped in the corners of the kitchen and shed, but no surprises lay anywhere that he could see.
"I did try to be a little Christian," he had murmured, "but what's the good? Other people have a good Christmas, but we haven't. God has forgotten all about father being ill, and mother and us not having enough to eat!"
So when his mother had called him softly to come out with her and gather sticks for a Christmas fire, he had come with sorrowful steps, being still fast held in Doubting Castle.
And now his mother was telling him that the Lord had been talking to her! and Robin felt almost afraid, for he had been turning his back on the Lord in his heart all that long Christmas Eve!
"Yes," his mother went on, squeezing his hand, "and what do you guess He said to me, Robbie? He said, 'Don't you think, little mother, that I love you, and know how tired you are? Don't you think that I know how father's groaning goes to your heart? Don't you think that I have looked into the cupboard in the kitchen and know there is only one loaf there to go round for all the children? Don't you think I see that there's but a bit of tea and a mite of sugar, and no meat nor pudding nor anything?'"
"And I said, 'Yes, dear Jesus, I know you have seen it all.'"
"And He said, 'Haven't I told you that I will make a way of escape that you shall be able to bear it?'"
"And I said, 'Yes, dear Jesus, you have.'"
"Then, Robbie, I began to think about the shepherds watching their flocks and the heavenly Host singing so long ago because Christ the Lord was born, and I raised my head and wiped away my tears, and I said to myself, 'I've got my Saviour still,' and He has said to you and to me, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'"
Robbie's little heart gave a thrill of happiness, and straight away, he got out of Doubting Castle. The key of God's promise had opened the gate!
When they got to the cottage door, a great hamper lay in the moonlight on the white step.
Warm clothes, apples, oranges, beef and groceries, crackers and nuts for the children, and a great pudding.
And on slip of paper was written:
"Unto you is born a Saviour which is Christ the Lord."
ALL is bare in the garden! The wind blows round in gusts; the snow lies thick wherever the wind has not lifted it; the cold seems to have taken possession.
Daisy looked out of the window on a dull February afternoon. The weather outside matched the chilled little heart. An arm came round her shoulders, and a gentle voice said, "Well, little one, what is that head of yours so busy over?"
"Oh, I don't know, Auntie! I was looking at the snow, and thinking—somehow—the winter seems never-ending!" There was great sadness in the young voice.
"Yes—you have had a hard time of it, Daisy," said her aunt, lovingly.
"And it is not only that mother is gone," said the girl, with a choke, "and that all the rooms are empty—it is not only that—"
She paused, unable to proceed.
"I see all that," whispered her aunt, "but I know well that it is not always the sorrows people can see that are the hardest."
Daisy looked up quickly, as if that were a ray of comfort.
"Jesus sees," proceeded her aunt, "what we can hardly explain to any one else, He understands."
Daisy squeezed her hand, and then, as if impelled to go on, she added, "I thought as I looked out on the wintry garden, as if my heart were something like that, and I don't see any help for it!"
"Still, Daisy, beneath the snow and the frost, the plants are alive! That is how the life of Christ is in your heart. Put on your shawl, and I will get mine. There is nothing like seeing—"
Daisy ran with alacrity. Hope had begun to dawn in her heart.
Her aunt led the way to a sheltered corner.
"Look!" she exclaimed. There, beneath a holly bush, peeped out of the white earth a little patch of exquisite snowdrops!
"Oh! Auntie!" said Daisy, and her eyes were full of tears, she did not know why.
"Didn't I tell you the life was there?" whispered her aunt. "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God!"
When her father came home that night, there was a different atmosphere somehow in the quiet room, and about his little girl. There was nothing that he could say was altered, except that a bunch of snowdrops stood in a vase beside his plate; but Daisy's eyes had the light of hope in them.
"The child has been talking to Jesus, I fancy," said his sister that night, "and any one who talks to Him finds the worst burden lifted!"
"WHY, Milicent!" exclaimed her aunt. "Crying over your music, darling?"
Milicent was too miserable to mind being caught crying, though generally she was so brave that she would have resented the sympathy.
"I'm cold, and I can't get on; and Miss Seymour told me I was to do nothing till I had played this exercise twenty times."
Her aunt went up to her and touched the little icy fingers, which with contact with the cold ivory keys, were numbed and almost useless.
"Miss Seymour will let you warm them, I am sure, if I explained," said her auntie. "Come here on my knee, and while you get warm we will have a little talk. Then I will help you with your exercise afterwards, and you shall see how quickly we will learn it."
Milicent came almost reluctantly. Her hands ached intolerably, and she felt wretched altogether. But the warm rays of the fire began to play upon her chilled little frame, and as she nestled her head in her aunt's neck, she felt comfort beginning to steal over her.
"Cold is very bad to bear," said her aunt, softly. "I heard from a soldier who came from South Africa that some of the poor fellows on duty at night would positively cry with the bitter cold."
Milicent looked up suddenly.
"These are words said to you and to me, Milly, 'Endure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.'"
"I didn't mean to cry," said Milly, "only I couldn't get on."
"No, dear; and do you know when I saw your pitiful little face, I remembered what I heard at a missionary meeting a week or two ago? The young clergyman had been working for seven years all among the snows of North-West Canada—"
"'Working?'" asked Milicent.
"Trying to tell the Red Indians and Eskimos, and the trappers and hunters about Jesus, our Saviour, of whom they have never heard."
"Oh, I see," said Milicent. "Now I know what you mean."
"The missionaries there only get letters three times in the year; they have to live almost entirely on dried meat and a little tea, and often go very short of that! They never see the sun for nine months in the year, and the snow is five feet thick on the ground!"
"When they travel from place to place to tell the good news of the love of Jesus, they often cannot get to a hut by night time, and have to camp in the snow. They scrape a big hole with their long snow-shoes, and then they put on every wrap they possess, and each gets into a long fur bag which covers them over head and all, and then they lie down in the snow hole, and men and dogs go to sleep as close together as they can for warmth."
Milicent raised her head, and put out her hands to the blaze thoughtfully.
"They must love Jesus very much to bear all that for Him," she said at length.
"Yes; and love the poor ignorant people, too, Milly!"
"Do the Eskimos learn to love Christ, Auntie?"
"Indeed they do. The children are taught to read, and to sing hymns, and to repeat Scripture; and by and by little Mission stations spring up and a church is built; and those who used to be cannibals and at constant warfare with each other, learn to be kind and gentle and forgiving even as Christ is!"
Milicent's large eyes looked wistful. "I wish I could do something for them," she said, longingly.
"Milly, I felt that too, when I heard! But do you know what I thought? Every day I can pray that God would support and bless those brave missionaries in their hardships; and you can ask Him, too, that He may comfort them and give them food to eat and cheer their hearts with His presence."
"So I will," said Milly in a low voice.
"And you can learn to knit warm gloves and caps for them, perhaps? Or work to sell things and send them money."
Milly nodded her head earnestly. Her heart was full of thoughts.
Then her aunt rose and turned to the piano.
"Now, childie, we must do the next duty that comes to our hand. Let us have a look at this tiresome music!"
Milly went at it with a good will, now, and soon conquered the difficulty; and then, set free, she went up into her bedroom and knelt down at her bedside for one moment.
"Lord Jesus," she said, "I want to love Thee and serve Thee all my life—teach me how!"
"NOW, Aunt Ruth! See, the fire is blazing, and the wintry prospect is shut out, let us have a story or something!"
Their Aunt glanced on their eager faces, illumined by the firelight, and she smiled as she paused an instant.
"Serves him right!" she exclaimed, and the children looked round almost startled. They heard such words from each other occasionally, but certainly not from their gentle Aunt.
"'Serves him right,'" she repeated. "'He did it to me, and it's just as well he should feel the pinch himself!'"
"'What did he do, Rollo?' asked a school-fellow, curiously."
"'When I went down in class the other day, you should have seen the look in George's eyes! As he took his place above me, he muttered beneath his breath, "You should have worked harder last night, then it wouldn't have happened!" He knew I had a frightful headache, and could barely see a line.'"
"'Well,' said his school-fellow, 'George has got his deserts this time, for Joey hid his book till the last minute, and then found it, as innocent as anything, and we knew he'd be bound to go down, for he hadn't a moment to prepare.'"
"Rollo turned away, but his heart was heavy. It was all very well to be glad that his overbearing school-fellow had gone down in class; but such a trick as that was beyond him."
"He raced off to his dinner at home, and his footmarks were the only ones across the snowy fields."
"When he got in, the dinner was not quite ready, and he went and sat down in front of the fire, by which his little crippled sister lay on her couch."
"'Isn't all right to-day, Rollo?' she asked, wistfully."
"He looked up, then back to the fire."
"'Nothing particular,' he mumbled."
"'I'm sure there is,' she said gently."
"'It's only that George Runton is such a cad, and I said it served him right to go down in his class—'"
"'Well? Did you get blamed for saying that?' she asked."
"'By nobody but myself. I had a sort of feeling it wasn't nice of me: but I don't know why exactly. It did serve him right, and yet—'"
"'I know!' said Mary, very tenderly; 'it wasn't like "His compassions" was it?'"
"'His compassions?' asked Rollo, equally gently, for this little suffering sister was his pet and darling."
"'Don't you know it says, "His compassions fail not; they are new every morning." I'm often glad of that.'"
"'Why particularly?'"
"'Because we're often hard in our thoughts on other people—at least I am. But I'm often glad to remember that God is sorry for our mistakes without being hard, and He makes even our mistakes work round for our good if we will trust Him.'"
"Rollo looked dissatisfied."
"'Doesn't that help you at all?' asked Mary."
"'We're always paying each other out at school, or wishing we could,' objected Rollo. 'I don't seem to be able to help it.'"
"'Yes, I know; but when we get very tired of trying to be kind and to pay back a kind action instead of a nasty word, it does help to say to one's self, "His compassions fail not."'"
"'Well—' said Rollo, with a long-drawn breath, 'I'll try it. And here's dinner!'"
"He retraced his steps over the snow, and he looked up at the sky and saw the little robin singing on the branches in spite of the cold, and he repeated to himself tenderly, thinking of Mary's face: 'His compassions fail not; they are new every morning.'"
"For a moment his heart stood still. What about Mary's years of helplessness?"
"But he remembered that she had meant what she said, and there was nothing but truth from those gentle lips and eyes."
"When he got inside school he was almost late. In his hurry, he stumbled up against George Runton, and nearly knocked him over. He paused for one instant, then said, hastily, 'I'm sorry you lost your book, old fellow—it was awfully vexing.' And so passed on into school, with a wonderfully lightened heart."
* * * * * *
There was silence for a minute round the bright fire, for Auntie had set the children thinking.
"I suppose we are all apt to be hard on someone!" ventured Rose, at last.
"Yes, I expect we are," said Aunt Ruth. "We all have our different ways of showing it, and the things that make us hard differ with each of our dispositions. But God seems to me to stand like 'a shadow of a great rock in a weary land,' with His everlasting love ready to enfold us and protect us and calm us."
"Why did you tell us this to-day, Auntie?" asked Tom.
"Because—" she smiled archly, "I had heard those words, 'Serve him right,' eight times within the last two days!"
"Oh, Auntie!"
She jumped up and turned up the gas. "Who wants a game of dominoes till teatime?" she said brightly.
But nevertheless, they did not forget her little story.
NELLIE had come out from home with rather a heavy heart. Her basket full of fresh eggs for the Vicarage had been taken safely there, and now she was returning. The twilight was deepening, and she stood still to hear a thrush's good-night song.
Yesterday a Missioner had come to their village, and Nellie had gone to the service, and she had been dissatisfied with herself ever since.
The subject had been hindrances to prayer, and as Nellie stood beneath the trees breathing in the soft spring air, she recalled almost every word the Missioner had said.
She felt they spoke home, and her face was very downcast as she remembered them.
"Where do you think your hindrances to prayer come?" he had asked. "I will tell you; it is not in your outside life, among your acquaintances, in the shop or the club, the market, the school, or the pleasure party! You can have a smiling face there, and people say how nice you are and how pleasant! But the real man, and the real woman, and the real boy and girl are not seen in those places."
"It is at home, by your fireside, in the family life that we are ourselves, and it is there the great temptation comes to us to have our prayers hindered by unworthy conduct."
Nellie remembered it all, and she remembered, too, that her conduct to-day had somehow "hindered her prayers."
Her mother had asked her to do several things in the morning that she thought most unnecessary. She felt sure that no other mother would have wanted such a thing on a Monday morning!
She was a dutiful girl, and she did not refuse to do them, but she did them with an inward groan, which made them twice as hard to do.
Then the children had seemed tiresome, and one of them had torn his clothes against some barbed wire; the clothes had to be mended before he could go back to school in the afternoon. And while she was mending them at the top of her speed, he would keep on jumping in and out of bed, where he was waiting, and hindered her more than she could say.
At last the mending was done, and the children raced off to school a little late.
"Mother might have let him wear his best for once!" she grumbled to herself.
And so all the afternoon she felt things were harder than she could bear.
But now, as she came under the quiet shade of the trees and tried to think, she sat down on a grassy bank and buried her face in her hands.
What was "hindering" her prayers, and her communion with God?
The Missioner said that the word "hindered" meant "that you cut yourselves adrift" from prayer.
He said that the mainland is like communication with God; and that if a person rowed out to a rock, and, after mooring his boat to return, cut it adrift, he would sever himself from returning to the mainland!
So if we went out on to the sea of our daily life, and let pleasure or worry, work or care, cut us adrift from communication with God, all our happiness and peace would go!
Yes, Nellie remembered every word, and sorrowfully she thought, "What is separating me from communion with God?"
At first she was not sure, but after a few moments of thinking it over, she confessed to herself that it was not "pleasure," for she thought she did not get much of that; it was not "work," though she had heaps of that; it was not "care," for as yet she felt but little of that; it was—she paused—she hated to acknowledge it to herself—it was worry! She had got into a kind of vexation with her life, and all that belonged to it. She could not alter it; the more she tried the worse it seemed to be. What was she to do?
She did love God; she did wish to please Jesus all the day, more than anything else in the world; and yet here she was vexed and irritated by the unalterable things in her lot, which (she told herself) her mother could alter, but did not, and which galled and fretted her almost past endurance.
Was there any remedy, or must she go home just as burdened as she came out?
The thrush still sang, though the dusk was falling now upon tree and meadow.
Nellie felt she must go, but how could she till she had found rest?
Ah! With a start of joy, she raised her head. Rest? Then the words of her Saviour flashed upon her, "Come unto ME all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of ME."
Nellie saw it now, and the struggle was ended. She had been wanting her own will and her own way; she had been wanting to set the crooked things straight herself, but it was only God who could do it for her, after all.
The Missioner had said the yoke of Christ, under which he walked so patiently, was the Will of God. Was that the solution of all her home frets and worries? The Will of God! Yes, she would take it. She would do as Christ said, "Take the yoke upon her," and so find rest!
Such a peace stole over her that she could have cried her heart out; but she knew she would be missed; and with an inward thanksgiving too deep for words, she ran along the dark lane, and soon entered the lighted cottage.
She kissed her mother silently, and hastened upstairs, saying only, "I sha'n't be a minute," and when she came down, they wondered at her brightness, but did not know that in finding rest of heart in Jesus, her life had been "transfigured."
WHEN I was a little child of about five, I remember very well how we used to play in the garden all the long summer days, and how insects and toads, hedgehogs and beetles, were our playthings, besides the intense enjoyment of climbing trees, high swinging, and other delights.
But fond as we were of insects, I had the most shrinking fear of an earwig.
One day, I thought I felt something crawl down my neck, and in an agony I asked my little brothers and sisters, and I daresay our busy nurse, to see if they could find it. Nobody took any heed of my distress, till, in some way, I suppose, I came across my father.
I never had any reason to doubt his tenderness, and whether he guessed there was something wrong, or whether I ran to him and explained, I cannot now remember.
But what is indelibly impressed on my memory is this.
He took me at once to his room, and while cheeringly assuring me that even if it were an earwig, it would do me no harm, he began with the utmost tenderness to take off my frock, and to peep about my little shoulders; and still not finding it, he took off garment by garment, till he satisfied himself and me that no earwig was there. Then he dressed me again, and with comforted heart we went downstairs together.
Shall I ever forget that little childish scene? Does it not rise before me every time I read those tender words in the 103rd Psalm, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."
Now, what I want you all to remember, dear children, is this. Let this little picture of an earthly father's pity, help you to understand the Heavenly Father's pity.
We all have troubles and fears, difficulties and temptations. Some more, some less.
Let us take them to the pitying Heavenly Father. The difficulty or fear may be as unwarrantable as my dread of the earwig, or it may be a real danger or temptation which assails us. But whatever it is, trust the great Father's love. Tell Him all about it, ask Him to help you, as He knows best how; leave it in His Hands how to do it, and receive His assurance of peace when you have done all this.
Then at rest from your fears, and the worst of your difficulties, go hand in hand into the work of life, with a firmer trust than ever in your Father's love.
And the Heavenly Father is always near at hand!
"WHY, Bertha! I've been looking for you everywhere," exclaimed her cousin Norman, a little reproachfully, "Aunt Esther was quite in a fidget."
It was hot, and he had been sent out on the Common, and had been wandering about for an hour, calling and searching.
Bertha's eyes fell. She had not intended to set everybody hunting, she had only felt miserable, and had wanted to be alone.
She loved the Common, and was always allowed to go out at the back gate and wander about, so long as she kept in sight of home.
Norman threw himself on the grass in front of her; not that he felt particularly friendly, but because he was tired. So they sat in silence, till, a little rested, he raised his eyes to her woe-begone face.
"What's the matter?" he asked, bluntly.
"I've been naughty again," said Bertha, simply.
"What about?" with more interest.
Bertha felt the difference in the tone.
"I can't get on with Aunt Esther—"
"I expect you're sometimes in fault yourself," hazarded Norman, looking up.
"Ye-es—oh, yes, I am; but she's so sharp! She's always after me: 'do this,' and 'do that.' Mother never used to keep on so!"
"Of course not," said Norman, briefly. He hoped Bertha was not going to cry about her mother, because he hated people to cry.
"And then when Father comes home, I know Aunt Esther tells him tales about me, and that makes me mad—"
"Perhaps you fancy she does, and after all she doesn't," said Norman.
Bertha shook her head. "I know it isn't nice of me to be always thinking such things about her; but, indeed, Norman, I can't help it, and I do feel so miserable."
The tears came now, and Norman did not so much mind, as he expected. He was full of sympathy with his little cousin, but he did not see how to help her.
"I s'pose there's some way out of it," he said, consideringly, "there generally is—"
Again Bertha shook her head.
"What did you do to-day?" he asked, by way of suggesting a remedy.
Bertha brushed away her tears with her hand.
"Well," she said, "I was busy in the breakfast-room, making those toilet mats for the missionaries, and the room was rather—"
"Snippy," suggested Norman.
"Yes—well, it was no harm; it was Saturday, and I was free to do it. And I wanted to finish a set, because I thought if Aunt Helen came this afternoon, I would get her to buy them—for the missionaries, you know. But Aunt Esther said she could not have such a mess all over the place, and began gathering my things together, and I felt cross, and begged her to wait and let me put them up; and she went on, and my bottle of gum got spilled between us, and went over the pink satin, and spoilt ever such a lot."
"What a shame," said the boy, flushing.
"Yes, it was; but, oh, I flew in such a passion. I stamped about the room, and said all the nasty things I could think of; and when I hadn't any more words left, she just said, coldly, 'That is what you call working for Christ, do you? You will not show your things to Aunt Helen this afternoon, Bertha,' and left the room."
Norman turned crimson, and Bertha saw his sympathy in his face.
"And so I came out here," she said, sorrowfully. "It was quite true—that part of it—how dreadful it was of me to be in such a temper over His work, Norman! Now I don't know what to do. Shall I burn them all, and never do any more, if I can't be a better girl."
Norman's brown hand was stretched out and took hold of her little one. "Poor kiddie," he said, softly.
"What can I do, do you think?" she asked, anxiously.
"Not burn the things!" he said, decidedly. "I think—I'm not much of a hand at good sort of talk, you know—but if we've done wrong—if we know we have—"
Bertha nodded.
"Then mother always says we ought to ask God to forgive us, and—you won't like me to say it—and Aunt Esther. Mother says then we can begin again, you know. Only it's awfully hard—"
Bertha raised herself from the ground. "Yes, Norman," she said, solemnly, "I see. I'll do it. Ask God first, then Aunt Esther. I will."
"I WONDER why it's been such a good year for fruit?" said a little boy, looking up in the face of an elder one who was resting against a stile, still keeping a crutch in his hand and leaning on it, while a basket of blackberries lay at his feet.
"I suppose there has been just enough rain and just enough sun to suit them, Tommy!"
The tone made Tommy look up, and then his eyes wandered to the crutch, and back again to the patient face wistfully.
"If the blackberry hedges had nothing but sun, they would be scorched up, Tommy, boy! And if my life had been all pleasure, perhaps there would have been no fruit on my bush!"
"Fruit?"
"Yes, don't you remember how the lesson in Sunday School, yesterday, was 'He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit?'"
"Oh, I see!" said Tommy.
"And if," pursued the elder boy, "there had been nothing but rain and storm and sorrow and pain, my little bush would have got mildewed and spoilt, and so no fruit would have come either."
"I like sunshine best!" said Tommy. "But—what sort of things do you mean would have scorched up your bush?"
He hesitated, for though several years younger than his companion, he had a thoughtful little heart, and he began to guess.
"Being captain of our football team, perhaps; and first in all the running games; and top of my Form—"
"But those weren't harm?" said Tommy. "No—o—oh no! But it was so pleasant; and I never thought it could be different, and I did not need God then, and so I brought no fruit to Him. That's what I call sunshine that scorches—"
The child put his hand on the brown big one, caressingly.
"So then in love—yes, Tommy—in love, my Father sent the rain and the storm. He saw there would be no fruit on my little bush, and He knew I should be sorry; and so He—" Frank paused and looked down at the crutch, which said all there was to say. It needed no explanation. Tommy knew all about the long, painful illness which had resulted in the loss of Frank's right leg.
Everybody knew how patiently their school-fellow bore his deprivation.
"Your bush has lots of 'fruit' on it now, I think!" said Tommy, affectionately.
"Tommy!" said Frank, getting himself upright again to start for home. "There are sunshine and storms in your life as well as mine! We don't all of us have the same lot. You've got no mother, and—heaps of things that are hard—but every time you are brave and patient 'for Jesus' sake,' you are 'bearing fruit.' Think of that, Tommy! Doesn't it kind of feel nice?"
"THE sun's set, Jim," called Nellie, as she raked up the last bit of hay, "and we shall have a fine day to-morrow to finish it, by the looks of the sky."
"Yes," he answered, turning towards the ferry boat, "we've done for to-day, let's take a rest in the twilight till father's ready to go home."
Nellie was nothing loth. She and her favourite brother were a great deal together, and worked on the same farm on which their father had lived all his life.
As she got into the boat, she said, "What time is it, should you say?"
He took out his rather clumsy watch, and looked at it.
"It's gone wrong again!" he said, "I set it all right this morning, and I thought I'd done it this time. I doubt I must have it seen to. The man in the village isn't no hand at it, no more than I am myself. I've tinkered it, and I've altered it, and I've shaken it—"
Nellie laughed a little, and he laughed with her.
"It strikes me I must take it to the man as made it," he remarked gravely, and Nellie looked up at his tone.
"Do you know who did?" she asked.
"Yes, a man in Windsor. But, funny enough, Nell, when I was shaking it this morning, thinks I to myself, 'Here's a help for you, Jim, in Heavenly things!'"
"Because your watch had gone wrong?" said Nell, her eyes questioning with interest. She and Jim wanted to get on in Heavenly things, and they often helped each other.
"Yes," he said, raising his head, and looking at the golden sky; while the ripple of the water lapping against the boat as the river flowed on, made soft, soothing music.
"Yes, Nell. Somehow, lately, I've felt that my works were rather out of order! Things haven't been so very comfortable at home—as you know—and I've had all that bother with mother and father about Meg Marston; and somehow I've tried my hardest to be patient and kind, and to wait willingly till they saw things different; and it's all been no use. I've not been patient inwardly, nor outwardly either, for that matter. I've tossed and fumed and fretted. I've tried to set the outside of the watch right, and I've poked at the inside, and I've shaken myself—"
Again Nell smiled. But this time there were tears in her gentle, dark eyes. She knew better than any one what Jim had had to bear.
"And this morning, as I was trying to set my watch right, it suddenly darted into my mind, 'Take it to the man as made it, Jim!' And all at once I thought, perhaps, that was what my Saviour wanted me to do with my 'works,' as I call my heart and my difficulties. So I just slipped down on to my knees, Nell, with my watch in my hand, just as I was, and I said, 'Dear Lord, I am yours! You made me, you understand me. I've been trying to make myself go for months and I've failed. The 'works' have stopped, and they want seeing to! Take me in hand; make me clean, set me right, keep me going, make me true to You, whatever else I am!'"
Nell's tender face bent down, and she looked into the flowing, crimson water for a minute in silence.
"And then?" she asked, gently.
"Then I came downstairs, and found mother in the kitchen; and instead of passing by, and coming out without a word, I managed to say, 'It's going to be lovely for the hay,' and gave her a kiss, and so started to my work."
"I'm awfully glad," said Nell.
"Yes, so am I. So all day, when I have thought how hard it is of mother and father about Meg, I've tried to think, too, that the Lord is setting my 'works' right, and He has them in hand, and I've got no call to be so anxious about everything. He'll set them right, and me, too! But here's father!"
"I HATE learning Scripture! At least—I don't like it—or see the good of it," said Robbie, his eager tone diminishing as he got through his sentence, and his eyes met those of his father's, a patient invalid, sitting by the fire.
If there was one person Robbie was devoted to, it was his father. So while he was speaking, his eyes turned naturally to those quiet grey ones, which had looked out on the world so tenderly for so many years.
He pushed his school Bible away, and went over and stroked the cramped thin hand, looking inquiringly into the dear face.
"Yes, Robbie, I understand that. I mean, that I remember the days when I thought it a great task to learn Scripture."
"Well—is there any good?" asked Robbie, hesitating, "I don't mean in reading it, of course, but in learning it by heart—just like a parrot?"
"You have given me a good many questions to answer in that one sentence," said his father, fondly, "but I'll answer one first. It is good; I only wish I had learned more."
Robbie opened his eyes wide.
"Sometimes I try to see how many Psalms and chapters, or portions, I can say through, but I am always sorry there are not more—"
"Why? You can read them yourself."
"Sometimes—but there are twilight hours, and the long dark night, and then I can't read; and it is an inexpressible comfort to be able to repeat to myself."
"Do you learn any now, father?"
"Not as easily as I used, and with great pains, too. Over and over. We don't learn so quickly when we are older."
"Oh, I see," said Robbie, looking into the fire meditatively.
"So learn your daily verse cheerfully, my boy, and say, 'It will be a comfort to me by and by.'"
"And the parrot?" asked Robbie, smiling a little.
"He only repeats without thinking; we have a better reason than that, 'Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.'"
Robbie stroked the loved hand again; a touch of love which his father perfectly understood.
"Shall I tell you another thing I do, when I am ill, or the night seems long?"
His father spoke cheerily, and the boy looked up.
"I take the old game, 'I love my love with an A,' and turn it into a help to bring me nearer my God!"
"I can't see how," said Robbie.
"I say to myself, when I am weary or wakeful, 'I adore my God with an A, because He is "Abundantly able to save."'"
"'I adore my God with a B, because He says, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."'"
"Oh, like 'capping verses,'" said Robbie, smiling again.
"Something like; but my way gives more scope. I never get tired of it. If I can't think of a verse beginning with C, for instance, I say, 'I adore my God with a C, because He has said, "I will not leave you Comfortless,"' and so to the end of the alphabet."
"There aren't many Z's, I should think?"
"Enough to give me a feast. 'Zacchaeus, come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house,' or 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.' There, Robbie!"
"And what do you do for X?"
"Ah! Yes; I use the verses where there are 'Excepts,' and call them—like this—'I will not let Thee go 'Xcept Thou bless me.'"
"Oh, I see! That's good!"
"Now, let me hear you say your verses for this week, and we'll soon learn them together—you will, faster than I shall."
Robbie went back to fetch his Bible, and soon, as his father said, the six verses which he had learnt separately every day came into one whole, and he could say them off.
He gave a great sigh, and then with a kiss on his father's forehead, he bounded off to play.
But he never forgot that day.