Part 10

“So we shall have most comfort ourselves in our teachings when we have most of Christ in them; then, too, we shall do most good to the souls of others.”

* * * * *

Bell sat still, listlessly twirling her rings.

“My dear little cousin,” said Miss Marvin, “was it God’s glory or your own you thought of, when you set out to draw all the people of Mill Village into our Sabbath School? Did you want them to admire and love yourself, or the Lord Jesus of whom you read? Was it Self or Christ you were trying to serve?”

“You always make me out wrong! but I shan’t trouble people reading the Bible any more,” said Bell, flinging herself into the house.

Cousin Mate resumed her book with a sigh. “Poor little Bell!” she thought. “How much harder a master Self is than Christ! One makes us willing servants to our fellow-men, the other makes us miserable slaves to our own passions.”

XIV.

MISS LOMY’S SERMON.

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

Miss Lomy was helping Mrs. Sherman with her fall sewing. There were three sisters who lived in the square two-story house on the hill. The house full of old-fashioned furniture was all their father left them, so Miss Lomy “went out” sewing, Miss Nancy “took in” work, and Dolly, the youngest, a staid, sober woman of fifty-five, attended to the housekeeping.

Miss Lomy had lost all her teeth, which puckered her mouth into the funniest little O; there were wrinkles all around her eyes,—in fact her face was so covered with wrinkles that when she laughed, as she did every five minutes, it made you think of the ripples chasing each other over a lake after a handful of pebbles has been thrown in, and her two merry blue eyes lighted them up for all the world like the sunshine. Everybody was glad when Miss Lomy came, and nobody could decide which flew the faster, her tongue or her needle.

“You know you promised to make my dollie a severless jacket to-day,” said Maybee, one morning.

“Yes, dear, if I get through with this mending before your ma has that other suit cut and basted,” returned Miss Shelomith, cheerily.

Maybee watched her needle creep in and out of the frayed edges of a fearfully long gash.

“I tore that getting through the hedge. It’s my every-day dress though: what makes you take such teenty-tonty stitches?”

“So it’ll look nice, to be sure.”

“Nobody’ll ever see it, because most always I wear an apron.”

“I reckon the Lord’ll know about it,” said Miss Lomy, with so much reverence in her tone you knew there was no levity in her meaning. Involuntarily, Maybee’s eyes went up to the ceiling, and then her wee bit of a nose followed, disbelievingly.

“You don’t suppose God looks at such things! Of course He don’t,” she said, slowly.

“Well, now, if He cares for the sparrows and the weeds and all such, and numbers the very hairs of our heads, it stands to reason He’ll notice whether little girls’ dresses are neat and whole,—which they wouldn’t be ketched together the way some folks do their darning. I reckon He sees all we do, big _and_ little, and it ain’t so much the ‘what’ as the ‘how’ he takes account of.”

“But, Miss Lomy, He has to see to the sun and the rain, and the ocean full of ships, and the things growing, enough to feed everybody.”

“_To_ be sure; and that’s what’s so wonderful,—to think of His holding the sea in the hollow of His hand, and not forgetting to show the little ant where to find its supper.”

“But He _has_ to do that; and He don’t have to notice everything we do.”

“No, He just wants to, and that’s the most wonderful of all. Because, you see, it’s as easy again to do things well when you are trying to please Him. Pleasing folks is a doubtful matter: you may, and then again, you mayn’t,—accordin’ as they’re cross or over-particular or feeling down in the mouth; and there may be times you mean well and don’t make out much, an’ they’ll blame you all the same. But the Lord knows just what we try to do, and gives us credit for that. He ain’t never out of patience neither. Then there’s another thing. Folks can’t watch you all the whole time, and there’s a temptation to sort of slip things over, the way we oughtn’t; but the Lord, He’s looking every minit, there’s no getting away from His eye; and so when you’re working to please Him, you’ll just do your best right straight along.”

It was a short sermon, so short and simple Maybee could stow it all away in her busy little brain. Some time afterwards she went with Sue to see Molly Dinah. Molly Dinah had happened in to Mrs. Flynn’s one day when Sue was reading to Abby.

“I’ve most forgot all I knowed of the Bible,” she said, sorrowfully. “You see, I can’t read a word, myself. I’m a member of the church, though, in good an’ reg’lar standin’, if I ain’t sot down in one for years. I ain’t lost my hope, neither, but it’s so old, sometimes I’m most afeared it’s worn out. I wish you’d come and read to me onct in a while, to sort of patch it up.”

So Sue went. Poor Molly! Cleanliness, like godliness, was with her a thing of the past. Once a year, perhaps, some of her neater neighbors, out of pity, gave her the benefit of a little lime and soap. Otherwise, dirt and disorder reigned undisturbed. Sue longed, but did not quite dare, to suggest a reform, although Molly listened very attentively to her reading.

That day, however, when Sue had shut up her Bible, Maybee broke out with, “Do you s’pose the Lord likes the way your house looks?”

“Well, whatever does the dear child mean?” said Molly, holding up both hands.

“Why, Miss Lomy says we ought to do things to please God, ’stead of men; so now, I don’t darst to throw in whole pods when I’m shelling beans. You get through quicker, but you don’t feel so nice when you shirk. Of course, if He’s looking, you want to do everything just perzactly right.”

“Well, to be sure! I never thought of that; but I don’t really think He sees in here much.”

“I shouldn’t think He _could_, through that window,” said Maybee, severely; “but if He counts the hairs on our heads, don’t you s’pose He’ll know whether our faces are clean?”

“Well, I _do_ declare! Didn’t seem as if it paid to slick up, so few folks come in; but if I thought the Lord really minded—”

“I’ll help you wash the window,” said Sue.

What a busy time they all had for the next two hours! The sun actually looked in and laughed before he said good-night. And at the end of the week—for Molly was capable enough when she set out—you would scarcely have known the place.

That Saturday afternoon it was that the minister sat in his study, utterly discouraged. What had his year’s work amounted to? Not one soul saved or comforted that he knew of. His eye fell upon his church manual; he took it up and read the name, Molly D. Inan. Some one had said that was the woman down at the Mills known as Molly Dinah. Some one ought to have looked her up, long ago. He took his hat and went out.

“To think the minister has actu’lly come to see me!” said Molly, drawing out her one wooden rocking-chair. “I do suppose if the church folks had only noticed me a leetle more, I shouldn’t never have stopped going. You see, I hadn’t thought _then_ about the Lord’s minding. I’m proper glad I’m slicked up. You ain’t no idee how it looked, an’ I never even mistrustin’ the Lord cared, till that little Miss put it into my head, how we should do everything to please Him instid of folks. And it does help wonderful, to think He’s lookin’ and mindin’. I jest scrub with a will, now.”

“You’ve cheered me up, ’mazingly,” she said, as the minister took his leave; but he carried away more cheer than he brought. He, too, could go to work “with a will,” remembering it was the Lord, not men, he was seeking to please.

And the next Monday morning little Benny Cargill, when he opened the store, swept down all the cobwebs he could reach, and brushed out all the corners, because the minister said in his sermon, “_Whatsoever_ ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.”

PART FOURTH.

I.

HOW NOT TO BE TROUBLED.

“But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself.”

“I should like being good well enough, if we could only do it once for all, and have it done with,” said Maybee, despairingly; “but to just keep at it and _keep_ at it! Don’t you ever get tired, mamma?”

“How little children know about the doctrines nowadays,” remarked Aunt Cynthia, severely. “Now, I knew them all by heart before I was old as Maybee,—sanctification, perseverance of the saints—”

“It was sinners I meant,” said Maybee, scowling, “folks what have to be forgived every single day. I do believe, mamma, the harder you try the worse it is. So many things keep happening, things you don’t like, while things you _want_ to happen, won’t; and Miss Nancy says if anybody ever gets real good and happy, they’re most sure to die.”

Miss Nancy was very different from Miss Lomy. She had a thin, peaked face, a mouth always drawn down at the corners, and reminded you of a northeast drizzle as much as anything.

“I thought somebody had been talking to my little girl to make her so blue this morning, or else that she had lost her way,” said mamma.

“Lost what, mamma?”

“What was the hymn you learned last sabbath? Wait a minute,—let’s smooth out some of the scowls, and shake a little sunshine into these cloudy eyes. There! that’s better. Now we’ll listen.”

Maybee laughed, and climbing into mamma’s lap despite Aunt Cynthia’s warning “Ahem!” she began,—

“The world looks very beautiful And full of joy to me: The sun shines out in glory On everything I see. I know I shall be happy While in the world I stay, For I will follow Jesus All the way.

“I’m but a little pilgrim, My journey’s just begun; They say I shall meet sorrow Before my journey’s done. The world is full of sorrow And suffering, they say. But I will follow Jesus All the way.

“Then, like a little pilgrim, Whatever I may meet, I’ll take it, joy or sorrow, And lay at Jesus’ feet. He’ll comfort me in trouble, He’ll wipe my tears away. With joy I’ll follow Jesus All the way.

“Then trials cannot vex me, And pain I need not fear; For when I’m close by Jesus, Grief cannot come _too_ near. Not even death can harm me, When death I meet one day. To heaven I’ll follow Jesus All the way.”

“I know what you meant, now, mamma,” and Maybee jumped down, with the discontent quite gone from her face and tone. “If we are ‘following Jesus,’ we shan’t mind the bad things, and only be all the gladder when He takes us up to heaven.”

II.

TOD’S “PERSECUTE.”

“The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

Tod came home from school one day, his eyes red and swollen, his clothes dusty and tumbled; with him came Maybee, fierce, angry, revengeful.

“They’re such dre-eadful boys!” she sputtered,—“such mean, hateful, wre-etched boys! I wish I could pound ’em! I wish they’d catch the measles or lock-jaw, an’ mos’ pretty near die! I wish—”

Aunty laid one hand over the angry lips.

“Let’s wait till we feel pleasanter,” she said. “Run up to the bath-room, both of you, and then into the nursery for a nice play with baby. After that we’ll hear about those ‘dre-eadful’ boys.”

“It was some of those new ones and Tom Lawrence. You see, Tod wouldn’t, and they hung him right straight up. It’s just that way always when folks try to be good! they’ll make fun, and I wish—”

But aunty playfully drove the little talker through the hall and up the stairs.

Half an hour later two clean, happy-faced children came into the cool back-parlor, and nestled down beside her.

“Well, what is it?” she said.

“Wam, we play marbles, you know,” began Tod.

“Big boys an’ all,” interpolated Maybee.

“Yes; and my beat ’em—”

“_Who_ beat?” asked mamma.

“My—me—no, _I_ beat ’em,” amended Tod, who was learning the nominative case; “an’ then they wanted to play for keeps, an’ I said my mamma wouldn’t ’low it; and they laughed real loud and teased me to put up my new dime ’gainst Tom’s knife, you know; _and_ I said I couldn’t ’cause it was wicked, _and_ then they said ‘Pish!’ and ‘Pho!’ and spwinkled sand in my hair, and made b’lieve pweach, and then somefin fell out of Joe’s pocket,—I mos’ know it was Mr. Blackman’s pencil, what he scwews out of a hole when he w’ites; but Tom said I must pwomise to say it wasn’t if anybody asked me; an’ I couldn’t, ’cause it would be a lie; an’ then they put a wope awound my neck and tied it up in a twee. It scairt me some.”

“I saw ’em,” said Maybee, her eyes flashing; “but we can’t go one step off our own side, now; and if you say a word to Mr. Blackman, he calls you a tell-tale. I’m glad he’s going over to the ’cademy; we’ll have a woman-teacher, and I guess she’ll ’tend to things and not be flustrated to bits, neither.”

“But what became of my little boy?” asked aunty rather anxiously. “Did he stick bravely to the right?”

“I wasn’t vewy bwave,—I cwied,” said Tod, carefully examining his thumb, “‘cause they kep’ pulling; but I didn’t pwomise, an’ then the bell wung—”

“But the minute school was out they went at it again,” broke in Maybee, unable to wait Tod’s slower utterance. “An’ Tom followed us coming home and told Tod to get right down on his knees and say his prayers. It _is_ nice to pray, isn’t it, Aunt Sue? and all good folks do, don’t they? and God tells us to, doesn’t He? But when they talk about it so, they make you feel perzactly as if it wasn’t nice at all, and they always will, if you are trying to be good; they’ll just poke fun at it and make you feel awful. And then they shut Tod in Mis’ Lynch’s yard and fastened the gate. I wouldn’t let Tod go to that school another single day.”

“_I_ would,” said aunty, stroking the downcast face beside her.

“Well, then, he’d better not say much more about being good.”

“He’d better not _say_ much about it, only when it’s necessary, but I hope he’ll _be_ just as good as he knows how.”

“An’ be laughed at, an’ screwed round, an’ hung up?” queried Maybee, with wide-open eyes.

“I am sorry the boys were so unkind, but it is better to bear it than to do wrong. I don’t really think they meant to hurt you.”

“It hurts ’nough to be scairt, and poked fun at, _I_ think.”

“Yes; but whose little servants are you trying to be? Who tells you to be brave and honest and truthful?”

“Jesus,” said Tod, softly.

“Well, once, when papa was a little boy,”—how eagerly the four little ears listened!—“he went a long journey, away up into Vermont, with his father and mother, Grandma Smith, you know. They missed their way one night, and had to sleep in a log cabin, with only dry bread and cold johnny-cake for supper. The little boy looked pretty sober; there wasn’t much johnny-cake, and dry bread he didn’t fancy at all. Their host, who had given them the best he had, said, possibly, by going a quarter of a mile, he could get the boy a drink of milk. Theddy’s eyes began to shine; but he happened to look around, and there was mamma eating her dry bread without a drop of tea or coffee to moisten it. ‘I can eat dry bread too, if my mamma does,’ he said, bravely, putting away the johnny-cake, and taking the dryest crust on the plate.”

“Oh, wasn’t he nice!” cried Tod, clapping his hands.

“I mos’ know _my_ papa would have done perzactly so, only he wasn’t there,” remarked Maybee.

“I think so, too,” said aunty. “And should not all Jesus’ little boys and girls be willing to suffer, if He did?”

“Not—to—be—crucified?” inquired Maybee, huskily.

“Yes, if need be; but Jesus suffered many other things. The Jews used to stone Him and tell stories about Him and call Him names; and don’t you remember, when He was before Pilate, how they spit in His face, and put a crown of sharp thorns on His head, and mocked Him and struck Him—”

“Boys just like Tom Lawrence, do you s’pose?”

“Yes, I suppose the men and boys then were very much like the men and boys now; and you remember Jesus told His disciples if they persecuted Him, they would also persecute them.”

“Well, but did they?”

“Yes; all the disciples were treated very unkindly, and most of them put to death by those same wicked Jews.”

“Folks don’t do so now?” said Maybee, rather anxiously.

“Not in our own land; but they sometimes laugh at those who follow Jesus, and try to frighten them out of being good.”

“Is that being _persecuted_?” asked Maybee, in astonishment.

“’Tisn’t but a little mite of a persecute, when we fink about Jesus’s, is it, mamma?” said Tod. “I don’t mean to even cwy, next time.”

“And remember,” added aunty, this time stroking Maybee’s rosy cheek,—“Jesus never answered back nor wished any evil upon His persecutors. He pitied them and asked God to forgive them.”

“Yes’m,” said Maybee, drawing a long breath. “I guess—I’d better not think ’bout that Tom Lawrence any more.”

III.

WILL CARTER.

“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.”

“Seems’s if our minister never preached such helpful sermons,” said Miss Lomy.

She would never know _how_ helpful her own little sermon, handed over from Maybee to Molly Dinah, and from Molly Dinah to her pastor, had proved to the latter.

He had written over his study-table,

“_Unto the Lord and not unto men_,”

but men found the simple, earnest, glowing words he brought from thence strangely attractive. The congregation grew larger, the prayer-meetings were never so full. Some of the boys, Tom Lawrence among them, began to drop in and fill the “back seats,” not to laugh and whisper, but to listen with apparent seriousness.

“Like as not they would come into Sabbath School if we asked them. Our class is running-over full, but we could have another seat, and Miss Marvin might work wonders with Tom,” said Dick to Will Carter. The two were good friends now, having entered the academy together, with Will ranking too far ahead to fear Dick’s rivalry at present. The misspent years in the past would always bother poor Dick.

“For goodness sake, don’t get any more riffraff into our class!” rejoined Will, contemptuously. “That Bill Finnegan is bad enough. Count me out if there’s to be any more.”

“But what can we do? They’ll expect to come in our class if we ask them.”

“Let them alone, then. I don’t see any particular need of doing anything. I give you fair warning, there’ll be trouble if you do.”

Varney Lowe walked home with Will that Sabbath, and talked about the meetings, the sermon, and the Sabbath School lesson, till Will broke out impatiently, “One would think you were about setting up for a saint yourself, Lowe. Do talk about something else. I’m disgusted with the whole matter.”

Varney was a little surprised, but on the whole rather relieved to hear that. The truth was, he had almost made up his mind he ought to be a Christian. He had thought while Mr. Sampson was preaching he would say so in meeting that evening. First, however, he determined to sound Will Carter. Will was the deacon’s son and prided himself on doing exactly right.

This was the result, and if Will was simply disgusted, he, Varney Lowe, would drop the matter altogether, which he did, much to Miss Marvin’s disappointment.

A week or two afterwards the minister met Will on the street, and after a few pleasant remarks, asked very earnestly, “Will, my boy, when do you mean to become a Christian?”

Just at that moment Tom Lawrence went sauntering past, and Mr. Sampson, turning quickly, laid one hand on his shoulder, saying, “And you, too, Tom,—don’t you want to be a Christian?”

Will drew himself up stiffly. Didn’t Mr. Sampson know he and Tom were two _very_ different boys?

“I have more than I can attend to, now, sir,” he replied; “what with all my studies and the Lyceum; you know I have Geology and Chemistry this term, and I really haven’t time for those other things even if I felt any desire.”

Mr. Sampson looked grieved, and transferring his hand from Tom’s shoulder to Will’s, he stooped and whispered something in his ear.

“Wish I knew what ’twas,” thought Tom, walking slowly on.

Directly Mr. Sampson was beside him. “You didn’t answer my question, Tom.”

“I—oh! I’m dreadfully busy, too; you know there’s hen-roosts to rob and melons to hook and all the circuses to tend to. I really couldn’t if I wouldn’t.”

It was very rude and saucy in Tom, but street-corners and saloon-steps soon teach a boy to be that.

Mr. Sampson, however, instead of looking horrified and disgusted, laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder again, and said, “My dear boy, you may work for Satan all your life,—work hard, too,—and depend upon it, he’ll turn you off at last without even a reward of merit. He promises well, I know. He may pay up a while in counterfeit coin most as good as the real, except that it won’t pass in another world, but he’ll give you the slip some time. There is only one Master whose ‘promise to pay’ is good for this world and the world to come. I’ve served Him twenty-five years, and I ought to know something about it, hadn’t I? Come to my house to-night and let us tell you what a good Master he is. A few of us are going to meet to talk over this very thing. This evening, remember, at seven o’clock.”

“Going over to the parson’s?” inquired Tom, strolling around by the deacon’s that night, and finding Will on the steps, using the last bit of daylight for his book. “Thought I’d go along, if you was.”

Will looked at him a full minute without speaking. What a battle there was between good and evil in that sixty seconds! Then he said coolly and deliberately, “No; I’m not going, and I don’t know what it is to _you_ if I was.”

“Nor I either; haven’t the least idea,” rejoined Tom, turning on his heel and whistling his way back to Jack Mullin’s, to play “toss-up” as usual.

Will sat still in the gathering darkness, recalling the words Mr. Sampson had spoken in his ear:—

“You may be shutting others out of heaven, as well as refusing to go in yourself, Will. Remember what Christ said of such. You know you are a leader among the boys—” (Yes; Will straightened even now at the thought,—but what was it Mr. Sampson added?) “for good _or for evil_.” For _evil_! The idea! Will Carter, with his character and scholarship and high hopes of becoming a brilliant orator, who meant to lead men some day to help elevate the world. But suppose, meanwhile, he had hindered Varney Lowe or even Tom from becoming a Christian. Would it be shutting them out of heaven? And what was it Christ said of such?

Away off in the wood a whip-poor-will seemed to make reply, “Woe-to-poor-Will! Woe-to-poor-Will!” while close beside the step a cricket chirped sorrowfully, “Shut-out-of-heaven! Shut-out-of-heaven!”

IV.

HOW DICK CARRIED THE DAY.

“And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.”

Dick could not quite give up his Sabbath School project. He first did what the apostle James tells all those who lack wisdom, to do, and then he consulted Miss Marvin. She proposed that the boys of her class should withdraw and form a new one, inviting as many as they pleased from outside to join them.

“But none of us want to leave you,” said Dick, regretfully, “and it won’t help the matter for Will any.”

“I shall be sorry to lose you, but it is the good of others, not our own pleasure, we are seeking. And Judy tells me there are several of the mill girls who would join the school if they could come into her class. Wouldn’t Will take hold of it if you should let him go ahead about organizing, etc.?”

“Sure enough, that will suit him exactly. I wish Miss Cox hadn’t moved away, so she could take the girls. Whom shall we have for a teacher?”

“Oh! we will find somebody. First, catch your class—”