Part 1

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THE PANSY

EDITED BY "PANSY" MRS. G. R. ALDEN

D·LOTHROP & Co. BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A.

Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO., and entered at the Boston P. O. as second-class matter.

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_Volume 13, Number 14._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO. _Feb. 6, 1886._

THE PANSY.

HELD BACK.

SHE made a pretty picture standing there on the veranda waiting for the carriage to come around. It was the last time she would ever stand there looking so fresh and fair in the morning light. This is a sad story, yet it has its bright side, so I hope you will not turn away from it without gathering up some of the sweetness that is shed as a perfume from May Vinton's daily life.

May was an only, a much-petted, and some people said, a spoiled child. However, this last was a mistake. What might have been, had not her Heavenly Father interfered, we cannot tell. A friend of Mr. Vinton who was spending a few days with the family was interested in the management of a theatre, and this gentleman had been studying this fair young daughter of his host and had discovered what others among her friends already knew, that she was a girl of unusual talent, and he fancied that if she were educated for the stage she would, as he expressed it, "create a sensation." He had proposed to Mr. Vinton to take May home with him and educate her for his favorite profession. He had pictured to the young girl the pleasures of such a life, dwelling upon the sweetness of the world's praises which she was sure to win. It would have been no wonder if May's head had been turned by all the flattery and promises of a brilliant future. Mr. Vinton had given his consent to the proposal of his friend, but May hesitated.

May Vinton was the only Christian in that household; while at boarding-school she had been led to give her heart to the Saviour, and now that she was at home again she had found it not quite easy to keep herself unspotted from the world. Mr. Vinton had not openly opposed her in what he termed her "fanaticism," but now that her religion was in the way of what was becoming his ambition for her, there was likely to be trouble. And the perplexity into which May was thrown showed itself in her face that morning. There was just a slight shadow in her brown eyes as she waited for her pony phaeton to come around to the steps. She had come from her room with this prayer on her lips: "Dear Father, help me to decide rightly. I am so ignorant and so foolish that I cannot tell what is right. Canst thou not settle this question for me? Shut up every path but the right one, I pray thee."

How speedily God sometimes answers our prayers!

It was the common story of a runaway horse, a carriage thrown over a steep embankment. And May Vinton, helpless and limp, was carried home, not dead, but to hear the verdict of the physicians who were hastily summoned, "She may live for years, but she will never walk again."

The father groaned when he heard it, but to May even in that first hour of the terrible knowledge there came a swift flashing thought "The question is settled!"

This was twenty years ago. During those first months of suffering, May Vinton's faith sometimes grew faint and she prayed that she might die; her life seemed useless; all its joy and brightness gone out. Her faith looked forward to the mansion prepared for her, but it did not light up the present, at least not for a long time. There came at length out of the suffering a sweet peace that almost glorified the face, which was a little thinner and paler than of old, but now clothed with a new beauty. There came too a tender patience that won and held the hearts of all with a firmer grasp than ever before.

Gradually the hearts of her father and mother were won from the world and centred upon Christ, and as one and another of those who came in daily contact with the patient invalid were led into a knowledge of the truth, May began to realize that her life need not be a useless one, and she began to interest herself in matters outside her own home. I cannot tell you of all the schemes for work which she has on foot. The Mission Band meet in her room once a month. I ought to tell you about that room. When it became evident that she would spend the greater part of her life in a reclining chair, only varying the monotony by being lifted from chair to couch or bed, Mr. Vinton fitted up what had been the front parlor with a smaller room once used as a library, for her use. "We can use a back room for a parlor," he said, "but May must have as good an outlook as we can give her." Excepting the invalid herself in her chair there is no sign of invalidism in that large room, but as a young girl said the other day, "It is just as pretty as it can be!" There are long mirrors on every side, there is a piano, softest of carpets and easiest of chairs--a few; in that little storeroom at one side are dozens of folding chairs which can be brought out when the visitors are many, and this is very frequently. Once a month the Mission Band, every week the Children's meeting, every Sabbath afternoon a class of young men. Then there is a young ladies' meeting--I think I must take another time to tell you of some of these gatherings. Sometimes Miss Vinton is too ill to meet with the young people, but the room is always ready for them and a bright young girl who is her companion takes the place of hostess.

"It must be very hard for you to be shut in so much with an invalid," said an acquaintance to this girl.

"O, I am not shut in! Miss Vinton has so many errands to be attended to that I go out a great deal."

"Yes; but after all, an invalid is poor company for a young girl."

"Not such an invalid as ours! Why, Miss Vinton is the cheeriest person in the house. She keeps us all in good spirits and she has company almost constantly. I assure you we are not moping at our house."

Once when some one spoke of her wrecked life May said, "O, no, my life is not wrecked! I came near making a failure of it, but my Father in heaven reached out and held me back."

WILMOT CONDEE.

THE LAST OPPORTUNITY.

"FOR many years I have made it a rule never to spend a half-hour with any person without finding out if that person was a Christian, and if not, trying to preach Christ to him."

This in substance is what the minister said in the little church at the quiet summer resort by the river side, where Edith Manton was staying. "For," continued the speaker, "it may be my last opportunity to speak for Christ, or it may be some one's last chance of hearing the truth."

Edith was thinking of these words that morning when she went out in Jerry's boat after lilies. Jerry knew where the flowers were thickest and fairest, and too he was counted as the best oarsman on the river. Edith often went out with Jerry, and that morning she was thinking, "I have had more than _one_ opportunity to present Christ to Jerry. But I do not even know whether or not he belongs to Christ. If I had only spoken to him before! I don't know how to begin now." Presently she began singing,

Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore.

Jerry listened and when she ended he said:

"That's a good one, Miss."

"Yes; but, Jerry, are _you_ pulling for the other shore?"

"Well, I don't know much about them things," replied Jerry. "Reckon as how when one has no oars to pull with he must just drift. And maybe he will drift to the shore, and maybe he won't."

"But why shouldn't you have the oars?" asked Edith.

"Well, I s'pose it's like this; sometimes a boat gets loose and starts off without oars, and then at other times the oars gets broken or lost in the middle of the river. I never lost nor broke an oar in my life, so I s'pose I must have started without any."

"And so you mean to keep on drifting?" asked Edith, growing interested.

"What can a fellow do? Out in the middle of the river without any oars? He hasn't much chance of getting back to the wharf after them."

"But if the oars have been lying in the bottom of his boat all the time? Wouldn't a man be foolish if he didn't pick them up and use them when he found he was drifting down stream and making no progress toward the other shore?"

"Humph! it ain't much likely that a fellow would let them oars lie right afore his eyes and never touch them, is it, now?"

"That is what puzzles me," replied Edith. "You have only just to put out the hand of faith and take hold of the oars of prayer and the word of God and pull for the shore."

"My! Miss, I never thought of that! I've got a Bible that my old mother gave me when I started out; and she taught me a prayer too. And I've been letting them oars lie idle in the bottom of the old boat all these years. D'ye s'pose they are as good and stout as ever? And would they pull an old fellow like me into port?"

"I am sure they would. O, Jerry, I wish you would take hold of them and pull!"

"I believe I will! I'll get out the old Bible to-night and I'll say that little prayer; or if I can't remember that I'll whittle out a new one. I promise you, Miss, I'll do it!"

The next morning, Edith was just starting out to walk down to the river when a messenger came in haste: "O, Miss Manton! There's been an accident, and Old Jerry is most killed! He wants you. You'll have to come quickly, for they say he can't last long. He is out of his head and keeps saying something about pulling for the shore. Folks say he thinks he is out in a boat." This the boy said as they were hastening to the wharf.

"How did it happen?" asked Edith.

"I don't rightly know. They were unloading a vessel at the wharf and some way Jerry slipped and a heavy cask rolled over him. The doctor says he can't live."

When they reached the place where Jerry was slowly breathing his life away, some one said--"Jerry, Jerry, here is Miss Manton!"

Jerry opened his eyes and said faintly, "Sing that!"

And there, surrounded by a group of rough, though kindly men, Edith sang:

Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand, See o'er the foaming billows, fair haven's land, Drear was the voyage, sailor, now almost o'er, Safe within the life-boat, sailor, _pull for the shore_.

As she paused Jerry's lips moved, and bending low to hear, Edith caught the whisper:

"I did it! I took the oars; I pulled for the shore. I guess I'll make the harbor!"

A few more labored breaths and Jerry had, as we trust, "made the harbor."

"What if I had not used that last opportunity?" said Edith to herself as she walked back to her cottage.

FAYE HUNTINGTON.

SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.

OUR GOD WHOM WE SERVE IS ABLE TO DELIVER US FROM THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE.

THOU ART WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES AND FOUND WANTING.

THEY PRAISED THE LORD, BECAUSE THE FOUNDATION OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD WAS LAID.

GIVE US HELP FROM TROUBLE: FOR VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN.

GRANDMA BURTON studied the verses in silence for a few minutes. "They are all good," she said at last; "I know a story about each of them; I've been trying to decide which to tell."

"It's the little chick's turn," Rollo said, good-naturedly, so the "little chick" had it, and the first verse on the paper was taken.

"Yes," said Grandma, "I knew the boy very well indeed who believed that, and lived by it; and he got his help too in the way that he least expected; just as help is apt to come. He was a little fellow when I was quite a young woman. We visited, my brother and I, at a house which was only across the street from a famous boarding-school for boys. There was one little fellow in that school whom I used to watch, because he looked like my little brother at home; he seemed very small to be in boarding-school. I wondered if he was homesick, and sometimes cried himself to sleep as my brother did the first time he went to uncle Daniel's alone on a visit.

"Miss Harriet Peabody was the mistress of this house where I visited; she was a maiden lady, the aunt of the boy and girl who were our friends; a good kind woman, but a little prim in her ways. I remember she never dressed quite in the fashion; her clothes were very nice, and beautifully made, and cost a trifle more, if anything, than those of her neighbors, but they were always made a little behind the styles, as though she thought things which were a little out of fashion were less wicked, some way, than others.

"The young folks of the neighborhood, and especially the boys of the boarding-school, were inclined to make sport of her; this always made me indignant, for I loved Miss Harriet. One evening we were seated in the library, having the cosiest time; the boys had popped some corn, and cracked nuts, and we had apples and cider; in those days an evening wasn't really finished without a pitcher of cider; Miss Harriet sat by the window, and said suddenly: 'Hark! what is that? didn't you hear a child crying?'

"We listened, and said no, we heard nothing. Her nephew suggested dogs, and doves, and owls, but Miss Harriet insisted that she heard a child.

"We were soon in the very merriest of our fun, and forgot all about the noise; but it seems Miss Harriet didn't. I don't know just when she slipped out, but just as Tom Peabody was flinging an apple paring over his left shoulder, to see if he couldn't make the first letter of my name, in walked Miss Harriet, dripping with rain and holding by the hand a little frightened boy; and he was the very boy I had watched from the window so often! He was wet to the skin, and shivering as though he had an ague fit. We all jumped up, and gathered about asking questions, but Miss Harriet waved us off. 'Not yet,' she said. 'The poor fellow is wet and cold; Tom, take him up to the bath-room, and get him some of Robbie's clothes and help him dress; then bring him down to get some nuts and apples.'

"Tom went off to do her bidding, and the rest of us questioned her. 'I don't know much about it, yet,' she said, 'but I mean to; there's been some mean business going on, or I'm mistaken. I _knew_ I heard a child crying; when I couldn't stand it any longer, I lighted the lantern and went out to look around; I found the sobs came from our old coal shed which hasn't been used in six months. I listened at the end door, and I heard the little fellow sob out: "I know you are able to do it, O, Lord, and if you _only would_!" Then I walked around to the other door, and found it was fastened on the outside by a good-sized rope slipped through the latch, and wound around the big nail. Of course I unfastened it and walked in; and here was this little morsel crouched in a corner, dripping with rain, as it pelted down on him from the roof. He seemed dreadfully scared at seeing me, and began to protest that he had done nothing wrong, and did not want to be hiding there; but I told him to come in and get warm, and then we would talk about it.'

"When the boy came down with dry clothes on, he looked less frightened than before; and we established him in a big chair and gave him plenty of nuts, and a glass of cider; I poured it out with my own hands; you needn't look so shocked at Grandmother, Harold, I didn't know any better in those days. He had a real pleasant evening, and Miss Harriet invited him to stay all night, because it rained so hard, and sent her black Toby over to the school to ask permission for him, and told him she would make it all right in the morning. He seemed to be so glad to think he had not to go back to the school, that we knew something must be wrong; but it was not until he went up to bed with Robbie, that Tom told us about it.