Born under Syrian skies,
'Neath hotter suns than ours;
The children grew and bloomed,
Like little tropic flowers.
When they first saw the light,
'T was in a heathen land.
Not Greenland's icy mountains,
Nor India's coral strand,
But some mysterious country
Where men are nearly black
And where of true religion,
There is a painful lack.
Then let us haste in helping
The Missionary Board,
Seek dark-skinned unbelievers,
And teach them of their Lord.
Rebecca Rowena Randall.
It can readily be seen that this visit of the returned missionaries to
Riverboro was not without somewhat far-reaching results. Mr. and Mrs.
Burch themselves looked back upon it as one of the rarest pleasures of
their half year at home. The neighborhood extracted considerable eager
conversation from it; argument, rebuttal, suspicion, certainty,
retrospect, and prophecy. Deacon Milliken gave ten dollars towards the
conversion of Syria to Congregationalism, and Mrs. Milliken had a spell
of sickness over her husband's rash generosity.
It would be pleasant to state that Miranda Sawyer was an entirely
changed woman afterwards, but that is not the fact. The tree that has
been getting a twist for twenty years cannot be straightened in the
twinkling of an eye. It is certain, however, that although the
difference to the outward eye was very small, it nevertheless existed,
and she was less censorious in her treatment of Rebecca, less harsh in
her judgments, more hopeful of final salvation for her. This had come
about largely from her sudden vision that Rebecca, after all, inherited
something from the Sawyer side of the house instead of belonging, mind,
body, and soul, to the despised Randall stock. Everything that was
interesting in Rebecca, and every evidence of power, capability, or
talent afterwards displayed by her, Miranda ascribed to the brick house
training, and this gave her a feeling of honest pride, the pride of a
master workman who has built success out of the most unpromising
material; but never, to the very end, even when the waning of her
bodily strength relaxed her iron grip and weakened her power of
repression, never once did she show that pride or make a single
demonstration of affection.
Poor misplaced, belittled Lorenzo de Medici Randall, thought ridiculous
and good-for-naught by his associates, because he resembled them in
nothing! If Riverboro could have been suddenly emptied into a larger
community, with different and more flexible opinions, he was, perhaps,
the only personage in the entire population who would have attracted
the smallest attention. It was fortunate for his daughter that she had
been dowered with a little practical ability from her mother's family,
but if Lorenzo had never done anything else in the world, he might have
glorified himself that he had prevented Rebecca from being all Sawyer.
Failure as he was, complete and entire, he had generously handed down
to her all that was best in himself, and prudently retained all that
was unworthy. Few fathers are capable of such delicate discrimination.
The brick house did not speedily become a sort of wayside inn, a place
of innocent revelry and joyous welcome; but the missionary company was
an entering wedge, and Miranda allowed one spare bed to be made up "in
case anything should happen," while the crystal glasses were kept on
the second from the top, instead of the top shelf, in the china closet.
Rebecca had had to stand on a chair to reach them; now she could do it
by stretching; and this is symbolic of the way in which she
unconsciously scaled the walls of Miss Miranda's dogmatism and
prejudice.
Miranda went so far as to say that she wouldn't mind if the Burches
came every once in a while, but she was afraid he'd spread abroad the
fact of his visit, and missionaries' families would be underfoot the
whole continual time. As a case in point, she gracefully cited the fact
that if a tramp got a good meal at anybody's back door, 't was said
that he'd leave some kind of a sign so that all other tramps would know
where they were likely to receive the same treatment.
It is to be feared that there is some truth in this homely
illustration, and Miss Miranda's dread as to her future
responsibilities had some foundation, though not of the precise sort
she had in mind. The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into
ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words
and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and
your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the
good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the
inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a
season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you
should bear thistles.
The effect of the Burches' visit on Rebecca is not easily described.
Nevertheless, as she looked back upon it from the vantage ground of
after years, she felt that the moment when Mr. Burch asked her to "lead
in prayer" marked an epoch in her life.
If you have ever observed how courteous and gracious and mannerly you
feel when you don a beautiful new frock; if you have ever noticed the
feeling of reverence stealing over you when you close your eyes, clasp
your hands, and bow your head; if you have ever watched your sense of
repulsion toward a fellow creature melt a little under the exercise of
daily politeness, you may understand how the adoption of the outward
and visible sign has some strange influence in developing the inward
and spiritual state of which it is the expression.
It is only when one has grown old and dull that the soul is heavy and
refuses to rise. The young soul is ever winged; a breath stirs it to an
upward flight. Rebecca was asked to bear witness to a state of mind or
feeling of whose existence she had only the vaguest consciousness. She
obeyed, and as she uttered words they became true in the uttering; as
she voiced aspirations they settled into realities.
As "dove that to its window flies," her spirit soared towards a great
light, dimly discovered at first, but brighter as she came closer to
it. To become sensible of oneness with the Divine heart before any
sense of separation has been felt, this is surely the most beautiful
way for the child to find God.