[Illustration: GIDEON’S NIGHT ATTACK ON THE MIDIANITES
Page 236.]
[Illustration]
THE
TRIUMPH OVER MIDIAN.
_By
A. L. O. E._
_Author of “The Shepherd of Bethlehem,” “Exiles in Babylon,”
“Rescued from Egypt,” &c._
[Illustration]
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1874.
[Illustration: PREFACE]
In attempting to illustrate the history of the victory of Gideon, I am
conscious that I am entering on well-trodden ground. Others have gathered
the lessons and examined the types with which that portion of the
Scripture-field is so richly studded. I lay claim to little originality
of thought on the subject which I have chosen. A humble task has been
mine; that of endeavouring to show that the same faith by which heroes of
old _out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to
flight the armies of the aliens_, is still, as the gift of God’s grace,
bestowed on the lowliest Christian. Writing, as I have done, under the
depressing influence of domestic sorrow, and the languor of weak health,
I feel how very imperfectly I have executed my task; but I humbly
commend my little work to Him who despiseth not the feeble, and whose
blessing on the humblest instrument can make it effectual in His service.
A. L. O. E.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
I. THE RETURN, 9
II. BROKEN BUBBLES, 19
III. LECTURE I.—MIDIANITES IN POSSESSION, 39
IV. THE LITTLE MAID, 49
V. THE DEATH-BED MESSAGE, 62
VI. LECTURE II.—FAITH IN THE PROMISE, 76
VII. A SERMON BY THE FIRESIDE, 85
VIII. THE SISTER’S VISIT, 96
IX. LECTURE III.—FAITH IN OBEDIENCE, 112
X. OPENING THE CASKET, 122
XI. TIDINGS, 133
XII. LECTURE IV.—FAITH IN TRIAL, 145
XIII. A PROMISE, 154
XIV. SUSPICIONS, 169
XV. EVIL TONGUES, 183
XVI. LECTURE V.—FAITH CONFIRMED, 196
XVII. DISCLOSURE, 203
XVIII. MERCY AND SELF-DENIAL, 214
XIX. REFRESHMENT, 227
XX. LECTURE VI.—FAITH VICTORIOUS, 235
XXI. BONDAGE, 243
XXII. THE NIGHT, 252
XXIII. A SISTER’S VOICE, 259
XXIV. A TRIUMPH, 277
XXV. LECTURE VII.—FAITH CROWNED, 288
XXVI. CONCLUSION, 298
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TRIUMPH OVER MIDIAN.
CHAPTER I.
THE RETURN.
“Home, once more at home!” how joyful sounded the exclamation from the
lips of Edith Lestrange, and how brightly sparkled her eyes as she
uttered it, as, with a step light as a fawn’s, she revisited each spot
which five years’ absence had only made more dear. With joyous impatience
she ascended the broad oaken staircase of Castle Lestrange, to flit like
a fairy from room to room, lingering longest in the old nursery, where
she had known childhood’s pleasures, with not a few of its sorrows—and
the playroom, in which her toys were still stored. There was the doll
that had been to her as a companion, to which the lonely little heiress
had whispered many a trouble; the pretty picture-books, the miniature
tea-things of delicate china, that had been such sources of amusement. It
was a pleasure to Edith, from recollections of “auld lang syne,” to touch
and handle these childish treasures, though at the age of eleven she
deemed herself no longer a child.
Then to the newly-returned traveller how great were the delights of the
garden and the park,—the one bright with the flowers of spring, the
other donning its light green robe, while in the sheltered mossy dells
fragrance of violets filled the air. Edith almost wondered that the
light-footed deer should bound away on her approach: her heart felt so
full of joy and kindness, that it seemed strange that any living creature
should fear her. The heiress of Lestrange took pleasure in visiting the
cottage of her father’s steward, where the familiar faces of Holdich and
his wife were as the faces of old friends, bright with hearty welcome.
Her canary, cared for by Mrs. Holdich during her absence, was tamer than
ever, and its quivering notes of delight seemed to its youthful mistress
an echo of the music of happiness which sounded within her own soul.
For Edith did not return to the castle of her ancestors as she had left
it five years before—a feeble, fragile invalid. She no longer painfully
dragged her weary limbs along, with languor oppressing her spirits;
springing and elastic was the step which now bounded over the mossy
turf. The cheeks that had been almost as colourless as the snowdrop,
had now a faint dawn of colour upon them, like that on the opening buds
of the apple-blossom. Edith was still a delicate plant, like an exotic
reared in a hot-house, but an exotic skilfully tended, expanding its
petals in healthful life.
“Oh, how true it is that there is no place like home!” exclaimed Edith,
as she sauntered up the broad avenue, with sunshine on her path, and the
blue cloud-flecked sky smiling above her.
The observation was addressed to her cousin, Isa Gritton, who was
spending a day at the Castle, a short time after the return of Sir Digby
Lestrange and his daughter. Isa was a young lady whose age might be about
two or three and twenty, and who might therefore have scarcely been
deemed a suitable companion for one so youthful as Edith, had not the
little heiress possessed a mind so early matured by the discipline of
trial that she was scarcely regarded as a child by those who intimately
knew her. Isa Gritton was a tall and graceful girl, with auburn hair, and
eyes like those of the gazelle—large, soft, and expressive: mirroring
each passing emotion, whether it were that of mirth and gladness, or, as
was now the case, a shadow of painful thought.
“Do you not feel with me,” said Edith, “that there is a charm in the very
name of _home_?”
[Illustration: THE COUSINS.]
“I did so once,” replied Isa, with a sigh; “but for the last two years,
since the loss of my dear father, I cannot be said to have had a real
home.”
“But you have one now, dear Isa,” said Edith; “and oh, how glad I am
that your brother chose to build one at Wildwaste, so near us. Why, even
I—who never perform great feats in the walking line—will be able to
manage the distance on foot; it is barely a mile, I hear. I dare say that
Mr. Gritton kindly chose the site of his house there on purpose that you
might be near your uncle and cousin. To meet you often, very often, will
be such a pleasure to me; I shall feel as if I had at last what I have so
often longed for, a sister to share all my sorrows and joys. I will soon
return your visit, and you shall show me your brother’s new house. Has he
not built a charming retreat, with a pretty garden and shrubbery round
it?”
Isa Gritton laughed: but there was a little bitterness in the laugh.
“Tastes differ,” she replied; “and Gaspar having been his own architect,
he doubtless admires his work. But my ideal of beauty is hardly realized
by a house that looks as if a geni had transplanted it bodily from
one of the smaller streets of London, in all the newness of yellowish
brick as yet undarkened by soot, and had dropped it on the edge of a
morass—not a tree within half a mile of it—where it stands staring out
of its blindless windows as if wondering how it came there, with nothing
to remind it of London but the great soap manufactory, which is the most
conspicuous object in the view, the smoke of which might do duty for that
of a whole street in the city.”
“How could Mr. Gritton build such a house, and in such a place!”
exclaimed Edith in surprise; “I could not fancy you in a home that was
not pretty and picturesque. I have no clear remembrance of Wildwaste save
as a wide flat common sprinkled with gorse, for I seldom or never visited
the hamlet when I was a little child.”
“You will scarcely care to visit it often now, except out of compassion
for me,” said Isa, smiling. “Mr. Eardley tells me, however, that
Wildwaste, bad as it is, is greatly improved from what it was some years
ago, when it had nothing in the shape of a school.”
“Mr. Eardley—then you know him?” cried Edith, brightening at the mention
of the pastor whom she reverenced and loved.
“Yes,” replied Isa; “though, Wildwaste not being in the parish of Axe, we
do not belong to his flock. Mr. Eardley had heard, through your steward’s
wife, I believe, that we wanted a girl to help in the house. He called to
recommend to us a young protegée of his own, a black-eyed gipsy-looking
little creature, who blushes scarlet when she is spoken to, and seems to
be afraid of the sound of her own voice. I think, however, that with a
little training Lottie Stone will suit us very well.”
“Do you not like Mr. Eardley?” said Edith, looking as if assured that the
answer must be in the affirmative.
“Very much; I wish that he were our clergyman instead of Mr. Bull, who
must be nearly eighty years old, and who—but I don’t think it well to
criticize preachers.”
“We attend the service at Axe—we drive there, for it is much too far
off for a walk,” said Edith Lestrange. “You shall come with us every
Sunday—that is to say,” she added, with a little hesitation, “if you
don’t mind leaving your brother. Papa does not like more than three in
the carriage.”
“Perhaps I ought not to leave Gaspar,” said Isa, gravely; and she added,
but not aloud, “if I were not with him, I fear that he would not go to a
place of worship at all.—No, Edith,” she said to her cousin, “I am afraid
that I cannot accompany you to Axe on Sundays, but I have promised Mr.
Eardley to bring Lottie twice a week to the little cottage-lectures which
he gives in the dwelling of Holdich the steward.”
“Then we shall always meet there,” observed Edith. “I have such a sweet
remembrance of those cottage-meetings, though I was such a little girl
when I went to them that of course I could not understand all that I
heard. I felt as if there were such peace, and holiness, and Christian
kindness in that quiet home-church, where young and old, and rich and
poor, gathered to hear God’s truth, and pray and praise together. And
Holdich himself is such a good man,” continued Edith warmly: “it is not
merely that he does not mind openly confessing his religion—whatever
people may think of it—but that he lives up to what he professes. Papa
went on the Continent, you know, rather in haste, and there had been a
little confusion in his affairs, and no time to set them right. Papa was
always so generous, and those about him had abused his confidence so
sadly.”
“Yes, I heard something of that,” observed Isa, who, like the rest of the
world, was aware that Sir Digby’s ostentatious extravagance had plunged
him into pecuniary difficulties, and that change of air for his invalid
child, though the ostensible, had not been the only cause of his retreat.
“But Holdich has brought everything into such beautiful order,” continued
Edith,—“he has quite surprised papa by the way in which he has managed
the estate. He has cared for his master’s interests as much, I think
_more_ than if they had been his own. Papa used to suspect people who had
the name of being very pious, but he said this morning at breakfast, ‘A
man like my steward, who brings his Christianity into his daily dealings,
does more to convince infidels of the real power of faith than all the
learned books that ever were written.’ I treasured up the words to repeat
them to Holdich’s wife. I think that she and her husband are the happiest
people that I know, and especially now that their son is doing so well as
a schoolmaster under Mr. Eardley.”
“The subject of the new series of cottage-lectures is to be Gideon’s
Triumph over Midian,” observed Isa.
“And the first is to begin at seven this evening,” said Edith. “Papa has
given me leave to be always present—at least when the weather is fine;
and some of our servants will go too. They are not all able to get to
church on Sundays, for Axe is five miles from the Castle.”
The cousins, slowly sauntering up the avenue, had now reached a grassy
mound at the end of it, on which a tall weather-cock stood, and which
might be ascended by a flight of marble steps. Having mounted these
steps, a very extensive and beautiful prospect lay before Isa and Edith,
while a rural seat invited them to rest and enjoy it.
“I have looked upon many lovely views in Italy,” observed Edith, as her
eye wandered with delight over the scene; “but, to my mind, there is none
to compare with this. I always missed that dear little spire seen in the
distance yonder, where I knew that Sunday after Sunday the real truth was
preached in my own native tongue by a servant of God. It always seems to
me with Mr. Eardley as if he were like the disciples, who went to their
Master and had their directions in the morning straight from His lips;
and that in the evening, when his labour was over, he would go and ‘tell
Jesus’ all that he had done, and all that he had tried to do—receive the
Lord’s smile and His blessing, and then lie down to rest at His feet.”
“It seems so with some clergymen,” said Isa. “When they feed the people
with the bread of the Word, we feel that they have just taken it from
the hands of the Lord—that He has given thanks, and blessed, and broken
it; so that we look from the servant to the Master, and realize that the
ministry of the gospel is hallowed service indeed.”
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