A LECTURE AND A SERMON.
WHAT Dilly saw growing before her astonished eyes was the picture of a
little boy. Just a few dashes of the crayon, made quite at random it
seemed to her, and there he was; as sweet and pure a boyish face as
could have been imagined. Dilly, looking earnestly, suddenly turned and
gave such a bewildered, yet delighted, gaze into the face of the young
gentleman beside her, that he was seized with a desire to know her
thought.
"What now? What does that handsome little chap say to you?"
"Why, it is your picture," whispered Dilly, "the one your mother has in
the velvet case on her dressing-table. Don't you see how exactly it is
like that? The pretty curls, and all; oh! I wish your mother could see
this."
"Not lasting enough," said Hart, composedly. "It will fade away with
one brush of the hand; see if it doesn't."
He would not have let the little girl know that he was strangely
touched by her words, nor would he have admitted to her for anything,
that he recognized the likeness, but the truth was, that there was
something in the sweet mouth, and curly hair, and laughing eyes of
the picture, which took him back to his early childhood, and made him
almost ready to sigh over his own apparently thoughtless words, "Not
lasting enough."
They were truer of the picture before him than he had supposed; even
while he watched, the face began to change: the artist was talking and
working. He printed on the board the word, "discontent." He told, in a
most vivid way, of how this boy, surrounded as he was by all comforts
and delights of life, yet let the wicked spirit of discontent come into
his life. How he thought it was hidden in his heart, where no one could
see, but how mistaken he was; for what grows in the heart paints its
picture on the face. "I'll show you how," said the artist.
A quick dash of his skilled crayon, and, sure enough, the sweet mouth
had lost its sweetness, was a trifle drawn at the corners, and a scowl
had gathered on the forehead. Then the word "Envy," was printed; a
large heart was made with a single sweep of the artist hand, an ugly
serpent grinned within it, and from its mouth appeared to be hissing
out those two words, "Discontent," "Envy." The brief story of the boy's
desire for what was not his own, was told, and the marks which the
thought made on his face all unconsciously to him, were plainly shown.
Then, the serpent Vanity began to get possession of him; his dress was
finer than others, his house was grander, his watch was more elegant;
sure enough, with a touch, such as Dilly tried in vain to watch, to see
in just what it consisted, and the face before her grew more and more
unlovely; she would have been sure he was a vain and hateful boy.
As vanity and discontent grew on him, he became insolent; and the lines
which this brought out about the once lovely lips, completely spoiled
their beauty; Dilly remembered a boy who spoke great swelling words
of pride and insolence, even to his mother, and the face on the board
began to grow like his!
Vain and impudent and discontented boys were nearly always lazy, the
speaker said; and while he told of one who was caught by this evil
spirit, he disarranged the curly head on the board, hung the hair in
sulky masses over the eyes, drooped the shoulders, and with several
quick touches brought before them the picture of a lazy, repulsive boy.
Then, "Did they need to be told," he asked, "that such a boy was always
selfish? The evil spirit of selfishness was sure to get hold of him,
and when it did, it made such lines as these."
It was the last demoralizing touch on the once sweet face, and poor
Dilly almost held her breath in astonished sorrow as she gazed on the
wreck which the artist's hand had wrought.
"You see how it is," he said, "I did not spoil the face; bless you, I
wouldn't spoil a sweet child face for all the money there is in the
world! But when all these evil spirits get hold of him they are as sure
to make his face like that as he is to live. You can see their names if
you spell the word which is formed by the first letter of these words.
I know of no truer name for habits which will work such ruin as this on
a face that God meant to be beautiful."
The children sat very still; they were solemnized by this wreck of a
beautiful life, so plainly pictured before them. Some of the older
children shaded their faces with their hands, and went back over their
lives, and remembered, if one may judge by their faces, certain times
when some of these evil spirits were allowed to come in and make havoc.
As for poor Dilly, she stole a half-frightened glance at Hart, and
wondered if she did really see the drawn look about his mouth which
marked lines of discontent; certainly his face had changed since the
picture was taken which the mother kept in the velvet case, and Dilly
had herself seen him do things which she instinctively felt he would
not have done if the spirit of selfishness had not been admitted.
Were there lines of that in his face? She could not be sure, but she
was afraid there were. He looked steadily at the picture, and tried
to smile, and appear perfectly indifferent; but there was a little
drooping of the eyes which would have told one who understood human
nature, that he was by no means so indifferent to the changes on that
young face as he professed to be.
Meantime, the artist was again at work. He was making the picture of
another boy; life-size, erect, handsome, well-dressed, bright-eyed; a
very king among boys. Briefly, while he worked, the artist told his
story; high-spirited, kind-hearted, winning, lovable, his mother's joy,
the pride of his teachers. The artist had known him well; loved him, as
every one loved the beautiful boy. Ten, twenty, thirty years passed.
"And now," said the artist, "I will make him again as I saw him one day
in my office in New York."
Oh! Poor, wretched wreck. Ragged, bloated, shaggy-haired, staggering,
utterly repulsive! Could it possibly be that the two whose pictures
appeared on the board side by side, were one and the same?
"It is true," said the artist, deep feeling in his voice; he saw the
question on the faces of his startled audience; "it is too bitterly
true. I wish it were not; I wish I had not known him; I wish I could
blot his image from my memory; but he was the friend of my boyhood, and
I loved him, and he came to me years afterwards, the wreck that you see
him here. I tried hard to help him, even then, and failed. You know the
name of the demon who had gotten hold of him, and changed his face, and
his form, and wrought his ruin, body and soul.
"You need not think I have given you the whole story; I have shown you
only two pictures; I could make dozens of the same face. Those changes
did not come in the course of a few months; he did not spring from
the handsome boy of whom all his friends were proud, into the bloated
wreck I have shown you; it was the work of years. A glass of wine now
and then, on special occasions; a little egg-nog with a friend; a few
spoonfuls of brandy when he was not well; a hot sling after exposure
to intense cold. Little by little the work was done; I could show you,
if I had time, the slight changes which these little indulgences began
to make in the handsome face; changes which he did not guess, and few
people looked closely enough to see, and only his mother was sure of.
Boys, I loved him; and I tried to save him and failed."
There was no mistaking the depth of feeling in the speaker's voice; it
was a true story he had been telling. Those were photographs on which
the people had been gazing.
Dilly drew a long, quivering sigh as the artist left the platform and
the audience was dismissed and filed quietly out. She could not get
away from the feeling that she had been present at the wrecking of a
human life.
"There's a temperance lecture for you," said a gentleman passing out
just in front of them. "Lecture and sermon all in one; I never heard
a stronger appeal in my life. Talk about getting that man to 'amuse
the young!' I would rather have had my boy hear him and see him this
morning than to attend the best temperance lecture that ever was given."
"I think that is true," said Dilly, gravely, as soon as they were
outside where she dared to talk; "I think what that man said about
temperance lectures was true. I don't know how any boy could ever begin
to drink anything which had alcohol in it, or to keep on drinking it,
if he had begun, after hearing that, do you?"
Said Hart: "Whew! It is pretty warm here, I should say; it must be
boiling in town. I wonder what time it is. Too late for the train, as
sure as preaching! Well, I don't care; I heard her screeching when that
fellow was making his picture, but I felt too lazy to start. You see
the spirit of laziness got hold of me then; that was one of his little
imps, wasn't it? He's sharp, that fellow is, as sharp as steel, and
original too."
"And should you think," said Dilly earnestly, still pursuing the train
of reasoning which the last picture had awakened, "that anybody who had
brains would begin using stuff which might make such dreadful changes
in them in just a little while? I know it does; there is an old man,
old Jock, they call him—why, you know old Jock, don't you? He isn't so
'very old,' only he looks so; father used to know him in the North, and
he says there wasn't a finer-looking boy in all the town than he; and
now, who would imagine such a thing! I think it is the strangest thing
anybody begins to use liquor!"
Hart gave her a sharp, searching look, but nothing more innocent and
earnest than her quiet face could be imagined. "I wonder if his mother
lived until he looked like that?" she said, her tone very mournful.
"Poor mother! I hope she didn't."
"Perhaps she was a mother who did not care." Hart made an effort to
speak in a gay and indifferent tone.
Dilly shook her head decidedly. "Oh! I don't think that can be; such a
handsome boy as he was! He must have had a mother who cared, and who
cried. It is dreadful to make mothers cry. Once," and now her voice
was trembling,—"once I wanted to go to the woods with some girls, and
my mother needed me at home, and I grumbled, and said I didn't see why
I could never have any good times like other girls; that none of them
had to help their mothers iron; and my mother looked so sad and tired;
and when she went into her bedroom I saw the tears coming down her
cheeks. I hated myself then, and I ironed all the afternoon as well as
I could, and I told mother that night how sorry I was for being cross;
but I never had a chance to iron for her again; it was only a few weeks
before she died."
And now poor Dilly was crying. Quietly, attracting no attention, but
shedding unmistakable tears.
Hart felt very sorry for her, and there was also a remorseful feeling
knocking at his heart. He had, more than once, seen the tears in "his"
mother's eyes, and knew that anxiety for him had brought them there.