Most people would like to be reckoned with the good and true of earth,
but they often overlook the necessity of a change in their moral
conditions before that which they hope for can come to pass. A mother,
speaking on this point, says:
As a companion for my children there was brought into the family
a little lamb, to which, in its helplessness, our hearts went
out in love. We were about to take it in our arms to love and
cherish when we discovered it was alive with what are commonly
called “ticks.” Horrified, I ordered the lamb tied to a tree,
and forbade the children, or any one, in fact, to go near
it until it could be cleansed. I stood with my children on
the piazza, watching it with mingled emotions. Its pathetic
bleatings made us long to take it in our arms and caress it,
“mother” it, in its separation and loneliness. But I and my
children were clean. The lamb was not. Far from being clean,
it was alive with filth. The standard of approach to me, as
to all cleanly people, was cleanliness. Much as we yearned
over the lamb and longed to care for it, until purified with a
cleansing wash, communication could not be established. When the
conditions were fulfilled, children and lamb, the latter white
as newly-fallen snow, “clean every whit,” played together in
happy companionship. (Text.)
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