THE JUNE—BUG.
"ANNA, what was that something else you said you got thinking of that
night? You said you would tell me sometime."
Ethel had "faced the dreadful perilous pass" of the cow-bestudded
common, done her errand at Mrs. Smith's, and was now walking with
Anna toward the corner where she should meet the horse-car. She had
certainly been very considerably scared, especially when one big red
cow was taken with a sudden fit of playfulness in her neighbourhood,
and performed some of the graceful antics for which cows are famous;
but she had walked valiantly on and had not even allowed herself to
look back, though she had all the time a feeling that the cow's horns
were not an inch from her sash-bow. It was not so bad coming back; for
most of the cows had gone home, and there were none very near the path.
"You said you would tell me sometime," continued Ethel. "Tell me now."
"Well, you must not take it for more than it is worth," said Anna,
looking straight before her. "It was your brother's sermon. That one
on the text 'We love Him, because He first loved us.' You remember it,
don't you?"
"I remember it very well," replied Ethel. "I know you said you liked
it."
"I don't know how it was, but I never heard a sermon which made such an
impression on me," continued Anna. "Perhaps I was just in the mood to
be impressed. I never in my life had such a sense of God's love for the
whole human race; his endless forbearance, and patience, and kindness
toward those who will not love him, nor try to please him. I thought of
him day after day waiting upon the creatures he has made, giving them
hundreds and thousands of blessings, and ready at any moment to receive
and forgive, and make happy forever, those who had been the most wicked
and ungrateful that could be."
"I know," said Ethel, in a low voice. "'All day long I have stretched
forth my hands unto a disobedient and a gainsaying people.'"
"Well, I thought about that," said Anna. "You know I am not good at
expressing my feelings; but I thought it all over, and could not forget
it; and I could not be unforgiving when thinking of Him."
"But, Anna, if you see this love so plainly; how can you hold out
against it?" asked Ethel, presently. "You are too generous not to love
any one who loves you so much."
"I don't hold out," replied Anna, shortly. "That is, I don't mean to.
Ethel, I am going to try to be a good, faithful servant of his from
this time; and I want you to help me and pray for me. Will you?"
"Indeed, indeed, I will," replied Ethel, as soon as she could speak. "I
don't know how I can help you, for I am so miserably weak and unworthy
myself; but I will if I can. Oh, Anna, I never was so glad of anything
in my life."
"I am afraid I shall be very inconsistent, and do a great many wrong
things," continued Anna. "I have such a quick temper, and it is
always getting me into scrapes; but after all, one had better be an
inconsistent disciple than not to be a disciple at all."
"Of course," said Ethel.
A little while before she might very likely have preached a gentle
little sermon to Anna about the necessity of governing her temper, but
she felt very humble just now, and altogether too much discouraged
about herself, to feel like preaching to others.
"Anna, let, me say one thing to you," said Ethel, with unusual
energy, after they had walked a little way in silence. "Don't ever
allow yourself to think that your temper, or any other fault you are
conscious of, is a little fault and of no consequence, or that you
cannot help it, and therefore you are not to blame for it. That is just
what has ruined me. Ever since I came to live with Emily, I have been
finding out that my timidity and my constant avoidance of anything
disagreeable, just because it was disagreeable, were faults. In the
bottom of my heart, I knew I was wrong; but I would not confess it nor
try to conquer myself. Especially since Henry came home, I have seen
more clearly than ever I did before how foolish I was, and how unfit
for any sort of usefulness; and yet I would not try to overcome my
fears, or deny myself in any way. I refused the cross, and so I have
the rod instead. I feel like the man in the iron cage,—as if I had got
to a place where I could not get out."
"But, Ethel, is that right?" asked Anna.
"No. I know it is not; but I do not seem to know how to escape from it.
I have asked forgiveness, and I believe yes, I really do believe—that
I have it; but, somehow, I cannot feel it or realize it. I feel so
lonely, so shut away—" Ethel's voice died away.
"Well, I can't pretend to advise you; but I know what I should do,"
said Anna.
"Well, what would you do?"
"I should go on doing all sorts of duties just the same as though I
could feel rightly," said Anna.
"But suppose, when you prayed, the words seemed to go no deeper than
your lips, and your heart felt as dry as dust, and it seemed as though
there were nobody to hear or answer you."
"I should go on praying all the same, just because it was my duty,"
said Anna; "and I should do other things in the same way: everything
that I could find to do for other people, especially. It may not be the
best way; but I should try it."
"I believe you are right, Anna; and that this very thing is part of
what Matthew meant by taking up the cross daily," said Ethel. "I will
try it at any rate. Here is the car, and I must go. I promised Matthew
I would not walk any more just now. Good-by, Anna; come and see me as
soon as you can."
Ethel was so much occupied with what Anna had told her that she
actually forgot to be afraid of the drawbridge. She went straight to
her room, and, in her thanksgiving and prayers for her friend, she
seemed to find a little lightening of the burden which oppressed her
soul.
"Are you going up to the 'Hill' for your evening service, Henry?" asked
Ethel, as they rose from dinner, the next Sunday afternoon.
"Yes, a little before seven. I have promised to meet my choir and
practise with them a little; though I fear it will not come to a great
deal without the instrument."
"I was going to ask you whether you would like to have me go up and
play for you," said Ethel, blushing deeply. "I have been looking over
the books a little."
"I wondered what had set you to practising church music at such a
rate," remarked Emily. "But won't you be too tired, dear, after being
in church and Sunday-school this morning?"
"Oh, no. I rested this afternoon on purpose."
"I shall be perfectly delighted; and so, I am sure, will every one
else," said Mr. Dalton. "It was just what I have been wishing for, if
you think you can do it."
"We might call for Anna, and she would help us," said Ethel. "You know
she has a beautiful voice."
"That is well thought of; but you need not go so far out of your way,"
said Dr. Ray. "I have to make a call near them, and I thought of
looking in again on poor Mary: so I will take Anna and drive up in the
carriage."
"Then I will go and get ready," said Ethel; "and put on a thin dress,
for the weather has grown very warm, and playing the organ is not cool
work."
"Ethel, come here a moment," called Dr. Ray from the office, as Ethel
came down-stairs.
He was standing before his case of bottles, pouring something into a
very small vial, which he corked and handed to Ethel.
"Put that in your pocket, in case you get faint or scared," said he.
"Dutch courage!" said Ethel, smiling, as she took the bottle.
"Why, not exactly; though even Dutch courage is better than none,
sometimes. But you know you have been faint once or twice of late; and
the very knowledge that you have a remedy in your pocket may help you
if you feel any unpleasant symptoms. This is a good move of yours,
dear, and I don't want you to break down. How pretty you look in your
cool muslins."
Ethel did indeed look wonderfully pretty in her simple muslin suit and
dainty hat and gloves, all fresh and flower-like from top to toe.
"Am I too much dressed?" said she. "I thought it would look somewhat
more respectful to the place and the people, if I made myself nice."
"You are not at all too much dressed; and you are quite right to make
yourself look nicely. They will think all the more of you. Now, keep up
good courage; and, Ethel, dear, try not to think about yourself. I dare
say you will get on famously."
Mr. Dalton and Ethel found the members of the choir waiting for them,
and there was great rejoicing when they heard that Ethel had come to
play the organ. The practising went off prosperously, Richard Trim
being one of the principal performers. Anna arrived just before service
time.
"How are you going to make out?" she whispered to Ethel.
"Very well, I think; if I don't break down. Anna, don't you think I
might take off my sack? It is very warm."
"Of course. Nobody can see you. I wish we need not have lights. The
June-bugs will come in like a swarm of bees."
"June-bugs!" said Ethel, with a little, a very little, start.
She had a special dread and dislike of these creatures. It is well
known that the Melolontha Vulgaris (to give him the benefit of his
learned name) is a constant attendant at evening church during the warm
weather in early summer, and that he is very zealous in his blundering
attentions to any one who is afraid of him. Ethel often said if there
were only one June-bug in the world, he would fly half-way round it to
jump in her face; and, really, she did seem to be specially persecuted
by them.
"Oh, dear," she said to herself, as the lamps were lighted before
service, and she saw her enemies beginning to swarm into the open
windows, as usual. "I am glad I never thought of the June-bugs. I am
sure I never should have dared to come. But I must not begin watching
them, or I shall never be able to stand it. I never saw so many
anywhere."
And, indeed, the June-bugs were unusually abundant and lively. Ethel
tried her best to forget them and to attend to the service, and she
succeeded beyond her hopes. Her anxieties about the music helped
to withdraw her attention from her enemies, and, fortunately, the
strongest light was in the centre of the room.
Mr. Dalton preached one of his best sermons: the room was full and
the people earnest and attentive, joining in the singing with a zeal
which showed how much they enjoyed it. Everything went on well, and
Ethel never once thought of the little bottle of "Dutch courage" in
her pocket. The last hymn was given out. It was rather a long one;
and, just as Ethel was concluding the first verse, an unusually large
June—bug came flying over her head, knocked his own head against the
ceiling, and tumbled down, not on the keys, which would have been bad
enough, but right into the neck of Ethel's dress, next her skin, where
he kicked, struggled, and scratched with all his might.
Ethel never knew how she got through that hymn; but she did get through
it somehow, and without missing a note, though it was certainly nipped
off rather short at the end.
Anna, looking back, saw that something was the matter, and the moment
the benediction was said, she came round to Ethel's side.
"What is the matter, child?" she exclaimed, in alarm, for Ethel was
very pale.
"Do take that thing out of my neck!" said Ethel, pointing to the
struggling insect.
Anna saw it all in a moment. She put in her hand and pulled out the
audacious intruder, which soared away to enjoy the singular pleasure
which a June-bug seems to feel in bumping his hard back against the
ceiling.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Ethel, finding her voice. "I thought that hymn would
be too much for me. How did I get through it?"
"Perfectly well," replied Anna. "Was that thing on your neck when you
were playing?"
"All the time," said Ethel. "Oh, dear! I never knew they had so many
claws."
"Well, I declare, you have got pretty good spunk!" said Richard Trim,
looking admiringly at Ethel. "I don't hardly believe I could have done
it myself."
"I couldn't, I know," cried a young girl, one of the choir. "I should
have screamed murder."
"It was all my fault taking off my sack," said Ethel. "I am glad I did
not spoil the music."
"Well, little sister, you made out famously," remarked Mr. Dalton, when
the congregation had dispersed. "I did not discover a single failure in
the music: only you stopped rather suddenly at last."
"No wonder, poor child," said Anna. "The only marvel was that she got
through it at all."
"Why, what was the matter?" asked Mr. Dalton.
Anna told him what had happened.
"You certainly deserve a very long credit mark, my dear," said Mr.
Dalton. "It is a great victory. I am not laughing at you, little
sister," he added, as Ethel looked imploringly at him. "I consider it
as I say,—a great victory, and gained over a great enemy!"
"A June-bug is not such a great enemy in point of size," said Ethel;
"though he felt large enough when he was inside my dress."
"I was not thinking of the poor beetle," said Mr. Dalton.
As they were coming down the hill, there were two young women walking
before them, and they heard one of them say to the other:
"Didn't Miss Dalton look lovely? I mean to make my new suit just like
hers. It looks so much more genteel than those furred up things."
"And it won't cost as much either; for you won't need nearly so much
muslin," replied the other. "I wonder how much she had to buy. If I
knew her, I would ask her."
"You have done a good work already, Ethel," said her brother. "You must
make acquaintance with those girls."
"I shall see them on Wednesday evening, and then I will give them all
needful information," replied Ethel. "Anna, I have not had a chance to
ask, you about Mary. How is she?"
"Oh, we hope she is a great deal better; but we are not sure till we
hear what Dr. Ray says," replied Anna. "She has been sensible all day;
but she is very, very weak; and Mrs. Rose is afraid that her apparent
improvement is only what she calls a 'lighting up for death.'"
"But did not Matthew see her when he called for you?" asked Ethel.
"He did not call for me: he met me in the street just at the corner of
the square, and said he would bring me up to the chapel first, so that
I might be ready to help you at the beginning."
"How very kind he is," said Ethel.
"Brother, I have something to tell you about Anna," said Ethel,
after they had committed her to the charge of a neighbour whom they
encountered, and were walking homeward by themselves. "She asked me to
tell you; for she wants to talk to you, and she is too shy to begin."
Ethel then repeated the substance of the conversation she had had with
Anna.
"I am very thankful!" said Mr. Dalton. "Do you know, Ethel, I was
greatly discouraged about that very sermon. I came so far short of what
I desired and intended to express that it seemed to me an absolute
failure. But, after all, it has done good in this case, and who can
tell in how many more?"
"Anna said she never heard a sermon which made so much impression on
her," said Ethel. "It made her see things in a new light. She had
always heard that she ought to love Him, but she never thought of His
love to her. I wish you could preach a sermon which would do me as much
good."
"What sort of good do you wish?" asked Mr. Dalton.
"I don't know that I can make you understand, because I don't
understand very well myself," replied Ethel. "I want to be made to
'feel' things. I read the Bible every day, and try to believe that its
promises are for me; but I don't 'feel' them to be so. I feel as though
I had nothing to do with them. I pray every day; but I have no feeling
that the Lord hears me. I know that he does, of course, because his
word says so; but there is no reality about it. It all seems a formal
service, done as a matter of duty. There is no enjoyment and no comfort
in it."
"Are you quite sure there is no comfort?" asked her brother. "Could you
be comfortable in leaving off prayer?"
"No, indeed! That would be worse than all."
"Then there is, after all, some comfort in prayer. However, I
understand your case. I have been, I think, in pretty nearly the same
place. What do you think has brought you into this desert land,—this
valley of Bacca?"
"I know only too well: it was my wilful, presumptuous sin," replied
Ethel. "I have tried to repent, and forsake the sin; but yet I do not
seem to get out of the valley at all."
"You must be content to abide therein till you are taken out by a
stronger hand than your own," said Mr. Dalton. "'Whom the Lord loveth,
he chasteneth,' you know, Ethel, and we must let him choose his own
mode of discipline; and comfort ourselves with thinking that the very
chastening is an evidence of his love."
"But if one has no faith," said Ethel, doubtfully.
"What you want is not the feeling, but the action of faith, as some one
says, whom I was reading yesterday," said Mr. Dalton. "'Persevere in
the action, and the feeling will come in good time,—all the sooner, if
you wait patiently for it.'"
"But some people say that duty-service is worth nothing," said Ethel.
"Don't you remember?—No, you don't, for you were not with us up at the
Springs that summer; but old Dr. Sparks used regularly to pray in the
meeting that we might not have come in hither from a sense of duty."
"I think the doctor was wrong," said Mr. Dalton. "In the first place,
if the people 'had' come, there was no particular use in praying about
that; and in the second, a sense of duty was a very good reason for
coming. The feelings of the best people are very variable, and are
influenced by so many things, that they are not greatly to be depended
upon as motives to action; but we can always do things because they are
right, and because God has commanded them; and the very doing of them
in that way brings with it, oftentimes, the blessing of warm feeling
which we desire. You see what a blessing went with that very sermon
with which I was so dissatisfied, but which I preached because it was
the best I could do."
"I see," said Ethel. "I am glad I spoke to you, though I don't much
like talking about one's feelings."
"Nor I," replied Mr. Dalton. "I believe a great deal of good genuine
feeling which might have resulted in action is 'talked' away. Moreover,
talking of religious feelings and experiences is too often a trap
set for flattery,—fishing for compliments, as the school-girls say.
However, I think it very desirable, for young Christians especially,
to have some one experienced person to whom they may go for religious
teaching and counsel, even in the most sacred matters. A mother is a
young girl's natural counsellor, but all have not this resource. The
next person is the pastor, and after him the Sunday-school teacher. But
after the parents, the pastor has the first right."
"Some pastors do not like to be troubled in that way," said Ethel.
"Very few would object to it, I suspect, where the desire for counsel
is honest. I believe, where one would be annoyed, twenty would be
gratified. As it is, pastors preach a great deal in the dark, because
they know so very little about the real religious life of their people.
Here we are at home. How slowly we have walked!"
"Good news for you, Ethel," said Dr. Ray, as they entered the parlour.
"Mary is decidedly better. I think her almost entirely, if not quite,
out of danger. But how did you succeed?"
"Pretty well, I believe," answered Ethel. "I did not need your bottle,
brother. Henry will tell you all about it. I should like to go
up-stairs."
"Did she really get through without breaking down?" asked Emily, after
Ethel left the room. "I have been worrying about her all the evening."
"You might have spared yourself the trouble," replied Mr. Dalton.
"Ethel has behaved like a real heroine, though in rather a small
matter." And he proceeded to give an account of Ethel's adventure.
"Well done for the heroine!" exclaimed Dr. Ray. "I would not have
believed it was in her."
"It really was a grand thing for her to do, was it not?"
"It was indeed, and she shall have something to remember it by," said
the doctor.
Ethel went to her room, and knelt down by her bedside. She remained
kneeling a long time, and when she arose, her face, though stained with
tears, was calm and happy, and wore a settled expression, as if she had
come to some grave decision. She opened her desk, and taking out the
paper on which, a year and more before, she had recorded her resolve
to be a missionary, she added a few words, and put it away again. The
words were only a date and a text of Scripture.
"'O Lord, I will praise Thee. Though Thou wast angry with me, Thine
anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my
salvation: I will trust, and be not afraid.'"