mistake. Does seem as if he’d hit the right tack at last, and I can’t
help believing he’s going to hold out, in spite of myself. Anyhow, wife
and I are going to start for the Centennial next week, leaving Dan
monarch of all he surveys. Now, I’d like to ask if you really pretend
it’s his religion makes all the difference? for he _is_ different from
what he’s ever been before; there’s no denying that.”
“I do most sincerely believe it is wholly by faith in a helping Saviour
that man is to-day clothed and in his right mind,” rejoined Mr.
Sherman, earnestly.
“Well, I never saw anything just like it,” said Mr. Vance, preparing
to move on. “It astonishes me every time I look at him. I may come to
church myself some day just to inquire into the thing. Be some staring,
wouldn’t there? Plenty of room I suppose?”
“Room and a welcome and a blessing, I trust, for ‘whosoever will,’”
said Mr. Sherman shaking his friend’s hand heartily. “Come, and get on
the ‘right tack,’ yourself.”
“Well, look out for me next Sunday, then. I’ve more than half made up
my mind there’s something in it, after all. Nobody can deny it has
worked a wonderful change in Dan Harte,” and Mr. Vance walked hastily
away.
II.
TELLING THE TIDINGS.
“And we declare unto you glad tidings.”
There was to be a Sabbath School concert, quite an elaborate one, and
both girls and boys were interested to make it a success.
“What do you mean by ‘success’?” asked Miss Marvin of her class who
were eagerly discussing the parts assigned them.
“Oh! get lots of people here and have ’em say it’s grand—tip-top,”
said Varney Lowe.
“To go ahead of all the other churches,” said Bell Forbush.
“Not to have one single failure,” added Nettie Rand.
Miss Marvin shook her head smilingly.
“Real success means more than that,” she said. “You are going to tell
once more the ‘old, old story.’ There will be people here not so
familiar with it as you and I may be. Which will you aim to have them
remember,—the manner or the matter?”
The girls looked doubtfully at each other, but the closing exercises
prevented further remark. The class, however, remained after school to
decide when and where to meet for rehearsals.
“You must all come to my home every other night,” said Bell decidedly.
“I’m afraid—perhaps—I thought Miss Marvin didn’t approve,” suggested
Sue.
“Indeed I do; you cannot take too much pains to speak clearly and
correctly. Shall I explain what I did mean? Suppose you make a feast
for your friends, and they pronounce it the best they ever ate. At the
same time, you find a poor man starving close by your door. You may
give him never so little, but you feed him tenderly, and save his life.
Which will give you the most satisfaction,—the thought of that, or the
praises of your friends?”
“That, of course,” said Varney Lowe. “It’s so splendid to save
anybody’s life. Heroes always do.”
“Well, you are preparing for your friends a feast of good things from
God’s storehouse of truth. You cannot serve it too royally or arrange
it too attractively; but remember, there will be souls here, starving,
absolutely dying,—although they may not believe it themselves,—for
the bread of life. Would it not be the truest success to feed one such
soul with the crumb you are each to bring?”
“Nobody ever notices _what_ we say,” interrupted Bell, rather
flippantly.
“There are two things I wish you would do this week,” continued Miss
Marvin, without noticing the interruption; “one is, to invite your
parents to come——”
“I most think father will, this time,” put in Dick, his face all aglow.
Mr. Vance had been to church for several Sabbaths.
“Of course we shall ask them, we always do,” said Nettie Rand.
“And will you also ask your Heavenly Father to be here and help
you to speak the words so plainly and earnestly as to make
them stepping-stones by which somebody shall get nearer to
Himself,—somebody perhaps, who has not even started heavenward?”
Will Carter shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. There was only one
faint “Yes’m.”
“Can you tell me,” said Miss Marvin pleasantly, “why this is more
strange or difficult to do than the other? Remember, if we really
_want_ that best kind of success, and ask God for it, we shall surely
have it.”
Maybee and her dearest girl-friend, Nanny Carter, stood close by
waiting, as usual, for Sue. Nanny was busily talking:—
“You haven’t seen my new bronze boots, an’ there’s my beautiful
brown an’ gold stockings; won’t they look _el_-egant up there on the
platform? and aren’t you glad we’re all to dress in white? Shall you
wear a brown sash? it’s _so_ fashionable, and which _do_ you think’ll
look best for me, pink or red flowers?”
“I don’t know,” said Maybee absently. “But isn’t it queer—about the
stepping-stones, and helping folks? Don’t you wish we could?”
“Could what?” asked Nanny, who hadn’t heard a single word.
“Why, our verses,—make ’em stones, you know, to help folks along. Just
s’pose, now, everybody’s verse was a really, truly stone, how thick
they’d be, and p’raps lots more folks would go to heaven. I mean to ask
Him.”
“Ask—who—what? You’re dreadfully poky to-day. I shall go and walk
with Will,” said Nanny; and for once Maybee did not coax her back, she
was so busy thinking.
She kept thinking, too, all the week. Never did she learn a piece so
thoroughly, or take more pains to recite it loud and distinctly.
“It can’t help anybody ’thout they can hear it, course,” she said
when Sue praised her. “An’ please don’t put on my bib-collar with
the crinkly lace be-cause I can’t help thinking ’bout it—it’s so
lov-er-ly, you know; an’ I want to think ’bout the folks who don’t love
God. I’ve asked Him to make my verses help ’em. Have you?”
“Oh, dear, no! I forget all about it only when Miss Marvin is talking,”
said Sue sorrowfully.
“I s’pose that’s why there isn’t more stepping-stones to help folks up
to heaven,—’cause other folks forget, don’t you? But you might ask Him
now before we go, you know.”
So they knelt down together, and two earnest little prayers went up
into God’s great, loving ear.
Even talkative Nanny felt the influence of Maybee’s quiet, happy face,
as the classes took their respective seats, and listened attentively
while the superintendent read a chapter and the pastor prayed.
Then the school sang the hymn beginning,—
“Our joyful notes we gladly raise,
To Him whose name we love.”
After which the superintendent announced the subject of the concert by
reading the following anecdote.
III.
JESUS’ NAME.
“And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”
“NONE OTHER NAME.
“FROM THE GERMAN, BY H. H. H.
“A blind man sat before the door of his hut and read in his Bible. He
did not read with his eyes, but with his fingers. With his fingers?
Exactly so. Blind people have an unusually keen sense of feeling, so
that books have been printed for these unfortunate ones with letters
which stand out from the page. In an incredibly short space of time
they learn the different forms of the letters so thoroughly that
as their fingers swiftly follow the lines, their mouths pronounce
syllables, words, and sentences. Of course this requires much toil and
much patience.
“My reader will now believe what I said, that the blind man who sat
before his hut was reading his Bible. Many people, old and young, stood
near and listened to him with amazement. A gentleman who was passing
was attracted by curiosity and reached the place just as the blind man
who was reading in Acts iv., had apparently lost his place. While he
was searching the lines with his fingers he repeated several times the
words, ‘None other name—none other name—none other name!’
“Several of the bystanders laughed at the bewilderment of the blind
man, but the strange gentleman, sunk in deep thought, left the place
at once. For several weeks the grace of God had been working in the
mind of this man, and had awakened in him the consciousness that he was
a sinner. In vain had he tried one way after another to bring peace
and rest to his heart. All his religious work, his good resolutions,
his altered life,—nothing had availed to free his conscience from so
unendurable a burden and to make his heart truly happy.
“In this frame of mind he had drawn near to the blind man, and like
the sound of solemn music these words had struck upon his ear, ‘None
other name!’ And as he reached his home and sat down to rest, the
words rang still in his soul like the sound of distant bells, ‘None
other name—none other name!’ The longer he meditated upon these
wonderful words, the brighter glimmered the light of grace in his
heart, hitherto so unquiet, so that at last he cried out in wonder and
delight, ‘Now I understand it, now I see it! I have sought my salvation
in my own works, in my prayers, in my own improvement. Now I see my
error clearly. Only Jesus can save and bless. Henceforth I will look
to Him. Beside Him there is no way of life,’ ‘for there is none other
name—none other name—none other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved!’”
The moment the superintendent paused the school began singing,—
“There is no name so sweet on earth,
No name so sweet in heaven,—
The name, before his wondrous birth,
To Christ, the Saviour, given.
We love to sing around our King,
And hail him blessed Jesus;
For there’s no word ear ever heard,
So dear, so sweet as Jesus.”
And then Maybee, slowly, earnestly, and so clearly not a word was lost,
repeated the first verse of the hymn,—
“I love to hear the story
Which angel voices tell,
How once the King of glory
Came down on earth to dwell.
I am both weak and sinful,
But this I surely know,—
The Lord came down to save me
_Because He loved me so_.”
Like a low, sweet echo, the whole class of little girls began singing,—
“Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but He is strong.”
Then Maybee went on,—
“I’m glad my blessed Saviour
Was once a child like me,
To show how pure and holy
His little ones might be;
And if I try to follow
His footsteps here below,
He never will forget me
Because He loved me so.”
And the class sang again,—
“Jesus loves me, He will stay
Close besides me all the way,
If I love Him, when I die
He will take me home on high.”
Maybee:—
“To sing His love and mercy
Our sweetest songs we’ll raise,
And though we cannot see Him
We know He hears our praise;
For He has kindly promised
That we shall surely go
To sing among His angels
Because He loves me so.”
Class, singing:—
“Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide,
He will wash away our sin,
Let His little child come in.”
And as the last note died away, the choir took up the sweet refrain and
softly chanted,
“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God.”
Mr. Vance, who had listened indifferently to the prayer and reading,
leaned eagerly forward as Maybee’s clear, earnest tones fell on his
ear; but when the class took their seats, and Dick looked around
inquiringly, his father’s head was bowed on the front of the pew.
Asleep, was he? Dick thought so, with a keen pang of disappointment.
Recitation followed recitation. At the last came Sue Sherman, trembling
a little, for Sue was very timid, but with a strong hope in her heart
that God would remember her prayer.
IV.
THE INVITATION.
[RECITED BY SUE SHERMAN.]
“But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God and an
everlasting king.”
I have a Friend, a precious Friend, unchanging, wise, and true,
The chief among ten thousand. Oh, that you knew Him too!
When all the woes that wait on me relax each feeble limb,
I know who waits to welcome me. Have you a friend like Him?
He comforts me, He strengthens me. How can I then repine?
He loveth me. This faithful Friend in life and death is mine!
I have a Father, true and fond. He cares for all my needs;
His patience bore my faithless ways, my mad and foolish deeds.
To me He sends sweet messages, He waiteth but to bless.
Have you a father like to mine in such deep tenderness?
For me a kingdom doth He keep, for me a crown is won.
I was a rebel once: He calls the rebel child His son.
I have a proved, unerring Guide, whose love I often grieve;
He brings me golden promises my heart can scarce receive;
He leadeth me, and hope and cheer doth for my path provide
For dreary nights and days of drought. Have you so sure a guide?
Quench not the faintest whisper that the heavenly dove may bring:
He seeks with holy love to lure the wanderer ’neath His wing.
I have a _home_,—a home so bright its beauties none can know;
Its sapphire pavement and such palms none ever saw below;
Its golden streets resound with joy; its pearly gates with praise;
A temple standeth in the midst no human hands could raise;
And there unfailing fountains flow, and pleasures never end.
Who makes that home so glorious? It is my loving Friend.
My Friend, my Father, and my Guide, and this our radiant home
Are offered you. Turn not away! _To-day_ I pray you “_Come_.”
My Father yearns to welcome you His heart, His house to share;
My Friend is yours, my home is yours, my Guide will lead you there.
Behold One altogether fair, the faithful and the true!
He pleadeth with you for your love; He gave His life for _you_.
Oh, leave the worthless things you seek! they perish in a day.
Serve now the true and living God, from idols turn away.
Watch for the Lord, who comes to reign; enter the open door;
Give Him thine heart, thy broken heart: thou’lt ask it back no more.
Trust Him for grace and strength and love, and all your troubles end.
Oh, come to Jesus! and behold in Him a loving Friend.
As the school began the closing hymn, Mr. Vance took his hat and
slipped quietly out. All the evening Maybee’s words had been ringing in
his ear,—
“The Lord came down to save me
Because He loved me so.”
And now, as he walked slowly down the street, he found himself
repeating, “None other name, _none other name_.” Back and forth, past
the farm-house gate, he paced; then striding hastily through the garden
and orchard, he flung himself on the grass, under a clump of maples.
“My Friend, my Father, and my Guide, and this our radiant home
Are offered you. Turn not away! _To-day_ I pray you ‘_Come!_’”
He would settle the matter _now_. Big drops of perspiration stood on
his forehead. He heard the little gate shut. Dick had come home; he
and his mother would be anxious; but still the man sat motionless.
The proud heart was so unwilling to own he had been mistaken, that he
needed a Guide, that the “living God” had any claim upon him.
Fifteen minutes—twenty—half an hour. Mrs. Vance looked up as her
husband entered the door, her questioning eyes met his; he answered her
with a smile and the words from Sue’s hymn,—
“I was a rebel once; He calls the rebel child His son.”
How glad Sue and Maybee will always be that they asked God to make
“stepping-stones” of their verses for somebody, and that the somebody
was Dick’s father!
V.
DICK’S “YOKE.”
“Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of
bondage.”
You would suppose, now, Dick would be more in earnest than ever; but
we all have to learn that when circumstances are most favorable and
pleasant is the very time Satan will contrive to lay a temptation
in our way and trip us if he can. For some time Dick had been very
regular at the prayer-meeting. The boys sneered and laughed, but Dick
had never minded, and now that his father went with him and Deacon
Carter frequently commended his perseverance, and even the minister
occasionally added a word of approval, Dick began to pride himself on
the fact.
“Remember, we go against the Lyntown Winners to-morrow night. Don’t
fail us for the world!” said Tom Lawrence to him one day. Dick was
decidedly the best player in the base-ball club.
“I must,” said Dick, “because I can’t get back in time for our meeting.”
Possibly Dick did not know how grand a tone he assumed.
“_Our_ meeting!” mimicked Tom. “S’pose they couldn’t run the thing
without his lordship. I say, Dick, it will be a shame! Carter’ll be
hopping mad.”
“I can’t help it. Carter knows nothing will take me away _that_ night!”
and Dick walked rather consequentially off, quite right in his refusal,
but entirely wrong in the spirit of it.
“Won’t, hey!” muttered Tom. “We’ll see!”
Somehow Dick did not enjoy the meeting that evening half as much as
usual. He would keep thinking about the “base-ball players,” wondering
which side had come out ahead, what kind of new uniforms the “Winners”
had, and how soon the “Catapults” could afford the same.
It was queer, after that, how many things happened on Thursday night.
All the croquet parties, the boating, fishing, riding. Perhaps Tom
could have explained the “happen,”—Tom and Will Carter.
The prayer-meetings grew duller and duller to Dick. There were only a
few there regularly, and they always said the same thing. Dea. Carter’s
prayers were dreadfully long, and the minister talked as if he never
would stop. And then the minister must go and start a young people’s
meeting on Tuesday evening. Tuesday, Thursday, and a Bible-class
Saturday nights! What was he thinking of? As if it wasn’t hard enough
to bone down to rules and walk Spanish all day long without having
every other minute full of prayer-meetings and that sort of thing.
Dick’s father, too, as if to make amends for the long, prayerless
years, had prayers twice a day. Dea. Carter only had them in the
morning. Really, it seemed as if duty was leading poor Dick a slave’s
life.
“Be over to the Squire’s, to-morrow night I suppose?” said Tom, the
day before the annual party given by Esq. Ellis to the young people in
“peach time.”
“Yes, after meeting. I must do my sums before that. May get over in
time for the spread,” rejoined Dick somewhat dubiously.
“Pho! that won’t answer. Didn’t you know the Squire had set up half a
dozen croquet sets, and we’re to be prompt at six o’clock? The best
player has some sort of a gim-crack, and nobody stands half a chance
beside you. I told the Squire so. He’ll think you backed out. Most
likely Carter’ll come in next. Better be on hand.”
“Well, perhaps. I’ll think it over.”
And Dick thought it over,—how Dea. Phelps and Dr. Sault and Mr. Bugbee
were very seldom at the prayer-meeting; how many church-members never
came at all; how even Miss Cox stayed away for lectures and concerts.
How many of us, young and old, like Dea. Phelps and Mr. Bugbee and Miss
Cox, will find, away on in eternity, that we have helped somebody to
just such a wrong decision as Dick came to!
He was on the croquet-grounds precisely at six, and played his
best. The Squire applauded vociferously, and there was no end of
complimentary remarks, enough to turn an older head than Dick’s.
“Worst of it is, I stayed too late,” he said to Tom the next morning;
“and there’s those examples,—not a single one done. Had to help father
every blessed minute after I got up.”
“Never mind, here’s my key. Just copy ’em right out,—everybody does.
Don’t be squeamish now; just for once, you know.”
“Pity to fail, so near the end of the term,” said Will Carter. Will
would not have used a key for the world; he was very particular on such
points; but he had not the least scruple about tempting Dick to forfeit
his honor. And after a little hesitation, Dick yielded.
Once it would have seemed cute and quite the thing to deceive Mr.
Blackman; now, it made him feel mean and uneasy, especially when that
gentleman remarked, “I think you are almost sure to take the prize in
mathematics, Dick.”
But for that remark, however, I don’t believe Dick would ever have
touched the horrid old key again. As it was, Tom _would_ lay it so
“handy,” and Satan was sure to raise a doubt in Dick’s mind about the
correctness of a certain multiple or divisor. Just one glance would
determine; and so the glances multiplied and divided into a very common
denominator.
“You’ll be over to base ball to-night, won’t you?” asked Tom one
Thursday morning, not long after.
“Of course he will,” remarked Will Carter passing by, “or he’ll be
turned out of the Catapults; _that’s_ sure.”
Turned out! just as they’d got their new uniforms! Of course he must go.
“And look here,” continued Tom, “didn’t you see me have a paper, my
grammar exercise, in my hand all finished, when we came over the marsh
yesterday?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Dick. “You said you hadn’t once thought of it.”
“Oh, fudge, now! What a poor memory! Why, man, don’t you remember
seeing me lose it? slipped on the stones, you know. Come now, if you
don’t, Blackman’ll keep me in to-night, sure as pop.”
“But you wouldn’t have me tell a lie, I hope?”
“Oh, no; _we_ don’t do such things _now_, _we’re_ too good,—only when
it comes to them examples,” said Tom, forgetting the practical part of
his grammar. “But mind, now, if you don’t trump up something to get me
off—you used to be up to that sort of thing—I’ll let on to Blackman
all about that key; and then where’s your prize?”
Dick turned it over and over in his mind as he walked slowly home at
noon.
“My guesses you doesn’t know what this is,” called Tod from his
father’s steps, holding up a leathern belt with something like
shoulder-straps attached.
“No; what is it?” said Dick absently.
“It’s what my mamma used to tied me up wif, when my was vewy little, so
my wouldn’t eat gween apples and curwants an’ goo-woose-berries. Her
don’t have to, now.”
“Why not? Don’t you like ’em?”
“Yes, but my likes my mamma better-er; an’ her says th’ other fings is
weal much nicer, so my doesn’t want ’em. Here’s anover some-fing,”—Tod
was helping Jackson overhaul the tool-room. “It’s to catch fings
in; and once my mamma said, my mustn’t touch, an’ my did, and it
pinched—awful. My couldn’t get away one bit; the more my pulled, the
tighter-er it wouldn’t let go.”
“Quite a lesson for you and me in all that,” remarked Miss Marvin,
overtaking and walking along with Dick.
“Was there?”
“Yes; did you never think how full Moses’ law is, of ‘Thou shalt
not’s’? while Jesus’ commands are, _Do_ this and that ‘because you love
me.’ The Jews were like children, knowing so little about God they had
to be ‘tied up,’ as it were, with strict laws; but when Christ came,
He set His people free from rites and ceremonies, and made _love_ the
motive power. And that trap reminded me how Satan catches and holds
us,—the ‘tighter-er’ the more we try to get away, you know.”
Yes, Dick knew. He, Satan, was holding him fast now, at least Tom
Lawrence was, for him; and if he tried to get away, oh, how hard it
would pull! How did he ever come to put his hand in?
“Miss Marvin,” he broke out suddenly, “if we love God shall we like to
do everything He tells us?”
“I think so, when we love Him with all our hearts.”
“But—there’s the prayer-meetings, you know. Don’t they ever seem dull
and tiresome to you?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marvin frankly. “I think God knew His service would
sometimes conflict with our selfish and worldly hearts when He said,
‘Take my _yoke_ upon you’; a yoke, more or less _restrains_ and
compels; but almost in the same breath He added, ‘My yoke is easy.’
You and I, who once wore Satan’s yoke, know that Christ’s is easy, in
comparison, don’t we, Dick? And the more we love Him the easier it
becomes.”
“Yes,—I mean I did,” stammered Dick when she paused for a reply. “You
see, I used to go to meeting, at first, because I loved to, but lately
it’s been more because I _had_ to. I’ve just left the love right out,
and _that’s_ where I fell in. Miss Marvin, please excuse me. I don’t
dare wait a minute for fear it’ll pull so hard I sha’n’t get clear
away.”
He ran down the street to Mr. Blackman’s, surprised that gentleman at
dinner, made a full confession, and although with no hope of winning
the prize, went away happier than he had been for weeks.
“Got that little thing all arranged for me?” asked Tom, with a wink, as
they went up the school-house steps together.
“No, Tom. I don’t wonder you thought I could lie or do anything, but
I’m just going to begin all over again,” said Dick meekly.
“No objections, I suppose, to my telling Mr. Blackman a few things to
start with?”
“Not in the least, Tom, for I’ve told him the whole story myself. And I
don’t mean to draw, in that ‘yoke’ again right away.”
VI.
MAYBEE’S PLEDGE.
“I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was
opened unto me of the Lord.”