Times had been hard, harder than common this past year, and it seemed
to Mabel Ray as though there was little bright to look forward to, and
less to encourage her in trying to do right, trying to be the Christian
she wanted to be some years ago. She had married Harry Ray three years
previous; he was a thriving young merchant, but the past year it had
seemed to the young wife as if he had grown taciturn and almost fretful
if she wanted money for any little thing which she deemed necessary.
Only this morning he had refused her money for the fur cape that she
really needed so much, especially if they were going to her folks for
New Year’s day. She had always had what she wanted when at home, and if
Harry begrudged her the necessities of life, why, she almost believed she
had better go back to that home, for she was an only daughter and was
idolized by her parents. She sat and thought, and thought, of her wrongs
until the tears came, and then, after having a good cry, she went into
the conservatory and began picking flowers for the church decoration in
which site was to take part. There was to be a concert and recitations
and such entertainments, and the funds were to go to help the needy ones
in the parish. For there were many who needed, many men were out of work,
and their families were destitute indeed. Mabel was always ready for work
of this kind, it relieved the tedium of the days when Harry was at the
store, and then, be it known to you, although Mabel would have blushed
had she realized it herself, she liked the notices in the city personals
about the charming and philanthropic Mrs. Ray who took such a prominent
part in every good work.
Her time was her own; there were no little ones for her to care for; her
household was managed by a competent housekeeper who looked well to the
domestic arrangements; so, altogether, Mrs. Ray rather needed something
to give her an idea of usefulness. She was selfish, I am sorry to say,
but when you think that she was an only child, reared in luxury, with
everything she desired procured for her, it is no wonder that she learned
to think that what she wanted was the first thing to be considered.
Harry Ray really loved his wife, but he was bearing a heavy burden of
financial care, and then, besides, he did not possess the means that
Mabel’s father had. He would do anything, sacrifice anything for her, but
she seemed thoughtless about his sacrifices, and did not realize that
perhaps she too had a duty to perform.
She came home from decorating the church that afternoon in better
spirits, but was almost vexed when Harry assured her it would be
impossible for him to attend the Charity function with her that evening.
“Wrap yourself up well, Mabel,” Harry said thoughtfully, “and let the
coachman await you.” He looked almost wistfully at her bright young
beauty and longed for a word of sympathy and help from her, but none
came. He looked worn and worried, and a thoughtful wife would have
noticed this long before, but Mabel had not been taught to notice others
in that way.
So Harry went to his work in his office, and Mabel, dressed richly, went
to the Charity function, where she expected to sing. The evening passed
pleasantly to Mabel, for she loved a brilliant scene and the compliments
she always received.
The next day she was one of a committee to dispense the various gifts
among the poor. She rose early for her, and with several others she
visited such haunts of misery as she had never dreamed of. Poverty had
always been a rather pleasant thing in her mind where people were always
holding some sort of meetings to relieve it, and where kind hearted women
were taking chicken broth or cups of jelly to others who lay in bed; she
never really thought that perhaps it would be pleasanter to make one’s
own chicken broth or furnish one’s own jelly, or that perhaps the one
who lay in bed might do something besides just simply lie there; she did
not realize the tragedy of many of those lives where poverty binds and
sickness holds with chains invincible beyond all human aiding.
There was more wretchedness depicted in the squalid homes she visited
than she had ever dreamed of, there was not only poverty but there was
dirt, and there was suffering, and she began to wonder if there were
not other things needed by the poor besides chicken broth and jelly;
she thought soap would not be misplaced, and that clothes would find
lodgement, she was sure flowers would be welcomed by some, and she went
home with her heart really aroused from its selfish stupor. Harry did
not come home to tea, and it was so late before he did come that being
very wearied she retired, and soon fell asleep. But here, even, she was
not free, she seemed to be in the midst of a white-robed throng who went
about ministering to the needs of others, and when she spoke to them
they only said “Even Christ pleased not Himself,” and winged their way
on their errands of mercy, and then she seemed transported to the sunny
fields where flowers bloomed and birds sang their sweetest carols; there
were certain ones gathering the flowers and when she spoke to them they
said “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”
And then she was transported to the city and into the haunts of misery
and she saw a wan-faced woman going into a poor hovel with a blossom in
her hand that she had picked from where it had fallen from some fair
lady’s bouquet. She placed it carefully in a pitcher with a broken spout
and turned the fairest side of the flower toward a sick one lying upon a
pallet of straw, and when she looked a halo seemed to surround the flower
and a voice said “Even Christ pleased not Himself.” And suddenly she
seemed to be in her husband’s office, and there sat Harry, his face was
haggard, and there were tense lines about his mouth, and he seemed trying
in vain to make the accounts tally in the ledger before him, and ruin and
disaster embodied seemed looking in upon him as he worked, and finally he
laid down his pen, saying “I can do no more—if it were not for Mabel.”
Then she was in her own beautiful home and everything seemed going on
strangely; the flowers in the conservatory had withered and died because
they lived to please themselves, and so it seemed with everything in the
house; the housekeeper was keeping house to please herself, the cook was
not going to serve the dinner because it did not please her to do so, and
so it went, and she reached her room and there she found herself in ease
and luxury, taking no thought for others, and seeking only how she might
please herself; and then there seemed to be the roaring of a fire and she
saw the house and all therein consumed, but she saw the woman who had
carried the broken flower to the sick child coming to help her, and then
Harry took her in his arms, and she knew that these were safe because
they had not lived to please themselves.
After awhile she woke and hearing a step upon the stairs she slipped on
a warm dressing gown and went out softly to meet Harry. He was surprised
and there was that anxious look upon his face that she had seen in her
dream. She drew him into the parlor and seated him in an easy chair,
and then smoothed the wrinkles from his brow and begged him to tell her
of his troubles. So the husband and wife conferred together, and both
bearing the burden it grew lighter, and after a time it passed away.
Mabel seemed different thereafter, her dream was so realistic that her
very heart seemed changed, and upon its tablets were written in indelible
letters, “Even Christ pleased not Himself.” She did not care to figure
in charity functions where she would be praised of men, but she sought
out the needy and tried faithfully to aid them. Her aid was given so
unostentatiously, and with such humility and earnest sympathy, that the
poor soon learned to love her, and her flowers bloomed not in vain, for
they bloomed for the sick and sinning, for the poor and needy, and I trow
that in sowing good seeds upon earth she will reap a heavenly harvest
that will surprise her. For she has learned the sweetness of the words
“Even Christ pleased not Himself.”