THE TEA-PARTY.
At exactly six o'clock some twenty young girls of various ages assembled
at "the great house," as Mr. Mountjoy's grand mansion was called in the
village. They could not come earlier, as most of them worked in the
mill, which they could not leave till five or half-past five;
consequently they all arrived at about the same time. They were received
with perfect politeness by the servant, who opened the door and ushered
them, as she would have done any other visitors, into the spare-room,
prettily furnished in blue and white satin, with white lace hangings and
silver ornaments. Here they laid aside their hats, and taking their
little work-baskets, descended to the great drawing-room, whose
splendors considerably surprised the younger girls; the older ones were
used to it. At the door Miss Eunice with Etta, the latter arrayed in a
wonderful costume, met and received their guests, and after lingering
for a while among the paintings, engravings, nicknacks, etc., led them
to an inner room, the windows of which overlooked the garden in summer,
and a door from which opened into a greenhouse, now full of blooming
flowers.
This was the family sitting-room, generally the abode of Miss Eunice,
for Etta was too much of a butterfly to stay anywhere, and Rhoda, the
middle sister, now about twenty, was an artist, entirely devoted to
painting, spending her days and a great part of her nights in her
studio, and caring nothing for any of the interests connected with our
story. It was luxuriously furnished, more with a view to comfort than to
show, and as the girls sank into the easy sofas or into the deep stuffed
chairs, or else made themselves comfortable upon low seats and divans,
the contrast with their own bare homes and hardworking life was enough
to call forth many a sigh of rest and enjoyment. Work was then produced,
the usual inquiries after parents and sisters, invalids and home-keepers
asked and answered, with a little other familiar conversation, when Miss
Eunice said: "I think, girls, as we have finished the book upon which
we have been so long engaged, we will not commence another to-day, but
devote our thoughts to a subject about which I have been thinking a
great deal, and which your pastor agrees with me in thinking of very
great importance to be brought before you. I mean a public confession of
Christ as your Saviour and Master."
Some of the girls looked grave, some blushed, some were confused. Katie
Robertson glanced up expectantly, for this was an opportunity she had
long been on the lookout for, and longed to hear more about it. One of
the elder girls said:--
"But, Miss Eunice, nobody ought to join the church who is not
converted."
"That is very true, but is it not equally true that all who are
converted ought to join the church, as you express it, or, as I prefer
to say, confess their Saviour? It is only a mean soul which is willing
to accept gifts and favors and never openly acknowledge its gratitude
for them. I wouldn't care for the friendship of any one who was ashamed
to own me before other people; and I wouldn't think much of a soldier
who did not show his colors and put on the uniform of his country."
Katie felt her face flush; for was she not one of these very secret
friends--one of the soldiers who had not as yet put on the uniform? Not
that she had really been ashamed to do so, but the subject had not been
very prominently brought to her notice, and when she had thought of it
at all it had seemed such a strange, awful, public step for so young a
girl to take. She felt so unworthy; it seemed a thing for old people to
do, not for little girls. But Miss Eunice had thrown a new light upon
the subject, and it looked differently from what it had ever looked
before.
"But if we are not Christians, Miss Eunice, you wouldn't like us to act
a lie."
"God forbid, Mary; did you ever think that you _ought_ to be a
Christian?--ought to be in that state which will make it possible for
you to obey the simple command of Christ to confess him before men?"
"A command, Miss Eunice?"
"Yes, a command accompanied by both a promise and a threat. 'Whosoever
shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father
which is in heaven, but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I
also deny before my Father which is in heaven.'"
"But still," persisted the first speaker, "if one isn't converted."
"And what is to prevent one's being converted. Don't you think God is
willing to give you grace sufficient to enable you to do and be all that
he commands you? The greatest mistake young people can make is to
suppose that they must wait, and not take the first step toward a
religious life till something mysterious comes to them and lifts them
into it almost against their own will."
"Not _against_ our own wills; I am sure everybody wants to be saved."
"Yes, dear, against their own will, for if any one wills to be a
Christian, she can be one at once. I must insist upon it, because it is
our Saviour's own teachings. He says: 'Ye will not come unto me that ye
might have life'; and so I am sure that if any one does not have life,
spiritual life, it is because she _will_ not come unto him."
"I'd like to come," said one girl, timidly, "but I don't see exactly
how."
"I dare say most of you would. Mr. Morven and I have been talking it
over. He feels that the time for a spiritual harvest among our people,
especially among our carefully taught Sunday scholars, has about come,
and he thinks that, with a little more definite help and teaching, many
of you would be glad to come to Jesus, and be enrolled as his followers
now, instead of waiting for that indefinite sometime which may never
come. I have a book here which, in words so simple that the youngest
girl here can understand, explains how we may come to Christ by
repentance and faith in his sacrifice upon the cross, etc. It is
pleasantly written and illustrated with anecdotes. I think you will all
like it, and I propose to read a little of it aloud every Wednesday
afternoon for the next month, and at the close of the reading we will
have a little familiar conversation on this, the most important of all
topics. As most of the girls in my sister's class are of quite
sufficient age to understand what it means to be a Christian and
honestly to consider their own duty in this respect, I shall be very
happy to see them also, and any others of their friends, either in the
Sunday-school or from outside. Girls, this is a very important subject,
and I trust you will think of it conscientiously and decide upon your
own individual duty as in the sight of God. If you fail to make a right
use of this season, another similar opportunity may never be given you.
Let us commence by asking God's blessing upon our reading and thinking,
and the presence of that Holy Spirit without whose aid we can never come
to any decision that will be pleasing to him."
Miss Eunice then knelt down while all the girls knelt around her, and
prayed in low tones that the influences of the Holy Spirit might be
poured out upon all present; that they might have wisdom to see their
duty at this solemn moment and grace to do it; that they might not be
self-deceived, but really surrender their hearts into the hands of their
Saviour, and, putting their whole trust in him, be willing to confess
him before men, that he might confess them before the angels and his
Father.
Some serious talk followed, and then tea was announced, after which the
conversation became general, and at nine o'clock the girls and their
brothers and friends, who had come for them, went home quietly, and for
the most part wrapped in serious thought.
Etta Mountjoy had never felt so strangely in her life. She had always
known that some people were professing Christians; nay, she had, during
her visits to the city, and even at home, seen people, even young girls,
come forward and take upon themselves the vows of Christ. Perhaps it may
have occurred to her that "sometime" she should do so, but to be
deliberately called upon to consider her own immediate duty in the
matter had not happened to her before. Once or twice, indeed, when she
was much younger, "Sister Eunice" or "Brother James" had attempted to
speak to her upon the subject, but she always turned away from it in
such a flippant way that both felt she was in no proper frame for the
consideration of so solemn a theme, and of late they had foreborne to
mention it. It was with a view, perhaps, of interesting her sister quite
as much as her sister's scholars that Eunice had invited them upon the
present occasion, knowing that the young girl's lively interest in her
class would induce her to be present if its members were, and to her
great joy and thankfulness she was not disappointed. Etta had never
heard her sister pray before, though the Wednesday afternoon meetings
were often thus opened, and it seemed to her something almost awful to
hear the language which she had always associated with a grave minister
and a solemn church service spoken reverently, it is true, but quite
familiarly, by her sister.
Then, too, the question with which the reading closed: "Will _you_ now
thus confess Christ?" How could she answer it? Was she in a fit state
for so solemn an action, she, a butterfly flitting from one avocation to
another, with no thought or aim beyond pleasing herself? She knew she
was not. She had given up the child-habit of "saying her prayers," and
she had never learned really to pray. Until she took that class she had
not, for some years, voluntarily opened her Bible, and now she knew that
all her energetic study of the technicalities of the Holy Word had in it
no grain of desire to please or glorify God. Even her devotion to
Sunday-school teaching, usually supposed to be Christian work, had in it
no leaven of Christianity, being only self-pleasing from end to end.
Etta was sufficiently clear-sighted to see all this. She knew that she
never thought of God. His approval or disapproval was all one to her,
and while she had never denied or openly scoffed at religion, and had no
reason to doubt the truths of its facts and doctrines, she was, so far
as anything practical went, not a Christian at all. What had she to
"confess"? And yet, how strange it would seem if some of those to whom
she stood in the position of teacher, who of necessity looked up to and
imitated her, should become Christians and church members, when she had
never taken the same stand. Stranger still, and worse, if they should be
deterred from what seemed to them a duty by the example of their
Sunday-school teacher. Etta had never been placed in such a dilemma
before, and she heartily wished either that her sister had not invited
her class, or that the class had not accepted the invitation, and that
the girls would never come again, and yet she hardly liked to advise
them not to do so.
"I don't like that kind of a party at all," said Bertie Sanderson, when
the group of younger girls were well out of hearing of the house. "She
just got us there under false pretences, calling it fun and turning it
into a sort of church. We get prayers enough, in all conscience, on
Sundays."
"I'd rather have Miss Etta talk to us about the patriarchs and the
stories and all that," said Matilda Eckart, who was a good scholar, or
would have been if she had not, by the necessities of her family, been
forced to work in the mill. "I like to learn things; still I like Miss
Eunice, too. She's real sweet, and maybe we ought to do as she says."
"Nonsense!" said another girl, Helen Felting by name, "Miss Etta isn't a
Christian, and she's her own sister and three or four years older than
we are. I don't want to be any better than she is. My, ain't her dress
lovely, all silk and velvet, and such an exquisite shade! fits so, too,
just as if it was her skin!"
"Did you see her ear-rings?" said another. "Real diamonds, all set
round with pearls, and _such_ a chain and locket!"
"I don't care," said Bertie; meaning, of course, that she did care very
much. "We girls haven't got so much money and we can't have real things.
I like my chain and locket just as well (which she didn't, for she was
quite keen enough to understand the difference), but I won't go there
again till I get my silk dress made;" and she glanced disgustedly at the
light-blue cashmere which, as it was her best dress, she chose to wear
on all occasions, and which looked already much the worse for its week
in the rag-room at the mill.
Katie Robertson did not speak at all, except to answer the questions of
Eric, who had come for her, as to whether she had had a pleasant time
decidedly in the affirmative. She was thinking very deeply. We have seen
that our Katie was a faithful, conscientious little girl, loving God
sincerely, trusting in her Saviour, and striving to please him and grow
like him. She loved to study the Bible, which she knew was his word, and
to pray to him in her own simple language every night and morning; nay,
often at other times when she felt the need of his help, or had
something she wanted to tell him about. She had not asked herself any
hard questions yet about whether she were a Christian or not. She knew
she was her mother's Katie because she loved her mother and wanted to
please her, and she knew she was God's child because she loved him and
wanted to please him. She often did things, and said things, and thought
things that she knew were displeasing to both, but she did not want to
do so. She was always very sorry, she always asked to be forgiven and
believed she was, for did not her mother say so each time, and had not
her heavenly Father promised so once for all in the Bible?
But this afternoon the thought had really come to her that she _ought_
publicly to confess herself a Christian; and yet she shrank from it, she
hardly knew why. She was afraid she might afterward do something which
would disgrace such a holy profession; and yet, if her Saviour commanded
it, as he certainly did, that made it a duty, and, of course, she ought
to obey, trusting him to help her keep all the promises as he had
promised to do. He would like it, too, so much; it would be easier
afterward to resist temptation and to "stand up for Jesus" among her
companions.
Katie's thoughts were very busy ones, and by the time she came in sight
of her home she had decided that, if her mother and the pastor had no
objection, she would give in her name among those who were, at the first
opportunity, to confess Christ.
The Wednesday afternoon meetings were continued throughout the spring
and early summer, and were attended by all the members of Miss Eunice's
class, nearly all those of her sister's, and five or six other girls who
accepted the kind invitation of the former. There was always the same
hospitality, always the same warm welcome, and always the same grave but
happy earnestness on the part of the young lady on whom God had laid
this great work. As the warm days came on, the meetings were adjourned
to the velvety, close-shaven lawn, where chairs and rustic seats were
clustered under the shade of a great, wide-spreading tree, and the
sweet, holy themes of reading and conversation seemed all the sweeter
that they were henceforth associated with blue sky, bright flowers,
white clouds, green leaves, and the other things made by the God who was
even now calling these young hearts into his service.
Miss Eunice went through with a pretty thorough course of reading upon
sin, repentance, faith in Christ, renunciation of all evil, walking
obediently in God's holy will and commandments, which is another name
for holy living, and as she prayed constantly for God's blessing upon
her efforts, she had great cause for thankfulness in the hope that many
of these young souls thus brought, for the first time, face to face with
their personal responsibility toward God, and his loving provision for
their salvation, really chose the "better part," which no man can take
away from us,--"passed from death unto life," and in publicly
confessing Christ made no false profession.