SCRIPTURE INSTRUCTION.
And these words, which I command thee this
day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children, and
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and
when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between
thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon
the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.—Deut.
vi, 6-9.
BEFORE little Alfred could read he knew a great deal of the Bible. He
had a volume of Scripture plates, which he would turn over upon his
father’s knee, and ask him the meaning of them. Alfred’s father loved
the Bible, and he wanted his children to love it too; and therefore he
took great delight in explaining it to them, and in telling them the
beautiful stories which it contains.
There was the picture of Jacob dreaming his sweet dream about the ladder
which reached to heaven, on which the angels of God came and went.
And there was brave Daniel in the lions’ den; because he _would_ worship
God when the king said he should not.
And there, too, was faithful Abraham, about to offer up to God “his son,
his only son Isaac,” whom he loved.
All these, and many more delightful stories from the Bible, Alfred and
Flora would repeat before they could read.
They both thought and talked a great deal about the Bible.
One day, in the summer time, Alfred and Flora went out together into the
garden. They sat down upon a seat under the willow-tree. Little Flora
took her doll in her arms when she went out; but when they returned to
the house she did not have it with her.
Alfred said,
“Flora, where is your doll?”
“O, brother,” said Flora, “I left her lying on the grass.”
“Why did you leave her there?” inquired Alfred.
“I thought, brother, that maybe God would make a gourd grow over her
head, like that which grew over Jonah.”
“But the sun is not as hot here as it is in Jonah’s country,” said
Alfred. “Besides, she is not flesh and blood.”
Some time after this, when the weather had become cold, Alfred had a
cousin, named Rupert, come to spend his vacation with him. Rupert was
five years older than Alfred. He had not lived much at home with his
parents. He had been almost always at a public school. Alfred had never
yet been to school.
Rupert’s mother sent Flora a large doll. She said,
“O, thank you, cousin! I will name her Miriam.” “Who is Miriam?” said
Rupert; for he had not heard of her.
“O, cousin,” said Flora, “Miriam was the dear little sister who watched
Moses when he lay in the ark by the river’s side. And it was Miriam who
played beautiful music on the timbrel, after the children of Israel had
crossed the Red Sea.”
Rupert managed to amuse himself pretty well, for the first few days,
with skating, and riding down hill on Alfred’s sled. But after a little
time he took a cold, which confined him to the house, and he began to
look around for something to read. Now there were quantities of very
instructive, and very amusing books too, about the house; but there were
not fairy tales enough to satisfy Rupert. So, in place of reading, he
began to tell Alfred a good many of the wonderful things that he had
heard or had read in his own books.
He said that there was once a man who had a wonderful salve, which, when
put on a person’s eyes, would make him see all the silver, and gold, and
diamonds, and other precious stones in the world.
“Is that true, Rupert?” asked Alfred.
“True? No, I do not suppose it is true.”
“Then I do not like it as well as that story papa told me the other day
about the blind man, on whose eyes Jesus put the eye-salve; for that is
true,” said Alfred.
“I will tell you another story, then,” said Rupert, laughing.
“A fairy once gave a cap to a man whose name was Fortunatus. Whenever
Fortunatus wished to be anywhere, he had only to put the cap upon his
head, and he was in the place where he wished to be, in less than a
minute.”
“Is not that true either?” said Alfred.
“No; fairy tales are never true.”
“I do not think it is as pretty as the story of Elijah, which papa has
often told me, nor any more wonderful either. Elijah was taken to heaven
in a fiery chariot. There is a great deal about Elijah in the Bible.”
“Well,” said Rupert, “I think you pair my stories pretty well. See if
you can match this.
“There was a poor woman who had a good little girl named May-Flower; and
one day a fairy brought May-Flower a cow, and told her to milk it. She
milked the cow, and it gave milk enough to fill all the dishes and pans
in the house; and yet the milk still ran, so that there was no end of
it. And that one cow made that woman the richest person on the island
where she lived.”
Alfred’s mamma had been listening to Rupert’s stories. When he stopped,
she smiled and said,
“I think Alfred can match that story.”
“How, mamma? O, I know! Elijah went once to a poor woman, and asked her
for a piece of bread, when there was a great famine in the land. The
woman had only ‘a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a
cruse;’ but that handful of meal never grew any less, or the oil either,
until God sent rain to put an end to the famine.”
“Yes, Alfred, that is a match to Rupert’s story: but do not you
recollect another miracle, which is quite as wonderful as the story of
the cow which gave so much milk?”
Alfred did not, at first, understand what his mamma wanted him to
remember, until she said,
“What did the prophet Elisha do for the poor widow whose husband feared
God, when they were going to make slaves of her two sons?”
“O, he made one pot of oil fill all the vessels that were in the house;
and the woman sold the oil, and paid her debts with it, and then had
enough money left for herself and her sons to live upon.”[1]
Footnote 1:
See frontispiece.
“Well, those _are_ nice stories,” said Rupert. “I did not know before
that there were any such in the Bible.”
Then Alfred said,
“O, you haven’t heard half of them yet. Let me show you my picture of
Samuel, and we will get mamma to tell us about him. I never get tired of
hearing about little Samuel and his dear, good mother!”
Rupert looked as if he did not care about hearing the story; but he
seemed pleased with the picture. It was the picture of a beautiful boy,
kneeling before a very old man, with a long beard. The sun fell upon the
boy’s curls, and made them appear of a golden color.
“Is not little Samuel pretty?” said Alfred. “And that is grandpa Eli.
Does not he look good? O, do mamma tell me about him!”
And mamma told him the story; and Rupert seemed to get interested in it
before she had finished. I give it to my little readers in the next
chapter.
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