THE BOUND HIGHER UP.
Miss Barry was talking to her boys one Sunday; "Boys, you have had an
Up-the-Ladder Club this past year, and I hope it has not been simply a
play-ladder, but while playing you have also done something else. I think
you have done a good work for temperance, and you have been kind to
another in trouble. I think you have tried to keep your badge clean, and
not stain it by bad words. You have tried to get hold of some useful
knowledge through your club. All that is excellent as far as it goes. But
I am thinking, while you are on this ladder, whether there may not be a
round you haven't touched, and yet one you ought to put your foot on.
Between this time and next Sunday, please think what that other round may
be, the round higher up."
The boys looked sober, but no one made a reply.
"The round higher up," Charlie would sometimes say to himself during the
week.
Sometimes in the midst of his play and his studies, that thought would
visit him, "the round higher up." It came to him in his dreams. Looking
up, he saw a silver ladder and it stretched above him, reaching at last a
beautiful palace. Over the palace, flashed out, in letters of gold, the
words, "God's Palace." But what was it Charlie saw not far from this
ladder? Another, but O, so mean and little! Charlie knew it.
"My ladder!" he shouted. "Let me see how many rounds are there!"
"I think there is room for a round higher up," said a voice. "That, as it
is, wont touch God's Palace."
Startled by the sound Charlie awoke.
The next Sunday Miss Barry said: "Boys, I don't think I need ask about the
round higher up which your ladder needs. You understand me, and I want you
to put it in. We never can climb very high, unless our life is pure and
lovely and noble. It must be like Christ's life, and filled with the
beautiful thoughts and purposes he had. That is the round higher up we
need."
These words stirred Charlie still more deeply. He thought about that round
higher up. If he could only put it into his ladder and get his feet on it!
One night he went to his little bedroom, thinking still about the round
higher up. He could lie in bed and look up to the white, silver stars
that, like ladder-rounds, seemed to stretch across the sky in lines going
higher and higher. If he only had rounds by which he could climb as high
as they, his ladder would be tall enough. But how find and where get "the
round higher up?" Once more he dreamed and he was looking again at a
ladder that starting on the ground stretched up a little way and then
suddenly stopped.
"My ladder!" exclaimed Charlie. Then it seemed to him as if above his
ladder he saw a bright, beautiful, silver round, but it was up so high he
could not reach it! Looking at it, longing to plant his feet upon it, some
one seemed to approach Charlie whom he immediately knew, because he
resembled pictures in the old family Bible at Aunt Stanshy's. He had a
shepherd's crook in his hand, and there was a crown of thorns on his head.
"That's the Good Shepherd," thought Charlie.
"You can't reach that round. Let me help you," said the Good Shepherd. He
laid down his crook and lifted Charlie at once. Then the beauty of the
dream, its light, its ladder, the Good Shepherd, seemed to vanish, slowly
though, even as the stars die away out of the early morning sky. Charley
knew what it all meant. When he awoke and thought it over, he knelt by his
bed and he prayed to the Saviour. He told him that he wanted to lead that
better life, and would he not lift a little fellow where he could not
climb himself? And a Saviour's arms, ever waiting to raise us all, were
lowered for Charlie's help, and they lifted him to the "round higher up."
Is it not time that we all looked upward, beseeching God to forgive us,
receive us, and make us his forever? Forget not "the round higher up," and
through the strength of God, may it become yours! This very day may your
feet be planted on it!
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Knights of the White Shield, by Edward A. Rand