p. 154 | Deacon Barnes' Sunday

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1882

Deacon Barnes' Sunday.

"BEAUTIFUL, beautiful," mentally ejaculated Deacon Barnes, at the close of a sermon on heaven. "Those are my ideas exactly."

And so enrapt he was with his thoughts, as he passed out of the church, that he forgot to ask lame old Mrs. Howe to ride home with him, as was his custom.

"Perhaps it is just as well," he thought, "for she is a worldly old woman, and would probably have drawn my thoughts away from heaven."

At the dinner table his son exclaimed, "Oh, father, I have a situation at last."

"Have you forgotten that it is Sunday, John?" asked his father, sternly. "Don't let me hear any more such talk."

John ate his dinner in silence. How could his situation be a wrong thing to speak of on Sunday! He was so thankful for it that it seemed to come from the hand of God. God knew all about the restless months in which he had answered an advertisement a day.

When the minister gave thanks in church for all the mercies of the past week John's heart gave a grateful throb, and he determined anew to acknowledge God in all his ways.

John ate his dinner in silence, while his father thought about heaven.

In the afternoon Mr. Barnes' nephew, a stranger in the place, came over from his boarding place opposite, and sat on the piazza, talking with John.

"I can't allow this, Tom," said Mr. Barnes, coming to the door with the Bible in his hand. "You must not sit here breaking the Sabbath. Go back to your boarding house, and read some good book."

Tom started up angrily, and spent the afternoon fishing and bathing with an old colored man, his only other acquaintance in the place, while Deacon Barnes sat in a large rocker on the piazza, with a handkerchief over his face, and thought about heaven.

Presently his two little granddaughters came out on the piazza with a large picture book, and sat down near him. There was a flutter of leaves, and a great deal of buzzing as the little yellow heads bent over the book, and finally they laughed outright.

"Children, where is your mother?" sternly demanded Deacon Barnes, springing to his feet.

"Upstairs, putting baby to sleep," they answered, both together.

Deacon Barnes strode into the hall.

"Ellen! Ellen!" he shouted, "I should think you might keep these children quiet on the Sabbath. They won't allow me to think."

Ellen had been awake all night with a fretful baby. She had hushed him, and had just fallen asleep when her father's voice aroused her, and awoke the baby.

"Please send them upstairs," she said wearily.

And all the sultry afternoon she amused the three children in a close upper room, while her father rocked and fanned himself, and thought about heaven.—Sel.