For the King by Edith Jaques

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 25, 1916

For the King

By Edith Jaques

EDITH JAQUES

It was Monday evening, but along the village street little groups of people could be seen making their way toward the tiny chapel. There was to be a special service tonight, and the people were eager to hear the great preacher who was paying them a visit.

Standing at one of the cottage doors was a young woman with a baby in her arms, and several other little ones playing around her. She had a rosy, pleasant face; but this evening, as she watched the people go by, it wore a look of weariness and discontent.

“Good evening, Mrs. Risden,” said a cheery voice. “How are you this long time, and the dear bairns?”

The speaker was a little old woman, whose wrinkled face wore a sunny smile.

“We are all well, thank you,” was the reply, “except the baby, who is just as cross as he can be. I’ve scarcely had him out of my arms all day. Dear me, what a trouble children are! Here you and the rest of the folks are off to meeting, while I have to stay at home. I never seem to get a minute for enjoyment nowadays.

“There’s my next-door neighbor, who has six children; off she goes in the evening, and leaves them all to play in the street till she comes back. But there! I suppose we are not all the same. I never could do that.”

“And quite right, too, my dear,” said the old woman. “Ye be a good little mother, I know. Let me come in and mind the baby for ye a bit. Yes, I was going to the meeting, but that does not matter. Ye see, my hearing is not so good as it was, so perhaps it will be just as well to leave my place for some one who can hear better; not but what I believe in going to church whether one can hear or not, for ’tis to worship God we should go.”

The younger woman, glad to rest her aching arms, handed over the baby, and the two entered the cottage together.

“Now, my dear,” said the old woman, “you just put the children to bed while I get baby to sleep, then methinks, if ye don’t mind, I’ll be telling ye a little experience of my own which happened years ago. It has just come to my mind, all of a sudden like.”

The baby, made comfortable in the experienced arms of the good old dame, was soon sleeping peacefully, while his mother, in the short space of half an hour or so, had put the other children to bed, replenished the fire, and made the room nice and tidy. This done, she drew her chair to the fire, and turning to her old friend, said with a smile, “Now for the story you are going to tell me.”

“It isn’t much of a story, my lass, but just a message the dear Lord sent to me years ago. It may help you now as it helped me then.

“It was when I was about your age, my dear, and my three lads were just such as your own bonny bairns. Oh, what boys they were! so full of mischief, always tearing their clothes and getting into some scrape or other.

“Just about that time my little Jessie was a baby; such a delicate, fretful little thing she was. I can tell ye, my hands were full. Many a time did I go to bed almost too tired to sleep.

“Joe had a good job as gardener up at the castle. I could have afforded to have some one in to help me, but bless ye! I never could get a girl to do things as I liked them done. Truth to tell, I was a lot too particular, and thought that my way of doing things was the only right way.

“Well do I remember how, many a day, I spent hours polishing the furniture, and cleaning the many useless ornaments in which I took such a foolish pride. When it was time for the children to go to bed, I was too tired to care about hearing them say their prayers.”

A flush of shame dyed the listener’s cheek, for had she not that very evening put her own little ones to bed without a word of prayer?

Seeming not to notice this, however, the old woman went on. “And so, my dear, in those busy days I grew very careless about the important things of life. So absorbed was I in looking after the children, and giving them their daily bread, that I forgot all about their spiritual food,—forgot that the Saviour had said, ‘Feed my lambs.’”

“Joe would often say to me that it was a pity we could not have family worship as we used to do. I always answered him that I had no time to spare now, and that it was such a bother to keep baby quiet the while.

“In a very simple way I was led to see my error. It happened like this:—

“The weather was very hot, and the heat always did make me irritable. The children were unusually trying, and baby was cutting a tooth. To make things worse, Joe was working extra long hours up at the castle.

“The king was expected to pay a visit to the neighborhood, and was to be the guest of Joe’s master. What a turning of things upside down there was, to be sure! Joe was not the only one who was doing extra work, but I doubt if there was another who took such a pride in it.

“My Joe did love his plants and flowers. No matter how hot the weather, or how tired it made him, he did his work cheerfully. As he told me, he was determined that the king should see those flower beds and gardens looking just as nice as it was possible for them to look.

“Well, I remember he came home one evening, after a long day’s work, with a smile on his face, and whistling as he came up the garden path.

“It had been an extra trying day for me, and I wasn’t in the best of tempers. I took him to task for staying so long, and even told him that he was more interested in those roses and things than he was in his wife and children.

“Poor Joe! how quietly he took it all! He never did get cross, as I did. He just looked at me reproachfully, and said, ‘I am sorry, my lass, but I thought you would not mind my working a bit extra just now. It is only for a little while; ’tis for the king.’

“I never could tell how it was, but those three words just haunted me. Even when I went to bed, the clock on the mantlepiece seemed to be ticking out, ‘for the king, for the king.’”

“I could not sleep; and as I lay thinking in the stillness of the night, my conscience awoke.

“I thought of my husband toiling cheerfully to make his work fit for the eye of an earthly king, while I, whose work was for the King of kings, grumbled when the work was hard. Little children had been given into my care to train and prepare for his presence, and I was sadly neglecting my

God-given task. I, who called myself a Christian, had never even tried to lead them to the Saviour. I had spent—aye, wasted—many precious hours in work that would avail nothing, while that which was for eternity lay untouched.

“That night I claimed the Lord’s forgiveness, and promised to do better. From that time on, I tried to do my duty, and do it cheerfully.

“The path of duty may be blessed, but it is not always pleasant. Many a time when discouraged, I just had to say to myself, ‘Now, Mary, no grumbling; your work is important,—right royal work,—a contract for the King.’ It is wonderful how the thought helped me.

“Now that the years have gone by, and the bairns have all left me, I wonder how I could ever have thought them so troublesome.

“Yes! they have all gone now. Two of them I shall see no more till the coming of the King. My daughters are both Christian women, and my Jim—wilful, wayward Jim, who the neighbors used to say would be sure to come to a bad end—is now a worker for the Lord, and a joy to my poor old heart.

“Take an old woman’s advice, my dear. Whatever must go undone, don’t neglect to bring the children up in the fear of the Lord. Always keep in mind the importance of the work intrusted to you. When the little ones are trying, and the work is hard, ‘cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’”

Long after her visitor had gone, the young mother sat thinking of her words; and in her heart that night was born the resolution that in future she would do her work cheerfully and faithfully “for the King.”

England.