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Jane’s Moral Cowardice

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 17, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 45.

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Jane’s Moral Cowardice

By Maud Rittenhouse

By Maud Rittenhouse
She was a very little girl, tho the drawn lines in her sensitive face told of the years of suffering that had left her so thin, so wan, so like some tender blossom blighted before full-blown. And all about her in that quiet lecture-room were bright, earnest girls and boys, rising one after another to tell of the Master’s love, of His watchfulness and care, of the service gladly given, and the little burdens borne in His dear name.
Janie listened to it all with glowing eyes, and cheeks in which the color faintly crept. O, to dare to speak as these spake, for Him whom she loved and whom she longed to serve!
“I must say it! I must!” she said, trying to rise, and sinking back again, with her heart-beats almost choking her. How many eyes there were in the little room! How they swam before her, until she felt fairly dizzy with the silly fright that made her despise herself and her cowardly weakness! The only clear thing about her was the book held open on her knee. There, shining before her, were the words of the beautiful old hymn, “Abide with Me.”
“He will help me. I must try,” she urged herself, painfully drawing her dwarfed figure to its full stature. And then, as she stood with all those eyes upon her, instead of that glad testimony she had meant to give, she could only stammer, “No.— No. 20,” and, dropping down, cover her hot face with her hands.
“Sing No. 20,” the leader’s voice repeated kindly, and in another minute the clear voices rang out upon the twilight air.
Janie hardly heard. Her heart ached with the thought that the painful shyness labored against so long had gained another victory over that word for the Master which she so longed to speak. Would she never, never be the true disciple who could feel no fear? Would she ever do any real good in the world, or be able to speak the helpful, heartfelt word that would point some other to the light she tried to follow?
“I need Thy presence every passing hour.”
Again the voices rose, and across the intervening lots and alleys the sound was carried to an upper window, where, in a turmoil of dust and flying lint, a busy woman worked.
Mrs. Crooker, who took “select lodgers,” at 317 Rutger Row, had little time to think of the days of the week as other than “wash day, ironing day, bake day, scrub day,” and so on through the list, Sunday coming in as “mend day,” and a day when all the odds and ends of extra work must be gathered up and finished, ready for a fresh start on “wash day” again.
Hardened by constant work and worry, the ceaseless struggle to earn and to save, Mrs. Crooker’s spiritual life had long since ceased to be, and that part of her which plied the broom with such resistless fury, and sent the litter flying, was merely the flesh machine which some strange momentum seemed to keep forever going, going, going.
“If that plaguey Jones only slept like other folks o’ night-times, I wouldn’t have such a bother,” she ejaculated, while the broom scraped over the colorless carpet. “What with him in the room all day, and Bob Porter all night, seems like I never can get to touch it till it’s knee-deep in dirt. I’m just all beat out. There’s no rest day or night.”
Stopping wearily over the dust-pan, she scooped the heap of dust and trash into its battered depths, and lifting it, stood suddenly motionless. Clear and sweet over the summer stillness came the tender words,
“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.”
She sat down at the window, heedless of the ugly dust-pan in her lap, and listened and looked. The darkness was indeed deepening. Over in the west the last glow of sunset faded from the sky. So had the last glow faded from her own dreary life, and there was left about it none of the tender softness settling down upon this quiet twilight time. Drudge, drudge, drudge! How cheerless it all was, how blank and comfortless!
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O, abide with me!”
A slow, unbidden tear rose to the eye of that quietly swaying form at the window. How familiar began to seem the words so long unheard! How they brought back to her summer nights in the dear old country home, when, at close of meeting, she had sung them beside her sturdy father in the old country church, where the scent of primroses came through, and outside sleepy birds twittered in their nests! How different her rushing life from the sweet and peaceful ideals she had then!
She looked over to where, at the rear of the church, lights streamed through the windows. A sudden thought came to her. Then she shook her head. “What’s the use? Religion’s a tale that is told for me. I’m too busy to belong to the Lord, or to think of anything else but getting my daily bread.”
“I need Thy presence every passing hour.”
The words came clear and firm. A moment the woman sat irresolute, then she rose hastily, fled with her dust-pan, returned with brush and cloth, and hurriedly dusted the room. In her heart the words were singing, “Through cloud and sunshine, O, abide with me!” And while she dressed, and while she tied her bonnet strings, she hardly knew whether the words were most a song or a prayer.
Coming home from church that night, Janie was hurrying along, her heart still heavy with the weight all the beautiful service had not been able to lift. “I’m not fit to be a Christian,” was her bitter mental cry. “Nobody’s worthy to be that isn’t brave enough to stand up and bless His dear name before everybody. I only called for a hymn—only that; and I’m a miserable, useless coward.”
“Janie,” a voice said at her elbow, “I’m going your way;” and looking up, Janie saw tall Mrs. Crooker, who kept the Rutger Lodging-house, and of whom she felt half afraid.
“Have you been to church?” Janie asked, not knowing what else to say.
“Yes, I have, for the first time in ten long years.”
Janie stopped aghast, and Mrs. Crooker stopped a minute too, until by the flickering street lamp the little cripple saw the happy light in the older woman’s face.
“I’m—I’m so glad,” the child said, and she reached a timid hand to the hard gloved one beside her.
“And so’m I,” said Mrs. Crooker with emotion. “I don’t know how it happened hardly—but I believe I’ll have time for a little religion after this. And, do you know, it was just that old, old hymn that did it, coming across lots from young people’s meeting. You’d never guess how straight that sweet ‘Abide with Me’ went through my calloused old body, till, down in the only soft spot my heart had left, it found an abiding-place, and made me want to cry from the bottom of my soul, ‘Help of the helpless, O, abide with me!’ I’m going after this twice a day, Janie, and I’ve faith to believe I can keep all my lodgers, and do my sweeping, and get along somehow too.”
They had reached the lodging-house door, and Janie had a few steps farther to go. She only said again, “I’m so glad, Mrs. Crooker, so glad!” But the weight had gone from her heart, and she knew that, with God to watch over it, the most disheartened little word might grow the wings of an angel and fly away strong and bright to bear the Master’s message and His blessing.—Advance.