p. 9 | THE STORY OF A CARPET by Mrs. Henry N. Cobb

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 26.

THE STORY OF A CARPET.

By Mrs. Henry N. Cobb

I used to read to my children from that most delightful of children’s books, Hans Anderson, the story of the magic carpet, which would carry its owner anywhere in the world.

I want to tell now of a carpet just as wonderful. An old, old carpet, which has been transformed by some magic into one bright and beautiful.

This is how it came about.

I am a housewife, and enjoy having things as pretty and fresh and suitable as most housewives do.

On the stairs, first-floor stairs, too, was a carpet, once good, as well as beautiful, but now shabby, worn—yes, I have to confess it—fearfully old. For a year or more it had been an annoyance and mortification, but the time never seemed to come when something else was not more necessary, so it was made to “do.”

At last it was pronounced as past that period. It could not be made to “do” any longer, and money was appropriated for a new one.

Just then the appeals for foreign work came home with more and more force, and there was a mental struggle. “The carpet was a necessity.” “It was no longer respectable,” etc., etc.

Well, the board got the money, and I really thought I had made a sacrifice.

Not so! the fairies have been at work, and my carpet is broidered all over with beauty.

As I go up, step by step, it speaks to me. Here is a worn spot where the pattern is almost invisible, but it says, “Precious truths have been woven in the heart of some girl in Japan, which will make her life a perfect pattern to be followed by the women of that nation, so earnestly, so enthusiastically striving for a higher life; and your little self-denial has done this.”

Here are other bare places which look as tho a troop of rosy, rollicking children had been rushing up and down, with feet none too daintily shod for outdoor play.

These say: “Think of your children now, just entering on Christian manhood and womanhood, and then of the little ones of China, unwelcome at birth, with little feet tortured and bound in youth, and of the aimless, ignorant, hopeless lives of maturer years. The day is coming, and perhaps a little more speedily through your sacrifice, when ‘these from the land of Sinim’ shall be the free and merry children of a Christian land.”

I step on; here are long, bare places, worn by the ceaseless tread on the edge of the steps; and another voice, a grateful voice, reminds me of “the little child widows of India, ceaselessly trodden under the iron foot of custom, until all the bloom and beauty and freshness of their young lives are crushed and worn into one long, weary, dull round of suffering; and, perhaps, by your small sacrifice, relief is one step nearer the poor little child widows of India.”

And so my old, worn carpet has become bright with beautiful lessons. Fair flowers of Christian hope and life and light, blossom all over it, and the unintelligible language of these eastern sisters is translated to me by my own heart’s need.

When traveling in these eastern lands by caravan, years long ago, we would arise in the early morning, long before dawn, to prepare for our day’s journey. We would be aroused by the jangle of the bells as the mules and horses were being made ready for their loads—bells of all kinds and sizes and sounds, from the large iron bell, with deep, discordant tone, to the silvery chain hung on the neck of the leading horse of the caravan. Jingle, jangle! jingle, jangle! each of different note or key; each discordant with the other, but all when united, produced most delightful harmony, which I often recall to this day with exquisite pleasure.

So with the voices which speak as I ascend my stair: the deep guttural of Chinese women, the softer tones of fair Japan, and the musical flowing ripple of India’s dusky daughters as they sing:—

“Ni chara na mute, nam mitte, nam mitte, Ni pada mule, battiti battiti.”

“Thy refuge would I seek, Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus. Thy mercy-giving feet would I clasp, Blessed Jesus.”

These all unite in a sweet strain as I pass upward. Mingling with them I hear a silvery voice, which, like a theme in music, now louder, now soft and low, but ever sustained, ever recurring, sings on until, as I reach the last step, it says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.”

This is the magic which has wrought the transformation. This has filled the poor, worn covering with music and beauty.

“Ye have done it unto Me, Ye have done it unto Me.”

—Mrs. Henry N. Cobb.