Minnie Ball's New Year's Day by Mrs. M. Stratton Beers

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 1, 1885

Minnie Ball's New Year's Day.

By Mrs. M. Stratton Beers

BY MRS. M. STRATTON BEERS.

"REALLY, I don't understand how it can be done, but I know it can, and I am going to do it; I will commence the very minute I get home to dear sick mamma and the children."

"What on earth are you mumbling about, Jennie?" and Jennie Mahan gave a start as Minnie Ball spoke directly behind her; so occupied had she been with her own thoughts that she had not heard her footstep. "I've been told that mumbling to one's self was a sure indication of insanity, and you have been at it ever since I came within hearing of you; please explain, and relieve my anxiety concerning you;" and Minnie linked her arm in Jennie's, and looked lovingly but not at all anxiously into her face.

Jennie smiled. "Perhaps I am losing my mind; at all events I cannot just now comprehend with it how to do all that Elder Brown urged us to do; can you?"

"Can I? why, Jennie, I don't pretend to do right; but how did he say? I don't believe I heard a word of the sermon to-day, and I don't know why, only that I did not listen."

"He spoke particularly of that class of persons who, having ears to hear, hear not; surely you are not of that class, are you Minnie?"

Minnie laughed nervously, for her conscience was chiding her severely; it had been doing so of late, spasmodically.

"Well, I'm afraid I was to-day; I fell to counting the hats and bonnets that had feathers on them or artificial flowers, knowing that as a principle your people disapprove of the wearing of them, and from where I sat, about in the middle, I counted twenty-six black ostrich tips or feathers, four with wings or bird feathers, and seven with flowers. Then I got to counting those who had banged, or frizzed, or crimped hair, and I do think it is awful the way that Miss Curtis wears her hair; no one would think by her hair or dress anyway that she was a church member. Mrs. Vose was sound asleep, and I thought I would die, I wanted to laugh so badly; she sat bolt upright, and her chin began to drop slowly, little by little, until at last her mouth was wide open; and once a fly lit on her lip and actually promenaded the whole circuit of her mouth before she felt it and brought her lips together in such a funny way that I wondered it didn't make Elder Brown himself laugh. Lots of folks were asleep; I didn't count them (I wish I had), but I got to noticing the Van Arsdale girls, and first thing I knew the sleepy folks all got waked up and looked as interested as if they never slept."

Those girls had on span new dresses again today; I'd really like to know how many different ones they have on hand at this very time. I can't believe they are converted; can you?"

"I sometimes wonder if I ever will be, through and through; seems to me I lack very much of it," Jennie answered slowly and sadly.

"Well, for that matter I can't of course say anything; I know I am not; and my conscience just now suggests that Minnie Ball would do well to look at home, and when she goes to meeting keep her eyes on the minister instead of on the congregation. I think next time I'll make use of my ears. What was it you were so insanely endeavoring to comprehend when I overtook you?"

"It was this: Elder Brown said that as to-day is New Year's day, we could in no way make both it and the days to come after it happier than in them all to be careful that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, to do all to the glory of God. I mean to try to do it."

"Did the Elder say that? I guess that is an extravagance of his own brain, that he will find hard to put into practice himself."

"Why, Minnie, it is Bible; that very verse was his text to-day; it is in 1 Cor. 10:31."

"I wish I had listened to the sermon, but I didn't, and, Jennie, when you work out the problem of how to live this beautiful way, will you come over and show me? I need to change my ways, and next Sabbath I don't intend to see a feather, let alone counting all in the house."

Here the two girls separated, Minnie to burst into the sitting-room where were gathered the family to which she belonged. Her elder sister sneeringly greeted her with, "You lost your lunch, Miss Min., by going to Sabbath-school on Saturday. Mother told Ellen she needn't keep the table for you ever—if you didn't get home in time, you might go without, or help yourself. I'd advise you to save your appetite, now it's so late, for turkey dinner to-night at six."

For an instant the blood came rushing to Minnie's face, but with it came to her mind the text that Jennie had quoted, and she said to herself, "It must mean speaking, too; it's 'whatsoever ye do.'" Generally Minnie was quick with retort, and her sister was too fond of annoying her; to-day she quietly laid off her cloak and hat, lifting the plume off the latter before she laid it down, trying the effect of the trimming without it; then said, "It don't much matter whether I have lunch on Saturday or not; perhaps a little fasting is one thing I need."

"Plenty in the kitchen, dear," her mother said, "only help yourself and don't bother Ellen to clear up after you; she's very busy to-day; you know the Laselles and Uncle Rob's folks will be here to dinner."

So Minnie went out to the kitchen, feeling really hungry; but she surprised Ellen with her quiet helpfulness in getting herself a lunch, and then she volunteered to watch the coffee browning, while Ellen made out the buns for the dinner; an act so unprecedented that Ellen couldn't help but notice it.

"Guess your Saturday meetings must be making you all over new, Miss Minnie; if they do, I'll go myself sometime when it ain't New Year's day too."

What a queer throb Minnie's heart gave, and all the time that one verse of Scripture kept ringing in her ears.

"You see, Ellen, the text Elder Brown preached from to-day was this [stirring the coffee briskly that it should not brown anywhere too much], 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' I am just trying to put that into practice; do you reckon I can do it?"

"Well, honey, you can try, and if I can help you at it, I will; 'pears like it would do some others of your kind good to go to Saturday meetings, too." The latter part of her speech was so low Minnie couldn't hear it, but she blushed to think she had conveyed the idea to Ellen that she had listened to the sermon, and mentally she calculated, as she set the coffee on the table, finished to a turn, that she wouldn't deceive in any way either; just then Ellen asked:—

"What did the Elder say about it; did he tell you to come home and take a cold bite without growling, and to give me a big lift in browning that coffee, as a starter in the way of living to the glory of God?"

"No, Ellen; I don't think he did, though he might have done so; the fact is, I can't tell you anything more than the bare text, and I wouldn't have been able to do that, only Jenny Mahan just repeated it over to me." And Minnie went out of the kitchen, away to her own room, with cheeks burning and head throbbing from other cause than the simple heat of the oven; conscience was chiding still.

"Well," soliloquized Ellen, "there is a pretty good deal of a sermon in that one verse, seems to me; queer it should take any hold on that highly-tightly Minnie Ball, she never seemed to me to care for anything but fun, though since she's got to going to them meetings on Saturday, with Jenny Mahan, I do believe she's different some way. I'd like to go myself; maybe, though, if I commence with Minnie to live out that sermon she brought home to me to-day, I'll be a doing something I can do, and will have more patience with them, as I want to do and can't."

Elder Brown little thought that morning that he was preaching to the cook away on—street in Mrs. Ball's kitchen; but over and over came that verse to Ellen, making everything seem lighter and pleasanter; she kept thinking, "I'll work to-day as I think would please the blessed Christ if he was here to look on, and I guess that will be to God's glory."

Over in Mrs. Mahan's home Jenny had been even more than usually kind and patient with the children, reading to and talking with them, and really succeeding after laborious effort in interesting them in the preparation of their next Sabbath-school lesson; and the frail, sickly mother quietly observing her effort, had thanked God and taken fresh courage, and fallen into a sweet, refreshing sleep, which lasted for two hours.

Jenny, on noticing that her mother was sleeping, had taken the children away to her own room and exerted herself to the utmost to entertain them in a way that would keep in their minds the fact that it was God's holy Sabbath day, and in a manner that she felt she could not have done but for the helpful influence of the sermon to which she had listened; still, when she heard her mother's voice at last calling to the children to come down, she could not but draw a sigh of relief at the prospect of yet having one hour to herself ere the Sabbath should close.

When the children were gone, she threw herself on her knees and poured out her soul to God for the help she prayed at his hand to assist her to live for his glory alone, for wisdom to use in winning others to him; and then there rolled on her heart such a burden, so heavy and great, for her friend Minnie, that the loving Burden-bearer, seeing, came to her relief, and gave her through faith in his love and mercy, an earnest of the fruition of her hopes, which she really was to see fulfilled sooner than she once dared to think; for even as she finished her prayer, there came tapping at her door the very one for whom she prayed.

As Jenny opened the door, and saw there the subject of her prayer, with eyes red also from evident weeping, she exclaimed:—

"Minnie, what is the matter, has anything happened? or—or—O Minnie!"

How closely now they clasped each other, pressing their cheeks together in a silence during which each could hear the other's heart beat.

"Jennie, I came over to ask you if you had yet solved your problem? and I guess, from the looks of your face, you were just getting directions when I rapped, weren't you? and, dear friend, I do believe that I have partially solved it for myself [they were both softly weeping now]; I am going to try to work it out with you Jennie, but I shall need all the help God can give me through any source, or—or people will judge me just as I judged Lizzie and Amy Van Arsdale to-day; already I sense a little of how hard it will be for me to be a commandment-keeper, with none of my family even Christians; but my mind is fully made up; it was before I came over; some way I felt sure you were praying for me this afternoon, and though you would want to know."

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Jennie had without a word drawn Minnie to the side of her own bed, and commenced to kneel, and then, with one arm still about her, and the other raised high over her own upturned face, she opened her lips, and God filled them with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving so simply trustful that Minnie, who had scarcely dared to believe in that which she yet had had the courage to tell her friend, grew stronger and reached up still further and with firmer grasp to the Rock that she could not doubt had been cleft for her. Nor did she ever have reason for such doubting; though thick and fast came the trials of her faith in Christ, and tests of loyalty to God, firm and strong she stood, before the withering scorn of her sister, and the jests of father, mother, and brothers, and the slights of the world that so soon turned a cold shoulder and an averted face toward one who had, without any reserve, "chosen rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," always thanking God for that happy New Year's day in which she, through seeking, found one who had power to redeem her soul from death; and through "considering him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself" she was kept from "being wearied and faint" in mind, and helped to become strong in Christ Jesus.