p. 12 | IN THE BATTLE by Julia H. Johnston

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 30.

"IN THE BATTLE."

By Julia H. Johnston

"I'VE finished Kings, mother. Of course I'll have to skip Chronicles!"

Elsie Raymond sat by the open window, Bible in hand, ready for her Sabbath afternoon reading, and thus appealed to her mother, who passed through the room as the young girl found her place.

"Why do you say 'of course,' my dear? The Chronicles were written to be read," and the mother paused a moment at her daughter's side.

"Look at those names! Just all names!" exclaimed Elsie, with a sort of explosion. "What's the use?" And the little puckers in her forehead were astonishing to see. They asked a dozen questions at once.

"Well," said Mrs. Raymond indulgently, "I will not make you begin with 'Adam, Seth, Enoch,' but you may take the fourth and fifth chapters to-day. There are things in them that will help you, if you use them. You may not understand, my child," the mother went on, "why I insist upon your reading the Bible through in course, but I know it is a good plan. I finished it, for the first time, long before I was your age, and so did your father. I cannot talk to you more now, for I must go to the little ones. You may see what you can find in your chapters," and the mother left the room.

"It's all because I'm a minister's daughter and granddaughter, back to Methuselah," said Elsie to herself. "I don't believe the other girls read the Chronicles!"

But this had nothing to do with the case, and the brown head soon bent over the page. It was not such a great hardship after all. The soft June air brought a faint scent of roses through the window. A bird sang in a tree near by. It was all so sweet and quiet everywhere that Elsie felt that she ought to be gentle and lovely herself. She read her chapters through, though she thought it a mistake about there being anything in them, and then she had a little thinking-time.

"If that Madge Hartley makes me angry to-morrow, it will be just horrid. Why can't she let me alone, I wonder? The tease!" So ran her reflections, ending with the resolution to "try to keep her temper all week, in spite of everything." Then little Floy came in, and the quiet time was over.

"Am I a Soldier of the Cross," rang out the young voices in the parsonage next day, at morning prayers. "Sure I must fight, if I would reign," sang Elsie, with great vigor, and feeling quite like a soldier, as she thought of her enemy, hasty temper, and determined that it should not get the better of her. Afterward she said, "Amen," very sincerely to her father's prayer that "the Great Captain would give them the victory over sin that very day."

Madge Hartley overtook her a few steps from the school-house, and Elsie chatted with her in a friendly way, as they passed in together. The girls were fairly good friends, but Madge was such a mischief that she bubbled over in teasing ways. She loved to see Elsie's dark eyes flash, and her funny little curls bob about in a breezy fashion they had when she was vexed. Then she was so easily teased, and stormed at such a rate, that it was "great fun," Madge said, "just to stir her up about nothing."

Matters went very well with Elsie this day until after school, for she had nothing to try her. But on the way home several of the girls stopped to rest in Hattie Sheldon's yard, and, in the midst of a lively talk, Madge turned suddenly and said to her touchy schoolmate, "Why didn't you report to-night, miss? I saw you whisper."

"I had permission, you mean thing. You heard me ask," retorted Elsie, roused in an instant.

"I didn't, either," said Madge, "and I guess you took the answers into the arithmetic class, too."

"I never did, never!" exclaimed Elsie, hotly. "You know better."

"Oh, indeed! Not in your head? Well, you ought to have done it, then," laughed Madge, teasingly, "but I'm sure I saw you look in your book."

This touched Elsie in a tender point, for she was an honorable girl. Her eyes fairly blazed.

"You horrid thing," she said, with rising temper.

"Before the class, of course," said Madge, mockingly, "not in recitation. I never said so."

It was such a little beginning for a quarrel, but it was easy to make Elsie furious, and the other girls took sides, till there was a disgraceful war of words, though none knew just what the accusations had been. Finally, Elsie broke away and rushed home. Her mother saw her heated face as she came in, and drew from her by gentle questionings the whole day's history, its resolute beginning and its humiliating close.

"Dear child," she said, smoothing the rumpled curls, "if you had read your Chronicles carefully yesterday, you would have known how to win victory to-day."

Elsie looked up with surprise and doubt in her face. "I never saw any such thing," she said.

"That does not prove that it is not there," returned the mother, smiling. "Bring your Bible and open it to 1 Chron. 5:20. Elsie obeyed. "Now see," said Mrs. Raymond, "how the Israelites defeated the Hagerites in time of war."

The young girl read, in thoughtful tone: "And they were helped against them, and the Hagerites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, for they cried to God in the battle and he was entreated of them because they put their trust in him."

"You see, daughter, that they cried for help in the very time of need."

"It was a queer place for a prayer-meeting, in the midst of a battle," said Elsie, slowly. "I wonder that they thought of it then."

"That is the very thing," said her mother. "They did think of it, they did it, and were helped. It is well to be on guard, but the very minute that we need help is a good time to ask and receive it. One little upward thought, one cry to God, in the midst of the battle to-day, would have quieted your rising temper, I think, if you had tried it."

"I did not think," said Elsie, and hid her face while the gentle voice went on:—

"All scripture is profitable, dear. Remember the battle with the Hagerites, told in Chronicles. And let me give you a bit of advice which I like, from a quaint old writer: 'Do not forget the short dagger of ejaculatory prayer, when there is no time to draw out the long sword of a formal prayer.'" Then feeling that she had said enough, mother left Elsie to think it over.—Julia H. Johnston, in Interior.