Your ShelfYour Projects

THE DISHONORED PATTERN

3%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 37.

Read the full edition

THE DISHONORED PATTERN.

"I WILL never wear this dress again, never!" said Ruby Burke, coming in flushed and angry from the young people's social.
"Why, Ruby, the dress is beautiful!" said her mother, surveying her critically from head to foot. "It is really very becoming, my child."
"So I thought until Lucy Crocker came out to-night with her cheap cotton dress made in imitation of it," replied Ruby with unnecessary emphasis.
"Well, dear, I should think that you would feel highly honored to have the other girls take you for a pattern," responded her mother gently.
"But I don't, mother. I do not want anyone to imitate my dress, much less a red-headed, freckled girl like Lucy. I do wish you could have seen her in that gaudy dress, a coarse, cheap delaine, in color not unlike mine, with a pink muslin front fashioned after my dainty satin puff. Of course her clumsy fingers had made a miserable botch of the draperies, and everywhere the dress lacked the exquisite finish which only a practical hand can give; but for all that the imitation was close enough to be noticeable and excite comment."
Ruby waited a moment, expecting her mother to reply, but when no answer came, she asked impatiently: "Do you wonder now, mother, that I became perfectly disgusted with the girl? A good imitation would not have been half so trying."
"I was just wondering, daughter, if you succeeded in following your Pattern any closer than this poor, ignorant girl followed hers," said her mother soberly.
"What do you mean, mother?" asked Ruby, with wide-open eyes. "I follow no one, and all the girls say they never knew me to copy after anybody."
"I thought, my dear, that you professed to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, and while you were finding fault with poor, untaught Lucy, I was wondering if he could be as impatient with your poor efforts at imitation as you are toward your young companion," answered her mother gently.
"Oh, that is entirely different!" exclaimed Ruby, coloring guiltily.
"Does not Lucy attend the young people's meeting," asked Mrs. Burke, without contradicting Ruby's assertion.
"Yes, she is an associate member," admitted Ruby in a hesitating voice.
"Who first invited her to attend?" questioned the mother with a searching look.
"I did, mother. You know that to interest outsiders and bring them into our meetings is part of our work," returned Ruby, brightening.
"And to pray specially for the ones thus brought in is another part of your work, I think," commented her mother.
"You are right," assented Ruby.
"You hope to see her become an active member of your society and give herself to Jesus sometime, do you not, my dear?"
"Why, yes, mother, certainly; you know I do. What makes you ask such strange questions?" inquired the young girl, both vexed and puzzled.
"I had occasion to call on Mrs. Crocker about some extra washing this evening. She was engaged when I went in, and one of the little girls asked me to take a seat in the front room for a few minutes. Lucy was dressing in the adjoining chamber, and I overheard her say to her younger sister that you were the sweetest girl she ever knew, and that she was going to take you for a model. She said, also, that she had made her dress as nearly like yours as possible, because she would rather look like you than anyone else, the queen of England not excepted."
Ruby was winking hard to keep back the tears, and she was afraid to trust her voice to speak, so her mother added:—
"After Lucy had gone to the social, Mrs. Crocker came in, and, looking after her daughter, said: 'I am very glad, Mrs. Burke, that your daughter invited Lucy to those meetings. She is lots better tempered now than she was before she began to go. I have not much time to think about such things myself, but if religion helps people to be pleasant and kind like, I wish everybody would get a share of it.' It is a very responsible thing, Ruby, to have people imitate you, and I trust you did nothing to-night to give offense to this weak sister."
"I am afraid I did, mother," said Ruby, now weeping softly. "I am sure she could not help being displeased with the way I snubbed her this evening. You see I was vexed, and I did not know that she was trying to imitate me in anything but dress."
"That excuse will hardly bear the test when examined in the light of God's holy word. How could you endure the thought that through you one should perish for whom Christ died?"
"I never thought of offending her in such a way," Ruby replied, much distressed.
"And I am quite certain," went on Ruby's mother gently, "that you were not aware that in slighting poor, ignorant Lucy Crocker, you were wounding the Saviour himself. You know he says, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me.' 'Unto me,' Ruby, unto Christ."
Ruby understood what her mother meant, but just then she was not strong enough to make any promises concerning her future course, so she went to her own room to think and pray over it.
The next night she went to the young people's meeting, intending to make amends to Lucy for her unchristian treatment, but the girl was not there, and so the opportunity of undoing a wrong was missed.
"I wonder if it would do any good if I went to her and told her how sorry I am?" Ruby said to her mother, after relating her disappointment.
"You can try, dear," was her mother's answer, and the next morning, while the purpose was still strong in her heart, she went to seek a reconciliation.
At first Lucy was disposed to be bitter, and declared that she had lost all faith in religion, and that its professors were all hypocrites. But when she became convinced that Ruby was really in earnest, she listened to her humble story, and felt interested in that One whose perfect pattern was worth imitating, and in following whose walk there could be no stumbling.
Months afterwards, when the wounds Ruby had made that unfortunate night were healed, and Lucy had given her young heart to the Saviour, the two reviewed the past together, and Ruby learned how nearly she had come to spoiling the life of her friend.
"I loved you because you took an interest in me when other girls passed me by," explained Lucy, "and I admired religion because I thought it made you pleasant and happy, and I longed to be freed from my ungovernable temper. In trying to imitate you I felt that I was growing both better and happier. After seeing the look of disgust on your face that night of the social, I went home vowing never to believe in anybody or anything again, and if you had not come to me in humility, and pointed me to the perfect Pattern as you did, I should to-day have been that most pitiable thing on earth, a hardened, unbelieving woman."-Evangelist.