AN UNEXPECTED PRIZE by Mrs. F. A. Reynolds

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 50.

"AN UNEXPECTED PRIZE."

By Mrs. F. A. Reynolds

CHAPTER V.—A SENSATION.

ETHEL'S funeral was largely attended, and was very impressive. Two of their acquaintances thus called to leave earth's active pursuits could not fail to impress Paul and Hope with the idea of the uncertainty of life.

"Be ye also ready," said Mrs. Manton one day. "That means be ready, but not gloomy. Be cheerful workers until you are called."

The days wore away with work and study, and each day brought nearer the long summer vacation, and Mr. Gordon's return.

One afternoon Hope came home quite early, and walked up the path so much more quietly than usual that evidently her mother had not heard her approach.

She heard a murmur of voices from the sitting room, as she sank on the piazza step to rest and "cool off," and wondered who was with her mother.

Very soon Mrs. Manton came to the open window and looked out, as if for the children. She was saying: "You are right, Mrs. Allen, it is very sad business; a disgrace! But do not let us talk any more about it now; I expect Paul and Hope any minute now."

"And they are not allowed to hear gossip, I presume," said Mrs. Allen with a little laugh. "That is right, too. I dislike to have Bertha hear this scandal, but she is sure to get hold of it at school."

Hope thought she had heard enough and went into the house, where she met Mrs. Allen, and then retired to her own room to study. She had forgotten the little scrap of conversation she had overheard, when, about three days afterward, she bounded into the house crying out:—

"O mamma, I've just heard a terrible thing! Belle Singer told me. She said"—

"Is it gossip, my dear?" asked Mrs. Manton.

"I don't know. What is gossip, mamma?"

"Talk about others," replied her mother. "It may be ill-natured or good-natured, but retailing neighborhood news is unprofitable, if not wicked."

"Yes, mamma, I know, and I shouldn't tell this to anyone else, but I thought you liked me to tell you everything—besides, I want to ask you something about it."

"Yes, Hope, I do like you to tell me when you hear, and I shall be much pleased if you will do all your gossiping with me."

"Well, mamma, you remember that Mrs. Claremont, whom I thought so pretty, and liked so well? Do you know, mamma, she has left her husband, and two little children and her pretty home, and has gone off with a man to live with him somewhere? Isn't it awful, mamma? Think of the two babies without any mother, and not real orphans either."

"It is terrible!" said Mrs. Manton, with an involuntary shudder. "I heard something of this the other day, but hoped you need not know of it."

"Is that what Mrs. Allen was talking about the day she was here, just as I got home from school?"

"Yes. Why, Hope?"

"I heard you tell her not to talk about something, for we would soon be home."

"That was it. But what is it you wish to ask?"

"Why, mamma, can Mrs. Claremont marry the man she has gone off with?"

"Not while she is Mr. Claremont's wife," said Mrs. Manton.

"Well, isn't it wrong to live with a man who is not her husband?"

"Certainly, dear."

"I should think there would have been a commandment about it," observed Hope thoughtfully. "For, if people can run away from their own families to go off with someone else, things will get awfully mixed up, I should think."

"There is a commandment about it. The seventh tells us plainly to regard the rights of husbands and wives. Well, we shall find that the ten commandments comprise a law for man's duties towards his God and his fellow men, in every respect. God knew, as you remarked, that if families separated just as they pleased, things would be mixed up, so he gave that commandment."

"I am glad you told me, mamma; I wondered what that meant. I didn't know God had said anything about that, but I felt it was wrong as soon as I heard of it," said Hope.

Then she added in a low voice, "I thought what a horrid thing it would be if my mamma—but you couldn't, mamma, you love papa and us children too well."

"Indeed, my dear," replied Mrs. Manton. "I love you all as much as I am capable, but I do not depend on my love for you to help me to do right, so much as on the love I bear Christ, and his strength."

"I suppose we need that to help us keep all the commandments," observed Hope thoughtfully.

"Yes, and in his strength we can do it. He says, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.'"

"But, mamma, these are God's commandments."

"Does not Christ say he and his Father are one? Then God's commandments are his. Besides, we are told that all things were made by Christ, and again that the Creator gave the ten commandments; so that is one reason why we cannot believe they were done away with at his death."

"Yes," replied Hope hesitatingly, "but Bertha Allen asked me the other day what Christ meant when he said, 'A new commandment give I unto you.'"

"Well?"

"It means, doesn't it, that all the ten are to be kept in a spirit of love?"

"I think so, dear. Love will make us keep them properly."

"And then you remember, mamma, Christ once said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; this is the first and

great commandment; and the second is like to it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Did he mean those to take the place of the ten?"

"Consider the question, Hope. If one loves God wholly, as he should, will he love or worship anything more than God? Will he make any image contrary to his desire? Will he use his name in vain? Will he desecrate his day?"

"No, of course not," replied Hope with a glimmer of the meaning dawning upon her.

"And if a man loves his neighbor as himself (his neighbor meaning his fellow-beings), will he not honor his parents? Will he not respect his neighbor's life, his family relations, his property, his good name, not even desiring to take any good from him? Don't you see, Hope, that Christ's first and great commandment includes the first four of the ten, and the second includes the last six of those given on Mt. Sinai?"

"Oh, yes, mamma, I do! It is so nice to think of it that way."

"Remember, too, Christ said he came to fulfill the law, and even stated that he had kept his Father's commandments. Look up these statements with the concordance. I must go now, and see that Jane has dinner ready. It is nearly six; did you know it?"