Deacon Baker's Experience.
DEACON BAKER laid down his religious weekly, raised his "specs" until they rested on the top of his shiny bald head, grasped firmly the arms of his Elder Brewster armchair, crossed his legs, and looked meditatively into the fire. Whenever Deacon Baker raised his "specs," assumed that position, and said he had something to say, we knew it would be worth hearing. The Deacon's household was a primitive one; in it many of the old customs were preserved. There old fashioned chairs, settles, fire-places and occupations. There were clothes for every day, and Sabbath garments—the latter laid away during the week, folded and perfumed, made one think there might be a religion in dress. There was a Sabbath observance that made one feel that there still remained
"A day of rest and beauty,
"A day of peace and love." There was nothing stilted nor forced, and we boys, who had been sent up from the city to get exercise and health on the farm, took in the simple piety that abounded there as we did the sunlight and the healthful air of the hills. Father had been there before us, and he often said he owed much of his success in life to the wholesome teachings of the good Deacon—teachings that came, as come springtime and autumn, in their course. There was the opening of a furrow here, the dropping of a seed there, and at length a reaping of good resolves and purposes that astonished even ourselves; for we hardly knew whence they came. My brother Ben was quicker in perception than myself, and he always said the Deacon was of the same sort as other people, and that away back he possessed the same frailties and failings; only he had mastered them—compelled them to yield. "I have heard people in prayer meetings," said Ben, "tell about being 'monuments of God's saving grace,' 'brands plucked from the burning,' and all that; I don't put the Deacon in that line, but I am certain that at some time, and in some place, he has gone wrong." I always tried to make out why Ben could think so, and I always ended as I began—in wonder. The evening of which I write; it all came out. "I have just read a little circumstance," continued the Deacon, "that puts me back a matter of fifty years. You can read for yourself what I allude to; but what I am going to tell you has never been in print. "Fifty years ago, come April, I was fourteen years old—I remember the day, and more particular the night, as 'twere an hour since. I see my old home as 'twere before me now—the sloping roof, the big flat stone at the door, the maple trees, the orchard, the well-sweep; I see the shadows they cast, for the moon was up; I see myself standing in the road and looking back; I hear the words I said—they have always sounded in my ears more or less, coming back from the past as the echo from the hills: 'The world is wide,' I said, 'and I mean to try it; I will go where I can do as I like, where I can be my own master.'" "Poor fool that I was! I left a pleasant home, a dear mother and a good father—ran away. My only stock in life was a defiant will and a purpose to do as I had a mind. I had rebelled because my father insisted on my obeying him without question. I found other things wide besides the world. I found there was a great distance between the starting out and the getting to; that a poor boy with a bundle, and a good place with kindness and pay in it, were out of sight of each other, as is our country on the one side, and China on the other. I found it was one thing to plan what I would do, and another to do it. "I have often heard people say that I was good because I was born so—that 'twere the nature of things. I am not of them sort who call themselves 'vile worms of the dust;' I trust I have attained to some measure of grace, and I have got it by hard discipline. I would like to tell all my life from fourteen to seventeen, but there is no time to-night, but there is a particular circumstance I want to dwell on. "I can't say I had no principle at seventeen years old; but I can say the good in me was about all covered up. I have often thought of myself then as a piece of ground run over with weeds. My plans were how to deceive my employers, how to get the most of the least, and to get square with the world I had set myself against it. My mother had forgiven me for running away and had gone to her rest; my father had brought home a new wife, who had no call for me, and there seemed no hand to hold me back. And this is what struck me so forcibly in that piece in the paper: that there is a leading hand of providence; that it is ever stretched out and above us; that its grip is often loose—that it lets one go and go, as it were—but at last it reaches one and snatches one back—as I would snatch you from the edge of the falls—and flings him upon a hight. "I was seventeen years old when the Hand reached me. I had about touched bottom: I had contemplated, but, thank God, not committed crime. I had planned with two companions to rob my employer. We had engaged passage on an East Indiaman to sail at break of day; when the robbery would be discovered we would be on the high seas. In those days there was no telegraph to get ahead of us and we had no fear of being caught. I was to remain in the store, secreted among some old boxes; at a certain hour I was to let in my companions, and together we would do the desperate deed. Well do I remember that night; it was dark, and outside it was still; inside there was noise enough. I could hear my heart beat like taps on the door; the blood forced into my head with a whizzing sound; there were strange, unnatural whispers in my ears, and I could have sworn I heard the clanking of chains and opening and closing of prison doors. My own breath became painfully audible and was fanned back into my face like a hot flame. I could endure darkness no longer; I crept out from the boxes; I groped about until I found a candle; I lit it, and seeing a piece of writing paper, I took it up and read it. It seemed to me then like the hand-writing on the wall. Some time I will show it to you; I have it laid away. This is what was written:— "'It may be thou art on the verge of ruin; if so, turn back; from a sinful purpose is never too late to retreat. The path of evil thou hast well trodden; forsake it; disused, the grass will grow upon it; thou wilt perceive it no more.'" "Some would say it was chance laid that paper in my way; I tell you, boys, it was the hand of providence; it grasped me and flung me clean out of my wicked ways. I kept guard in that store all night; my comrades, seeing the light, thought I was caught, and would tell on them, and so they shipped in the East Indiaman, and in the morning were far away. With my bad surroundings gone, I began a new life. "I have heard it is said, 'The sins of youth become the smarts of old age.' That may all be; but the sting is taken out of my smart; I have bound up my bad days like a book fastened with clasps, and I hold, what God has forgiven, man may forget. But that little piece in the paper brought it all back to my mind clear as noonday." "Deacon Baker," said brother Ben, grasping the old man's hand, "I knew it—I knew you had fought with temptation, and beat it." "O boys, I often think of those days at home before I ran away. I can never make out what possessed me to do as I did, and turn my back on them that loved me. I tell you it's an awful thing to go out in the world from the home that has held you so long and so tenderly, without a leave-taking and a God bless you. "Boys," said the Deacon, when he bade us good-night, "I hope you will never have to be pulled back with the force I was, and never forget there is above you a leading Hand."—Observer.