BOTTLING A SERMON

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1881

BOTTLING A SERMON.

THERE they sat, Ora and Otto, curled up on the hassocks in one of the front pews—one of the very first pews in the middle block—a position not in general favor; consequently they were beyond the range of any gaze which if not actually offended by their untidiness, would at least have scrutinized them curiously and critically. Nobody saw them but the minister, who could only look and wonder at his odd little hearers, then wait until the sermon was over, for the purpose of speaking with them. It would not be difficult to guess how they got there. The honey bee, the brown wasp, and bluebottle, come to church in summer weather, when doors and windows stand wide open; just so these waifs from the street strayed in. There they sat, bareheaded, barefooted, with dirty little hands in their laps, hair like brush-heaps, and eyes more like coal-bins than anything else under sun or on earth.

The pastor soon discovered that, spite of the intense heat, the passing flash of lightning's wings, the thunder-pulses throbbing in the distance, he had two hearers whose attention never wavered in the least.

Once the lights flared, then almost died out. Next, some one with creaking boots left the place. Again, a hymn-book fell with a loud crash, yet those bundles of rags, with black sparks for eyes, neither lifted nor stirred. He was really sorry, this good, kind man, when, the service being over, he looked and they were gone—had vanished like two little bats that belonged to the darkness and loved it. He had not gone far, however, on his homeward journey, when a shadow within a shadow stirred; a thin, dirty little hand reached out and touched him.

"Oh, sir, please give me some for my sick mother."

"Give you what, child?"

"Wine and milk," replied the eager young voice. "We've nothing to buy them with, and the doctor wants her to have them. You said, 'Come, without money,' you know, and I'm here. Otto's brought a kettle, and I've got a bottle."

"That was my text this evening," remarked the minister to a friend who had joined him. " 'Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.' These children were my most attentive hearers. The girl, you perceive, has applied it to the one great need she is conscious of. What can I do?"

"We'll go to their home, and see what is required of us," replied the gentleman. "If this story is strictly true, neither kettle nor bottle shall remain empty."

Up a narrow court in the church's rear they found a woman far advanced in consumption, who had evidently seen better days. Her husband was in his grave. Wealth and station had vanished like a dream; and now, as the waters of the dark valley crept chillily about her, she looked and longed for an upward ray to pierce her spirit's gloom. Mr. R., while ministering to her bodily needs, lost no time in preaching to her the Sun of Righteousness; and as he talked, fear and agony faded out of the woman's face, and the light of a great hope dawned in her beautiful eyes. Those two little bundles of rags, Ora and Otto, sat curled up in one corner listening, just as they had listened from the pew, with hands folded in their laps, lips apart, and a deep, dead shining in the orbs that never for an instant left the speaker's face. Ora met him on the stairs as he was going out.

"I know what it means now," she whispered. "Maybe I wouldn't if you'd brought the words without the wine and milk."

A week later Ora and Otto were motherless, yet not alone. Kind friends took them in, kind hands ministered unto them; but neither ever forgot their first sermon; nor the kettle and bottle they brought to put it in.—Sunday School Class-mate.