GRANDMOTHER’S BIRTHDAY.

EIGHTY-THREE years old to-day! Grandmother Wells leaned back in her easy chair, her poor crippled hands resting in her lap. For six months she had not left that chair except to be carried to the bed or lounge by the window.

She was a lovely old lady. Her complexion had retained much of its youthful smoothness and fairness. She had large, tender blue eyes, and a sweet, childlike mouth. Her silver hair was brushed smoothly over her noble forehead.

Never was there a sweeter or more uncomplaining spirit than hers, yet she could not always resist the gloomy thoughts that stole over her. Forty years ago she had buried her husband, and now all her children slept by his side.

It was several years now since she came to live in the family of her granddaughter, Mary Wilton. She had known many happy days there. Mary and her husband loved

her dearly, and as for the children, “grandmother” had the next place to father and mother in their hearts. When sickness and infirmity came upon her, and she was unable to take a step alone, or even to straighten her poor bent fingers, they all tried, by a thousand tender ministries, to make those weary hours pass pleasantly to her. But the dear old grandmother, though she strove to be cheerful, could not always drive away the heartache. To minister to others had been the comfort of her life, and now the smallest service was out of her power. Even her knitting must be laid aside.

“If I could only feel that I was of some little use in the world!” she said to herself mournfully, as she sat in her room, that bright June morning. “But I am utterly helpless—and poor Mary, it seems as if she had enough cares already. But is not this a fretful, repining spirit I am showing? O Lord, make me cheerful and patient, willing to wait thy time.”

She closed her eyes, and sat quietly musing while a more placid and hopeful expression stole over her countenance.

A light tapping at the door aroused her;

she opened her eyes, and said very cheerfully,—

“Come in.”

The door swung wide open, and in filed the four eldest children, one after another.

Herbert, a boy of nine, carried a bouquet of flowers in one hand, and a beautifully illuminated text in the other.

Six-year-old Mary bore a frosted cake, crowned with a wreath of flowers.

Next came dark-eyed Josie, one year younger, proudly displaying his bouquet, and a book-mark of his own making.

Little Alice, grandma’s namesake, a curly-haired girl of three, carried a tiny vase filled with flowers. She stepped cautiously, holding the vase in both hands, so as not to spill a drop of the water.

“Why, you little dears,” said grandmother, as the procession halted in front of her, “what does this mean?”

Herbert advanced a step, holding up his gifts. He was a delicate, thoughtful-looking boy, with something very winning in his ways. He paused a moment to collect his thoughts, and then said,—

“Dear grandmamma, your oldest boy Gives you a greeting fond this day; The winter’s snow is on your hair, But in your heart the flowers of May.

“Oh! lonely would our household be Without your smile and words of cheer; May God preserve your precious life, And make you long a blessing here.”

“You dear boy!” said grandma, her blue eyes dim with tears, as he laid his gifts on her lap, and kissed her tenderly. She had no time to say more, for bright-eyed Mary took his place, looking somewhat shy, but very proud of the gift she carried.

“Dear grandmamma, accept this cake And wreath of flowers for Mary’s sake; Kind hast thou ever been to me, May I thy little sunbeam be! And the sweet lesson thou hast taught Bear fruit in every deed and thought!”

“Bless you, little darling!” said grandma, as Mary deposited her cake on a chair and threw her arms around the old lady’s neck. “You are my sunbeams, all of you. But here is my Josie waiting to speak,” she said smiling.

The little fellow laid his gift on her lap, and stood hesitating a moment. He was a

warm-hearted, affectionate boy, but very nervous and excitable.

“Dear grandma,” prompted Herbert.

“I know it,” said Josie, indignantly, “don’t tell me!”

“Dear grandma, please accept these gifts With love from little Joe; If all the love that’s in my heart In words could—words could—”

“I can’t think what comes next!” hiding his face in grandma’s lap.

Herbert’s prompting only irritated him, and at last grandma said in a soothing tone,— “There, dear little man, don’t cry. Some other time you will say it to grandma, when we are alone together.”

Little Alice, at a sign from Herbert, stepped forward, and resting her vase on grandmother’s knee, looked up with confiding eyes into her face.

She had more confidence than Josie; and it was in clear, though lisping tones that she repeated her lines,—

“Thy little namesake offers thee This vase of flowers and kisses three; Oh, happy may thy birthday be!”

“You little blossom!” said grandma, kissing her rosy cheeks a dozen times.

And now mamma, who had stood smiling in the background all this time, advanced with baby Charley in her arms.

“Dear grandma, baby is too young to repeat verses, but he offers you his mouth for a kiss.”

“Bless his precious heart!” said grandma, kissing him warmly. “Did you hear the children repeat their verses?”

“Oh yes, I was standing here all the time.”

“Ma wrote the verses for us,” said Herbert.

“And Bridget made the cake,” said practical Mary.

“And I made the book-mark myself, all my own self,” said little Josie, nestling up to grandma’s side.

“And here’s a little gift from Robert and me,” said Mrs. Wilton.

It was a lovely engraving, representing Christian and Hopeful resting in the valley of Beulah. Grandma’s eyes grew moist again as she looked at it.

“Oh, how lovely that is! Thank you

Mary darling, and Robert both. This is a happy birthday indeed. Why, Robert, are you there too?”

“Good morning, dear grandmother,” said Mr. Wilton, stooping to kiss her. “You look as bright as the morning itself! I was afraid the children would tire you.”

“No—blessed little souls!—they did me good.”

That night as grandmother lay in her bed, she said to her granddaughter, who was performing some little service for her,—

“God bless you all for your loving words to-day. It is so sweet to think that I can be some little comfort still.”

“You are the sunshine of our house,—one of the greatest blessings God ever gave us!”

Grandmother could not answer. But she fell asleep with a smile on her lips, a token of the joy in her heart.

GRACE IN LITTLE THINGS.

A CERTAIN minister, in arranging his toilet for his afternoon parochial calls, found a button gone from his shirt collar, and all at once the good man’s patience left him. He fretted and scolded most unreasonably, until the tired wife burst into tears and escaped to her room. The hours of the afternoon wore away, during which the minister called upon Brother Jones, who was all bowed down with rheumatism, and found him patient, and even cheerful; upon good old grandmother Smith, in her miserable hovel, and found her singing one of the grand old hymns, as happy as a bird; upon young Mrs. Brown, who had a few weeks before buried her only child, and found her trustful and serene in the views of God’s love which had come to her through her affliction. The minister went home filled with what he had seen, and when evening came, and he recalled the events of the day, he could not help saying, “What a wonderful thing grace is! How much it will do! There is nothing beyond its power!”

Then the patient wife replied, “Yes, it is wonderful indeed, but there is one thing that the grace of God does not seem to have power to do.” “Ah, what can that be?” said the husband. “Why, it does not seem to have power to control a minister’s temper when his shirt button is gone.”

That was a new version of the doctrine of grace to the minister, but it was such a version as other religious men need to remember. There is many a man who can stand up before a multitude and “confess Christ,” who can be most meek when insulted in some public place, and thank God for the power of religion, but who is too weak to keep his temper at home. The value of art is in the fineness of the work—the perfection of music is in the little accuracies. So the beauty and power of our religion are seen when we manifest grace in little things. As it takes greater skill to engrave the Lord’s prayer upon a five cent piece than upon a broad steel plate, so it takes more grace to live a good Christian at home than in public.

SLIPSHOD WAYS.

Mark and Laura were to be married in a week. Dropping into the Taylor sitting-room one evening, Mark found Aunt Mary assisting Laura about some of her elaborate and mysterious bridal preparations. Aunt Mary was always considerate and sympathetic in her words and ways, and Mark liked her. He sat down by her in unwonted silence, and with a cloudy brow.

Laura looked at him furtively from behind the clouds of white lace and muslin in her lap, as he mechanically turned over the multitudinous trifles in her dainty work-basket, making as vague and unsatisfactory answers to her numerous questions as if he were guessing conundrums. After ten minutes had been spent in this rather stupid way, Aunt Mary asked, suddenly,— “Well, Mark, what is it?”

The young man started and looked up at her with a smile, as bright as if a heavy fog had been lifted off his mental horizon, as he said,— (73)

“I declare, Aunt Mary, I didn’t mean to speak of it, but I am as nervous as a girl over—over—next Thursday; not the ceremony itself, mind you; I shall really enjoy the display in the church—but I refer to all the life that is to follow.”

“Marriage is indeed the most important event of a lifetime, and the outlook to every reflective mind must be a serious one,” said the sweet-faced old lady; “but may I ask what has brought up the subject so impressively before you to-night?”

“The fact is, Aunt Mary,” replied Mark, hesitatingly, “I have just come from Cousin Henry’s. As I was passing the gate I heard the wood-shed door open and Susan’s voice call out, ‘Supper’s ready.’ The pleasing vision of a neat dining-room, a cosy tea-table, and two happy, contented young souls enjoying the nicely cooked, tastefully served evening meal rose up before me, and I could not resist the impulse to turn back and take a look at them. I ran in unceremoniously, as is my wont, announcing myself as I opened the sitting-room door, by a hearty ‘good evening.’ There was no fire in the room, but plenty of dust and disorder.

“‘Come right in here,’ called out Henry; and I followed his voice through the dining-room, unwarmed except by the far-away warmth of the kitchen fire. A large basket of rough, unironed and unfolded clothes, was turned bottom upward on the extension table, an immense clothes-horse filled half the room, and every chair was loaded with coats, hats, cloaks, and shawls.

“We just use the dining-room as a sort of gangway in winter,” said Henry, “and den up here, except when we have company. If anybody runs in upon us they must take us as they find us.” This was not an over-cordial welcome, but I went along into the kitchen where Henry was seating himself at the tea-table, which, if you will believe, Aunt Mary, was their little hanging cooking-table, covered with a strip of oil-cloth. A few odd pieces of crockery were scattered upon it without regard to order.

“The little kitchen was untidy, the stove dirty and rusty. There were memories of Saturday’s baking, in the shape of flour, dough, and grease on the floor, table, and door latches; and a salt cod-fish with a cotton string around its tail was hanging to the

knob of the closet door. Susan’s hair was rough and frowsy, and her gown was torn and soiled. Dear me! who could have imagined that such a state of things was so soon to follow their grand and expensive wedding? What a picture of loveliness the bride was! They might as well hire two or three rooms in a flat to ‘den up’ in, as to own that large and elegantly furnished house and not use it, or to so misuse it.

“This scene rather discouraged me. Were Laura and I to deteriorate in that way, I think I would rather have everything stop just where it is. I believe it would save us a world of trouble, and we would go on looking at married life as we would have made it, through rose-colored glasses;” and Mark moved uneasily, got up nervously, and going around the table seated himself by Laura’s side.

“Perhaps Henry is not altogether blameless in the premises,” said Aunt Mary; “did he fix himself up for tea?”

“Oh, dear, no,” replied Mark, “he sat down and ate his bread and milk in his shirt sleeves, collarless and cravatless, and with unbrushed hair and whiskers. He would

not have shown himself to Susan in such a plight before his marriage, I assure you.”

Aunt Mary looked at the pretty Swiss clock on the mantel, took out her gold pencil, wrote a little note, and then said to the young man, “I wish, Mark, dear, you would carry this billet over to my nephew, Horace Alden’s, for me. They live in the east tenement of the Rutherford block, you know, and on the strength of your cousinship that is to be, I want you to run in without ceremony.”

Mark came back in an hour with a radiant face. Removing his hat, he made Aunt Mary a low bow, saying, “I am very much obliged to you. I wouldn’t surrender the opportunity that may be graciously given me of helping make a home with Laura here for any earthly consideration.”

“Indeed,” cried Aunt Mary, in seeming surprise, “perhaps you will be good enough to tell us what has changed your mind so suddenly.”

“Well,” said Mark, “I ran up the stairs and opened the door at the top, as you told me, and such a charming picture as I saw: A living-room, neither parlor, dining-room,

nor kitchen, but a happy combination of the three, made attractive and homelike by perfect neatness, order, and good taste. Such a cordial welcome as I had, to be sure. I was heartily ashamed of myself when it came over me how well I used to know both Horace and his charming wife, and that I had not called on them before.

“I gave Julia your note, and she read it with a little laugh, and insisted that I should take off my overcoat and take tea with them. The cosy round table, with its snow-white cloth and pretty tea-service, looked so inviting, I could not resist the temptation. ‘Horace does not leave the store till seven; he sees to the closing up; so we have our tea at half past seven,’ Mrs. Alden said. Julia’s dress was plain, but tasty and neat, set off by a dainty white apron; and her simple toilet was completed by a geranium leaf and a verbena blossom in her shining hair. Horace, in a handsome dressing-gown and embroidered slippers, looked every inch a gentleman, as he is.

“The situation made us confidential, and I asked Mrs. Alden how she had managed to settle down into being such a wonderful little

housekeeper. She said, ‘I used to be somewhat inclined to be careless in my habits, and I suppose my friends had some misgivings as to my ability to keep house. Among my wedding presents was one from a great aunt of mine who was wonderfully skillful with a needle. It was this teapot mat’—and she held it up for my inspection. It was a scalloped circle of scarlet broadcloth, with a slipper run down at the heel and embroidered with the words, ‘Never get slipshod.’”

‘This has been a constant reminder to me,’ Julia went on. ‘Were I tempted to neglect any trifling duty for the first time, my eye would fall upon or recall the words of Aunt Mattie’s motto, and I would not only do what I had thought of neglecting, but would do it a little better, if possible. Horace, too, has kept me from falling into slipshod ways by his own habits of neatness. He always touches up his toilet for my sake before every meal as punctiliously as if we had company. Of course, when he is so thoughtful of me, I cannot be less regardful of him. All these little things take a few of the precious moments of our fleeting lives, but we consider their observance a duty.

Since housekeeping is the principal business I have in hand, I want to do my best in that vocation; to be as conscientious and painstaking in that as I would in teaching music or any other accomplishment. I enjoy my work, and it comes easy to me. I take both pleasure and pride in it, and I think the secret of my success in this humble sphere of mine has been my keeping everything up from the very first, and never allowing myself in the smallest particular to fall into slipshod ways.’

Mark and Laura, now settled in their beautiful, well-ordered home on the banks of the Connecticut, only the other evening spoke of the two lessons this December evening brought them, and the lasting impressions they wrought.

A LESSON ON CHARITY.

It was one of Aunt Hitty Snow’s daily thanksgivings that her lot had been cast in the pleasant and peaceful town of Fairport. This little village was noted far and wide for respectability and good morals. The salt of the earth seemed to be sprinkled so plentifully throughout the community as to insure it against any possible taint of heresy. But of late Aunt Hitty’s spirit had been troubled, and had any one heard her daily petitions he would have been struck with the fervency with which she implored that God’s people might abound in brotherly love and be filled with the charity that thinketh no evil.

Deacon Snow had another attack of rheumatism, and was so low-spirited that he not only had serious doubts as to whether he was one of the elect himself, but was inclined to be skeptical in regard to the very pillars of the church.

“There’s Dr. Goodlove says he don’t believe in creeds,” he groaned, “and Eld.

Hardhead declaring he begins to doubt whether the Bible teaches eternal torment, and refusing to bring John Wait before the Session. I tell ye, Hitty, the very pillars are shaking. And then there’s that disgraceful scandal about Eld. Whiteheart; it is enough to destroy a man’s faith in humanity.”

“I never did have much faith in humanity,” said Aunt Hitty, dryly, but I have a great deal in God.”

“Well, as the editor of the Bone-Picker says”—

“There! I knew it was that paper,” said Aunt Hitty, vigorously. “If you’d been reading what Paul says, you’d be in a different frame of mind.”

“Silas Fletcher brought it in,” said the Deacon, meekly. “I was saying to him that our paper got mislaid somehow”—

“I burned it up,” confessed Aunt Hitty. “I glanced into it, and it was so full of gossip and slander that I said, You sha’n’t go and tell your miserable lies to Daniel and spoil his peace of mind. If anybody came here with a lot of abominable stories about my minister and my friends and relations,

do you think I’d sit and listen to ’em? I’d turn ’em out doors in quick time; and I served the paper the same fashion. I took it in the tongs and sent it up chimney.”

“But, Hitty, we want to know the truth.”

“I don’t know as we do. There are a great many bad things all the time happening, but it doesn’t make us any better or happier to be told of them.”

“But if Eld. Whiteheart really is a bad man”—

Aunt Hitty pushed up her spectacles and looked at the Deacon.

“You’re going on sixty years old, Daniel, and you’ve always passed for a sensible man. Now here’s a man as old as you are, whose whole life, so far as you know, has been honest and upright, and he has made everybody feel that he was sincere. He has tried to make the world better, and has told everybody that the Bible was the word of God, and that he and they were going to be judged according to its law, by a judge who could see every secret thing and read the thoughts of the heart. And here’s an editor who doesn’t think God troubles himself about what is done in this world, and who sneers

at the Bible and the churches, and thinks Christianity a sham and the Sabbath an old Jewish superstition. And here’s a reporter whose name nobody knows. His very living depends upon the sensations he can awaken for the paper. From another person of whom you know nothing, he gathers a scandalous story, and spreads it abroad with all the startling head-lines he can devise. The editor comments upon it, and you, who knew and trusted this good man, you read it and believe it.”

“I did n’t say I believed it, Hitty; I told Silas it really did n’t seem”—

“Did you say you didn’t believe it, and that you would hold your confidence in Eld. Whiteheart, and that the whole thing would undoubtedly be proved an unfounded falsehood?”

“Well, the fact is, Hitty, such things don’t start without some sort of foundation.”

“Don’t they? Well, what sort of foundation was there for the story about Deacon Hapgood’s being a dissipated man and a hard drinker? They got that in the paper when he was running for Supervisor.”

The Deacon chuckled a little. Brother

Hapgood was a rank Arminian, and it was more than suspected that some of his brethren enjoyed his discomfiture.

“Of course everybody knew that was a campaign lie.”

“Everybody here knew it, but the paper went down east where he was raised, and made a great commotion among his wife’s folks. And I never told you, Daniel, but Sarah Pulsifer told me last summer that she heard down in Rootstown that you was a dreadful profane man, and swore so when you had the rheumatism it was awful to be in the house with you.”

The Deacon fairly writhed with indignation, but Aunt Hitty’s brow was unruffled as she continued: “You see, Daniel, there isn’t a good man or a good woman who is safe from having some falsehood told about them, and it wouldn’t be much matter, if only all other good people would stand right by them, and have the courage to say boldly, ‘I don’t believe it.’ The devil must laugh to see how easy he carries his ends, just by lying. Why, I don’t doubt if he had told the disciples the Lord fell down and worshiped him when he promised him all the

kingdoms of the world, every one of the disciples but John would have said, ‘Is it possible?’ and never remembered that the devil was a liar from the beginning.”

“Well, Hitty,” said the Deacon passively, “he would have had a tough time with you. I told Silas I thought it ought to be remembered that the Elder has been a good man for forty years—apparently.”

“Apparently,” said Aunt Hitty, “and what more can be said of you, or of anybody else, than that you are apparently good? Only the Lord can go any deeper. If I were a minister I would like to preach a sermon on ‘Loyalty among Brethren.’”

“I don’t doubt it would be worth hearing,” said the Deacon gallantly. In fact he often regretted that Aunt Hitty’s eloquence should be devoted solely to his own moral reformation.

“I don’t know what I should choose for a text,” said Aunt Hitty musingly, “the Bible is so full of them; but I believe it would be, ‘Receive ye one another as Christ also received us.’ I tell you, Daniel, if we came only half-way to that rule, there would be an end of this taking up evil reports

against the brethren, and lending a willing ear to accusations that were more than likely to be false. It seems to me that when a man is true and good and honest all the way through, the most natural thing in the world to him is perfect confidence in the sincerity of other folks; and when he comes to add to this the charity that thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in that which is good, you’ve got a man that is ready to stand by his brethren when they are accused of wrong, without waiting to make them prove their innocence. Innocence is the hardest thing in the world to prove, if a man’s own word is to go for nothing.”

“But, Hitty, the church must vindicate her own purity by not suffering wrong-doers to hide under her protection.”

“Well, Daniel,” said Aunt Hitty, “I don’t know but you’ll feel it your duty to bring me before the Session, but the fact is, I think there’s a great deal of nonsense, and worse than nonsense, in the idea of a church vindicating its own purity by shutting the doors on its members as soon as they fall into sin. I know you claim there’s Scripture

for it; but if the Scripture rule were carried out, everything that brotherly love and patience could do would be tried first, and if the man won’t listen, he’s only to be as a heathen, and you’re bound to go right to work and convert him and bring him back. Just look at John Wait. He’s been a prosperous man, a man that was looked up to, and one who was always ready to help forward every good work. He’s done as much good as any man in Fairport. But he met a temptation to dishonesty; nobody knows how hard it was, or what a struggle he passed through before he yielded. All we know is that he fell, and now the church wants to vindicate itself by turning him out; and not a man but Eld. Hardhead has any confidence in the sincerity of his repentance.”

“Ah, but, Hitty, there must have been something unsound in the man all along,” said the Deacon, with a shake of his head.

“No doubt there was a weak spot in his character, and the temptation found it, and there may be just as weak spots in you and me, only the right temptation never chanced to touch them. All weakness isn’t sin, if the Sunday-school hymn does say so, and I

should like to know if John Wait, with the effects of a life of uprightness and forty years in God’s service, isn’t even now as promising a subject for the church to spend its forces on as poor old Denny Martin and all that profane, drinking crew that we send a missionary to every Sunday? When he says he repents, and that he has the assurance of God’s pardon, why isn’t it as likely that he’ll be kept from falling as if he’d been sinning openly all his days? It doesn’t seem to me to be good sound sense, saying nothing of Christianity, to spend so much labor in bringing men into the church, and so little in watching and helping them after they get there; to have such unbounded faith and charity for habitual sinners, and so little for a man who goes down under one sharp temptation; to be so credulous of the sincerity of the publican and heathen, and so cold and suspicious toward the brother who says, ‘I have sinned.’”

Aunt Hitty wiped her eyes, and gave the Deacon his medicine. Then as she brightened the fire, she said slowly,—

“I was thinking last Sunday, if Paul were going to write an Epistle to us here at Fairport,

what he would be likely to say after he had written ‘Put them in mind.’ Most all the folks go to church and to prayer-meeting, we have a first-rate Sunday-school, we pay to all the collections, and keep up two missions, and haven’t a dollar debt on the church; and I just thought if Paul was writing to us, and knew all about us, he’d say, ‘Put them in mind of what I said about charity in the Epistle I sent to the Corinthians.’”

The Deacon rubbed his knee thoughtfully as he said, “That’s a ’mazing good chapter, Hitty, and we none of us live by it as we ought.”

HOW IT WAS BLOTTED OUT.

For many years I had been a follower of strange gods, and a lover of this world and its vanities. I was self-righteous, and thought I had religion of my own which was better than that of the Bible. I did not know God, and did not serve him. Prayer was forgotten, public worship neglected; and worldly morality was the tree which brought forth its own deceptive fruit.

But when I shared parental responsibility, and our boy was growing up, our love for him made us anxious about his welfare and future career. His questions often puzzled me, and the sweet and earnest manner in which he inquired of his poor sinful father to know more about his Heavenly Father, and that “happy land, far, far away,” of which his nurse had taught him, proved to me that God had given me a great blessing in the child.

A greater distrust of myself, and a greater sense of my inability to assure my boy of the truth contained in the simple little prayers

that I had learned from my mother in childhood, gradually caused me to reflect. Still, I never went to church; had not even a Bible in the house. What was I to teach my boy,—Christ and him crucified, or the doctrines I had tried to believe?

One of his little friends died, then another, then his uncle. All these deaths made an impression on the boy. He rebelled against it; wanted to know “why God had done it?” It was hard that God should take away his friends; he wished he would not do it. I, of course, had to explain the best I could. One evening he was lying on the bed partly undressed, myself and my wife being seated by the fire. She had been telling me that Willie had not been a good boy that day, and I had reproved him for it. All was quiet, when suddenly he broke out in a loud crying and sobbing, which surprised us. I went to him, and asked him what was the matter.

“I don’t want it there, father; I don’t want it there,” said the child.

“What, my child, what is it?”

“Why, father, I don’t want the angels to write down in God’s Book all the bad things I have done to-day. I don’t want it there;

I wish it could be wiped out;” and his distress increased. What could I do? I did not believe, but yet I had been taught the way. I had to console him, so I said,—

“Well, you need not cry; you can have it all wiped out in a minute if you want.”

“How, father, how?”

“Why, get down on your knees, and ask God, for Christ’s sake, to wipe it out, and he will do it.”

I did not have to speak twice. He jumped out of bed, saying, “Father, won’t you come and help me?”

Now came the trial. The boy’s distress was so great, and he pleaded so earnestly, that the man who had never once bowed before God in spirit and in truth, got down on his knees beside that little child, and asked God to wipe away his sins; and perhaps, though my lips did not speak it, my heart included my own sins too. We then rose, and he lay down in his bed again. In a few moments more he said,—

“Father, are you sure it is all wiped out?”

Oh, how the acknowledgment grated upon my unbelieving heart, as the words came to my mouth,—“Why, yes, my son; the Bible

says that if from your heart you ask God for Christ’s sake to do it, and if you are really sorry for what you have done, it shall be all blotted out.”

A smile of pleasure passed over his face, as he quietly asked,— “What did the angel blot it out with? With a sponge?”

Again was my whole soul stirred within me, as I answered,— “No, but with the precious blood of Christ. The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.”

The fountains had at last burst forth. They could not be checked, and my cold heart was melted within me. I felt like a poor guilty sinner, and, turning away, said,— “My dear wife, we must first find God, if we want to show him to our children. We cannot show them the way, unless we know it ourselves.”

And in the silent hour of the night I bowed beside that dear boy, and prayed, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief!” My wife, too, united with me, and we prayed jointly for ourselves and our child. And God heard our prayers, and received us, as he always does those who seek him with the whole heart.

“SEEING THE SPRINKLED BLOOD.”

“FATHER, I cannot sleep; the prophet’s words Ring in my ears; they fill my heart with fear; For am I not the first-born, and the one On whom the destroying angel’s shaft would fall, Were not the token on the lintel found? I cannot sleep. O father, art thou sure The blood is sprinkled as God gave command?”

“Peace, peace, my child; just as the evening fell The fairest lamb of all the flock was slain, And roasted then with purifying fire; With bitter herbs, and bread devoid of leaven, In haste we ate the Lord’s appointed feast. Nor were the means of saving thee forgot; Scarce was the yearling slain ere I gave word For sprinkling of the blood upon the door; Sleep, then, my first-born; God’s avenging one Will see the signal, and pass over thee.”

Thus on that solemn night which God had chosen For passing throughout all fair Egypt’s land, To smite on every side the loved first-born, Sparing not e’en the firstlings of the flock, A Hebrew father soothed his restless child; Restless himself, as now with girded loins, Sandals upon his feet, and staff in hand, He waited for the solemn midnight hour When God’s almighty arm should break the chain

That bound his people to proud Pharaoh’s throne. The bread unbaked was in the kneading trough, The scattered flocks were gathered in the fold, And all betokened plans for hasty flight. There was a thrilling silence in the air; A quiet joy burned in the Rabbi’s breast,— Joy that was not unmingled with regret At leaving thus his birthplace, though it was A house of bondage, for the promised land.

The night wore on, And yet again the pleading voice was heard: “Father, sleep will not come; before my eyes I see the angel pass, and at our door Pause sorrowful, as though he wept to stay, Yet dare not hasten unavenging by. O father, if the blood has been removed, Or if the herdboy heeded not thy voice, Then never shall my weary eyes behold The land of Canaan with its waving fields.”

“Rest, little one, faithful our Jared is. Not only on the side-posts of the door Should be the stain, but on the one above; So if some hungry dog should from its place One token lick, the others would remain. Sleep, my sweet child, for thou hast need of rest; The journey will be rough for little feet.”

The anxious voice was silent. In that home Obedience reigned supreme, though not as yet The law had sounded forth from Sinai’s top.

Sleep came at last, but with it dreams of fright, Wherein she tossed, and moaned, and oft cried out.

The midnight hour grew nigh; unbroken still The darkness’ solemn hush; the child awoke With a loud cry, “Father, I thought I heard The cock’s shrill crow to greet approaching morn. My heart is beating with a sickening dread Of danger near. Oh! take me to the door, And let me see the red blood sprinkled there.”

Lighting a torch, the father gently took His first-born in his arms, and bore her forth— Started and paled to see no paschal sign, No warning that their door should be passed by! With trembling hand he snatched the hyssop then, Himself applied the blood in eager haste. A long sigh of relief escaped the child; Almost before he placed her on the couch Sweet sleep had fallen on her heavy lids, Nor when the “great cry” rose did she awake. That agonizing wail of man and beast Reached not her ears, with drowsy slumber sealed, And at the dawn they bore her sleeping still, Away from Egypt’s darkness and despair.

Christ, our blest Passover, is slain for us; The “blood of sprinkling” for our sins is shed; Have we the atoning sacrifice applied, Made sure our entrance to the promised land?

Continue reading: MRS. HART’S ECONOMY.