THE HERMIT AND TRAVELER

Once there lived in a castle a very wicked man, who despised the poor, oppressed the weak, and was cruel to all over whom he had power. He had armed soldiers to do his bidding; and as he was cruel and selfish, as well as powerful, he robbed the people who could not defend themselves, and if any of them resisted he burned their dwellings and laid waste their fields.

He had a wife and two children. His wife was so gentle and so beautiful, and his children so good and lovely, that even this bad man prized them above all his possessions.

One day a man came to the castle and asked to see him. His garments were poor, like those worn by the peasants who till the soil; but his countenance was fierce, and his eye flashed with anger.

“Your soldiers have burned my house and carried away my wife, and I am here to demand justice!”

He spoke sternly. If this peasant had stooped and cringed to his powerful neighbor,

and asked justice as a favor, the soldiers might have been ordered to bring back his wife; but as it was, the wicked lord of the castle, who had no pity in his heart, fell into a great passion, and lifting his sword tried to slay the poor man. Just at this moment his wife came into the apartment, leading her beautiful children, and seeing the sword in her husband’s upraised hand, cried out in alarm.

At sight of these, his enemy’s most precious things, the fires of hatred and revenge burned up fiercely in the peasant’s heart, and drawing a concealed weapon he killed them with thrusts given as quick as lightning flashes. In the next moment he was gone, and the strong, bad man stood horror-stricken over his dead wife and children. All his wicked life crowded back upon his memory. The warning words of a pious man—“God’s justice will find you out!” scarcely noticed when spoken, now rung in his ears like tones of thunder. His soul was crushed under a weight of remorse and sorrow. A great terror oppressed him. He seemed standing face to face with an awful power he had scorned and defied.

From this time men lost sight of him. His castle fell into ruins, and weeds and briers covered all his neglected fields. Many years afterwards a traveler lost his way in a great forest. While vainly seeking his way out, he came upon a hermit, who lived in a rocky cave, by the mouth of which ran a clear stream of water. He was dressed in poor garments; his beard was white and hung down almost to his waist; his face was thin and his eyes sunken. The traveler’s heart was filled with pity at the sight of so miserable a being.

“Who are you? and what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I have been a great sinner,” said the hermit. “I was a cruel oppressor, a bold wrongdoer. I defied God and he laid his hand heavily upon me. Then I fled away from the sight of men to this wilderness, that I might repent and punish myself. My food has been herbs instead of dainty meats; my drink water, instead of rich wines. I spend long nights in prayer; I cut my body with stripes until it is covered with wounds. And though I have done all this for years, yet God still hides himself from me in anger.

My sins have been too great. He will not forgive! Oh, that I had not been born!”

“Wretched man,” said the traveler, “God hides himself from no one. It is you that have hidden yourself from God. He dwells here with the happy birds, with the fragrant blossoms, and pure running water—with all nature in her orderly work; but not with man idly bemoaning himself. If you wish to find God, go where his poor, his suffering and needy ones are, and join him in helping them.”

The hermit covered his face and sank down upon the ground. All strength went out of his limbs. He was weak and helpless as a little child.

“Begin a new and truer life,” continued the traveler, “by at once showing me the way out of this forest. I have much work to do for God among the children of men, and they suffer loss while I am away.”

The hermit rose from the ground slowly, as strength came back to him, and silently led the traveler out of the forest.

“Prayer, and fastings, and self-denials are all vain,” said the traveler, as they stood still

on the great high-road, “unless there be good deeds. Go back among your fellow-men and do them good, if you desire God’s favor; you will never find it here.”

After ten years’ absence, the lord of the castle came back to its desolate walls. His hair was white as wool; his form wasted and bent; his countenance thin and sorrowful. Men stood aloof from him, for they remembered how wicked and cruel he had been. The weak trembled at his return, for they feared his oppression.

Soon the hearts of all began to turn to the lord of the castle; for instead of doing evil, as before, his hand was showing itself in good works. He kept no soldiers to guard his gates and defend him from his enemies, for now he had no enemies. The poor were helped, the sick cared for, and the vicious restrained. He was a father and protector of the people.

One day, as he sat looking from a window of his castle, at the peaceful country which lay all around him, peaceful and happy because he was on the side of good instead of evil, he saw the traveler who had been lost in the forest passing by, and he sent his servant

after him. When the two men stood face to face the traveler said :—

“Have we not met before?”

And the lord of the castle answered: “Yes, you came to me once with a message from God.”

Then the traveler knew him, and his countenance was full of gladness; for, in place of the miserable, self-afflicted hermit, he saw a peaceful old man whose life of good deeds had brought him so near to God that his face was as the face of an angel in its tranquil sweetness.

“God hears you now,” said the traveler.

“He is very near. He fills my heart with his love. I am his servant,” answered the lord of the castle, bowing his head with a gentle reverence.

“Ah, yes,” said the traveler. “It is the faithful servant who worships God in well-doing, that gets the blessing. Others never find it.”

Then they broke bread and prayed together, and the traveler went on his way, rejoicing that the good seed sown by the wayside had yielded so rich a harvest.

PETER CRISP’S SPECTACLES.

PETER CRISP had something the matter with his eyes; he needed spectacles to help him to see. But this was no uncommon misfortune; hundreds of people, who do ten good hours’ work every day of their lives, use glasses and cannot get along without them. No; the chief trouble in Peter’s case was not in wanting glasses; it was in the particular sort of glasses that he used. He had several pairs, which he always kept on hand, nobody knew exactly where; they seemed to be hidden somewhere about the head of his bed, for he often got them on before he was up in the morning.

One pair was what I should call smoked glasses, such as persons use in looking at the sun; they do very well for that purpose, preventing the bright rays from hurting the eyes. But Peter did not put them on to look at the sun with; he looked at everything through them. And as this made everything look dark and ugly, he was made to feel accordingly.

“I could iron these collars better myself!” he exclaimed one morning as he was dressing, after getting up with those glasses on. And a few minutes later, “Not a pin in the cushion as usual!” and presently again, “Who has taken my comb and brush?”

Had any of the children chanced to come into the room about that time, it would have been worse for them.

When he sat down to breakfast there was a deep wrinkle between his eyes, caused by the weight of his glasses upon his brow.

“That Polly Ann never did make a good cup of coffee in her life,” he remarked. “My dear,” turning to his wife, “I do wish you would take the trouble to go down once—just once, only once—and show her how.”

Mrs. Crisp ventured to say in a low voice that she went down every morning. Peter had no reply to make to this, but he puckered his lips as if he had been taking quinine, frowned yet more severely and pushed the cup away from him.

After his cheerful breakfast he put on his hat to go to the store, but turned back from the front door and came to the foot of the stairs, when he stood calling out in a loud

voice that he really felt ashamed of the black around the door-knob and bell handle. In the street a few moments afterward, a gentleman joined him, to whom he was as pleasant as possible. But when he got into the counting-room, it was plain he had the smoked glasses on still. Not one person about the concern worked as he should, he said—none of them were worth a cent. It used to be different when he was a boy. Then he went out with a look of general disgust. As soon as he was gone the book-keeper was cross to the clerk, and the clerk scolded the boy, and the boy went out and abused the porter.

A few mornings after that, Peter had on what might be called his blue glasses. He was in milder frame, but low in spirits. He was sorry to see the chamber carpet wearing out, for he did not know where another one would come from. At breakfast he watched all the children taking butter and took scarcely any himself. He begged Mrs. Crisp to put less sugar in his coffee. The frown was gone from his face, but a most dejected look had come in its place. Spying a hole in the toe of his boy’s shoe, he took a long breath; and

hearing that the dressmaker was engaged a day next week for his daughters, he sighed aloud. Walking down the street, he looked as if he had lost a near relative, and at the store all day he felt like one on the eve of breaking.

He had one more pair of glasses, the color of which could never be distinctly made out; they seemed more of a mud-color than anything else. He did not wear them so often as either of the others, but when he did they had a very singular effect. It was thought by many that they befogged him, rather than helped him to see; for after putting them on of a morning he would get up and dress hardly speaking a word. At breakfast he would say nothing, and not seem to want anybody else to; consequently the whole family would sit and munch in silence; then he would rise from the table and walk out of the front door as if he was dumb; and although it was a relief when he had gone and made matters something better, still a chilling influence remained behind him the whole morning.

Peter had been wearing these glasses a good many years, when it occurred to him

one day that things never looked very cheerful in his eyes, that he was never very happy, and that perhaps his spectacles had something to do with it.

“I wish I could get another and a better pair,” said he. Then he remembered that his neighbor, Samuel Seabright, had to wear glasses also, but he always appeared to see well and to have a pleasant face. Meeting him the next morning, he said:—

“Neighbor, if it is not making too free, may I ask where you get your spectacles?”

“Certainly,” replied Samuel. “I am glad to tell you. They are good ones, and I wish every man with poor eyes had a pair like them.”

“I would be willing to pay a good price for a pair,” said Peter.

“That is not needful,” replied Samuel; they are the cheapest glasses you can get.”

“Pray tell me where I can find them,” said Peter.

“I got mine,” said Samuel, “by the help of a certain physician whose house you pass every day; and if you are truly anxious to get them, I know he will tell you how you can get a pair for the asking.”

“I don’t want them in charity,” replied Peter.

“Then you cannot have them,” said Samuel.

“Well,” replied Peter, in a humbler voice, “I’ll take them for nothing, or I’ll pay a big price for them, for I want them above all things.”

“Ah,” said Samuel, “that sounds more like getting them. You go to him and tell him how you feel, and he will tend to your case.”

Then Peter did as he was told. The doctor looked at his eyes, and said that the disease in them was one which kept him from seeing the good things about him; all he could see was the evil.

“And those glasses you have been wearing,” he continued, “have only made them worse, till there is danger of your getting beyond cure.”

“And is there no hope for me?” asked Peter.

“Oh yes,” replied the doctor, “if you will follow the directions.”

“I will do so,” said Peter.

“In the first, then,” he continued, “you must wear those glasses no more. Throw

them away or put them in the fire, so that you will never see them again.”

“I promise to do so,” replied Peter.

“In the next place, when you are given a new pair,” continued the doctor, “you must always walk in the way which they show you to be right.”

“I will try not to depart from it,” said Peter.

At this there came an invisible hand that took off his old smoked glasses and put on new ones, made of pure crystal, which let the light through just as it came down from the sky. But oh, what a change they made to Peter! He went home, and as soon as he entered the door his house seemed like another place to him; it seemed filled with blessings.

“Is it possible,” he exclaimed, “that those glasses have kept me from seeing all these before?”

The next morning when he got up he told his wife what had befallen him and how he felt in consequence.

“But,” said she, with a loving smile, “how about those badly-ironed collars, and the pins, and the weak coffee?”

“Oh,” he cried, “how could I ever let such trifles trouble me?”

“And then,” she continued, “here is the carpet wearing out, and the boys’ shoes and the girls’ dresses.”

“As for them,” he said, “we will hope to get more when they are gone. But even if we should not have half of our present comforts and indulgence, with you, my dearest, and our precious children about me, I trust I may feel too rich ever again to utter one complaining word.”

So the sunshine came into Peter Crisp’s house, and he and all his family led a happier life because of his new glasses, which were, a thankful heart.

THE INFIDEL CAPTAIN.

The ship St. Thomas, Captain, Robert Williams, was bound from New York to Liverpool, in the month of June. Favored by a fresh westerly wind, she soon cleared the land, and on the first Sunday out was going along finely with all drawing sail set. The chief mate, Mr. Wm. Briggs, after the crew had breakfasted, and the watch had been set, asked the captain if he had any objections to calling the men aft to prayers.

“No objection whatever, Mr. Briggs, provided you do the preaching and praying yourself; for you know well enough that I have but little faith in such exercises.”

Capt. Williams was between forty and fifty years of age, a plain, blunt seaman, who was more ambitious of being considered an enterprising ship-master than a Christian. His mate was not quite thirty, and was indebted to him for his promotion from before the mast to second mate, and then to that of chief mate; they had sailed together many years, and each had boundless confidence in

the other. Appreciating the motives of his mate, he always permitted him to have prayers on board when the state of the weather was favorable, although he took no interest in religious matters himself.

Mr. Briggs ordered the watch to arrange some seats on the quarter-deck, while he went forward himself and invited the watch below to come aft, and listen to the reading of the Scriptures, and such other religious exercises as the occasion might suggest, remarking at the same time, that it was not his desire to force any man against his will. Without a murmur the watch below, as well as that on deck, repaired to the quarter-deck, and were soon seated around the capstan. The captain took charge of the deck himself, that is, looked out for the proper steerage of the ship, and relieved the second mate, whose watch it was, to join the men at prayers. These arrangements completed, the chief mate placed a Bible on the capstan, read a chapter from the New Testament, made some remarks upon it, and then prayed; after which he read a sermon, and closed with prayer. The whole exercise occupied about an hour, and seemed to produce a

good effect upon the men, who, during the rest of the day in their intercourse with one another, talked about religion.

That afternoon, when it was the mate’s watch on deck, Captain Williams entered into conversation with him as follows:—

“I say, Briggs, what does all your preaching and praying amount to in the long run? I have managed to get along very well thus far without either, and if I were to die today, I could safely say that I never injured any man knowingly, and have always endeavored to do my duty to my family and to all. What more can a man do, even if he had all the religion in the world?”

“Captain Williams,” replied the mate, “this world, sir, is not our home; we are only here for a few short years, and then we go to the place for which we have prepared ourselves.”

“Place!” interrupted the captain, “place—what do you or I or any one else know about any other place than this world? Place, indeed! you do not suppose that I am silly enough to believe the Bible, with its strange fish stories, and unaccountable yarns about miracles, &c.?”

“Yet,” replied the mate, “you believe Bowditch’s Navigator, and rely upon its statements.”

“Of course I do, because I have tested their correctness by actual experience.”

“And for the same reason I believe the Bible, and so will you, sir, when you come to Christ and learn of him the truth.”

“I have heard that statement before, Briggs. But how would you propose for me to come to Christ?”

“By retiring to your state-room alone, sir, and throwing yourself upon your knees, and imploring him with your whole soul to enlighten you. Continue this process every moment you can spare from the ship’s duty, and I will be answerable that you will not pray long in vain, if you pray sincerely.”

“But you must first convince me, Briggs, that the Bible is true before I make a fool of myself in my state-room.”

“My dear captain,” replied the mate, “I cannot convince you, that is the work of the Holy Spirit; but I can, and often do pray for you. Yet let us recur to Bowditch’s Navigator again, and see if we cannot make out a case from it in favor of the Bible.

Both of us believe the Navigator, yet neither of us know thoroughly the principles by which all its numerous tables have been calculated, many of which we use every day without question. If we make a bad landfall, or, at the end of a day discover that we have made a different course from that which we projected, we do not attribute the errors to Bowditch, but to our own miscalculation. It is just so with the humble inquirer after truth; the Bible is his Navigator; he believes it the fountain of living truth, endeavors to shape the course of his life by it; and when he errs, he looks for the error in himself, not in the Bible.”

“Still Briggs,” said the captain, “I don’t believe the Bible. The fact is, I have never looked into it since I was a boy.”

“The greater your loss, captain; but I have no doubt your mother believed it, and has often spoken to you about God, and Christ, and taught you to pray when you were a child. If you will take the trouble to visit Jim Wood’s gin-palace, in Play-House Square, when we reach Liverpool, and enter into conversation with the people there about the Bible, they will laugh at

you, and sneeringly tell you it is a humbug; in short, repeat your own arguments; but if you will leave there and obtain admission into the best society, you will find that every person present will speak with reverence of the Bible. Now I know you love good company here, and that you dislike the low, vulgar conversation of the profane; therefore, I should like to see you make some effort to prepare yourself for the society of the redeemed in Heaven.”

“What you have said about my mother, Briggs, is true as the needle to the pole, God bless her; I can’t help saying so, for she was good to me; and if there is a Heaven she is sure of it.”

“And, of course, captain, you would like to join her there, when you have run down your reckoning here. You have either to join her, or such fellows as those who frequent places like Jim Wood’s. Which like you the best—gamblers, drunkards, and thieves, or your mother? This is the simple question which you must decide for yourself.”

Here the ship’s duty interrupted the conversation, but that night Capt. Williams

thought much of the teachings of his mother, her earnest prayers to God in his behalf, and the flimsy arguments with which he had so long deluded himself about the Bible; and the more he thought the more uneasy he became. He felt that he was a sinner in the sight of God, unworthy of the many favors he enjoyed, and during the whole of that passage, whenever an opportunity offered he engaged in earnest conversation with his mate. He was alarmed at the prospect of being forever separated from his mother, for he loved her dearly; and this feeling soon gave birth to others of a more spiritual nature, and finally he was led to exclaim, “What shall I do to be saved?”

THE HIGHER BRANCHES.

IN many respects the modern system of instruction is a great improvement upon the old-fashioned mode; but the field of study is so wide, and so much is attempted that too often the work is poorly done; the pupil comes from school with a smattering of almost everything, and a thorough knowledge of nothing. What the young pupil needs is a thorough grounding in the elementary branches of an education. This will qualify him for an ordinary business life, or a higher course of study. A boy of sixteen graduates from a high school, and seeks employment. He asks the counsel of a trusty friend, and this colloquy ensues:—

Old Practical—Well, what can you do, John?

Conceited John—Oh, almost anything, I suppose.

O. P.—But what can you do?

Surprised John—Why, I can do— And he flatters himself that his hesitation is certainly a mistake. Has he not been at

school since he was six years old? Did he not “learn everything?” Was he not a smart boy? Has he not his diploma of graduation from the high school?

O. P.—What have you been studying the last few years?

Complaisant John—Greek, Latin, German, French—

O. P.—All right. You must go to college and be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a minister. Would you like to be a minister?

Honest John—No, sir. Father is dead, and mother can’t send me to college. I must go to work right away and earn money. It is needed at home.

O. P.—Very well. That does you credit. You know German and French. Mr. Lamonte, an importer, wants a correspondence clerk to read and write letters in those languages. That will be a nice place for you

Perplexed John—Oh no, sir. I only know a little of each. I can read them in print pretty well, in the books we used, but I cannot speak them or write them.

O. P.—Well, what else did you learn?

John—Chemistry.

O. P.—That will do. The druggist on the corner wants a young man who understands the properties of chemicals and the manufacture of drugs, and your knowledge of medicine is just the thing—

Scared John—Oh no, sir. I don’t know anything about chemistry—only a little—some of the definitions and pretty experiments. We had not much time for chemistry.

O. P.—H’m. You are equally well off in geology, astronomy, mineralogy, botany, zoology, optics, physiology, and all the other things, are you?

Chagrined John—

O. P.—Well, never mind. You studied geometry and trigonometry? Yes, of course. A friend of mine, a surveyor, asked me to find him a capable assistant, and he would pay him good wages—

Unhappy John—Oh no, sir. I could not do that. You see we had not much time for geometry. I can demonstrate some of the propositions in the book, by the letters—that’s all.

O. P.—You can draw? You can earn something in an architect’s office? You

can help the draughtsman over in the locomotive works? That’s a good business—

Laughing John—Oh no, sir! I can’t draw! I had no taste for it, but went through the forms with the rest of the class, because we all had to. But I scarcely know a straight line from a curved one. Mother always said I had no “eye” for drawing or anything like that.

O. P.—You’re rather a neat and pleasant lad—fond of music? You studied that in school ever since you were a little fellow? Of course. Well, I can get you a place in a music store—

Miserable John—Oh no, sir! I don’t know one note from another. We studied music in a sort of way, because we were “marked” on it, but I never could learn it. Mother knows I have no “ear.”

O. P.—Of course you can keep books?

Downcast John—Oh no, sir. I wouldn’t dare to try. We had a class once in single entry, but we were so busy with our Latin and Greek and geology and all the other things, that we did not pay much attention to that.

O. P.—Anyhow, you learned grammar and

rhetoric, I am sure. That Mr. Kopp who has an insurance agency, told me last week he would like to get a nice smart young man who could prepare correct statements out of his books—write out his reports—and so on. You are the very lad for Kopp—

Trembling John—Oh no, sir. I can’t do anything like that. Why, I have not looked inside a grammar for years; we don’t learn English grammar in the high school, sir. Grammar is only taught in the lower grades, and then I was too young to understand it. Mother has had to correct my language at home, but I don’t know whether it is correct or not. I can’t parse—I never could. And we only wrote compositions now and then, and I always teased my sister into writing mine. Boys don’t like compositions as well as girls, sir.

O. P.—I guess we’ll have to fall back on your arithmetic. Your hand-writing, I see, is not very good, but you can improve that if you try. You learned all about percentage and interest and foreign exchange in your arithmetic. I will give you a note to one of the banks—

Overwhelmed John—Oh no, sir! We did

not study arithmetic in the high school! And I never understood percentage—it is the hardest thing in the book. I was only a little boy when we were in percentage, and I could not get it through my head. Decimals always puzzled me—

O. P.—You have been in school ever since you were a little fellow able to go. Your mother has kept you there at great inconvenience, calculating that you would be able to support your brothers and sisters until they grew up. You have “studied everything”—including Latin and Greek and all the ologies, and drawing and music. I guess you can now earn fifty cents a week as parcel boy.

STICK TO YOUR BUSINESS.

There is nothing which should be more frequently impressed upon the minds of young men than the importance of steadily pursuing some one business. The frequent changing from one employment to another is one of the most common errors committed, and to it may be traced more than half the failures of men in business, and much of the discontent and disappointment that render life uncomfortable. It is a very common thing for a man to be dissatisfied with his business, and to desire to change it for some other, which, it seems to him, will prove more lucrative; but in nine cases out of ten it is a mistake.

Here is a young man who commenced life as a mechanic, but from some cause imagined that he ought to have been a doctor; and after a hasty and shallow preparation, he has taken up the saddle-bags only to find that work is still work, and that his patients are no more profitable than his work-bench, and the occupation not a whit more agreeable.

Here are two young men, clerks; one of them is content, when his first term of service is over, to continue a clerk till he shall have saved enough to commence business on his own account; the other can’t wait, but starts off without capital, and with a limited experience, and brings up after a few years in a court of insolvency, while his former comrade, by patient perseverance, comes out at last with a fortune.

That young lawyer, who became disheartened because briefs and cases did not crowd upon him while he was yet redolent of calf-bound volumes, and had small use for red tape, who concluded he had mistaken his calling, and so plunged into politics, finally settled down into the character of a middling pettifogger, scrambling for his daily bread.

There is an honest farmer who has toiled a few years, got his farm paid for, but does not grow rich very rapidly, as much for lack of contentment mingled with his industry as anything, though he is not aware of it. He hears the wonderful stories of some far-off land, and how fortunes may be had for the trouble of picking them up; mortgages his farm to raise money, goes away, and after

many months of hard toil, comes home to commence again at the bottom of the hill for a more weary and less successful climbing up again.

Mark the men in every community who are notorious for ability and equally notorious for never getting ahead, and you will usually find them to be those who never stick to any one business long, but are always forsaking their occupation just when it begins to be profitable.

Young men, stick to your business. It may be you have mistaken your calling; if so, find it out as quickly as possible, and change it; but don’t let any uneasy desire to get along fast, or a dislike of your honest calling, lead you to abandon it. Have some honest occupation and then stick to it; pursue the business you have chosen, persistently, industriously and hopefully, and if there is anything of you it will appear and turn to account in that, as well as, or better than, in any other calling; only if you are a loafer, forsake that line as speedily as possible, for the longer you stick to it the worse it will stick to you.

Continue reading: THE OLD BROWN HOUSE.