Gathering Jewels Part 14

There are too many instances in our daily experience where the children are sadly neglected, and where they are looked upon as little heathens, and discouraged in their endeavors to follow Jesus in early life. It should be the constant care of parents and Sunday-school teachers to take the children to Him who will in no wise cast them out. Who can look into the clear, bright, blue eyes of a little boy or girl, and not see in their countenance a holy radiance expressive of trustfulness, innocence, and affection? It is no wonder, then, that Jesus said: "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye can in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven."

"Are you looking unto Jesus?" she said. Where can we look for a more important searching question to shadow forth the indispensable necessity of not only this consumptive man, but all men, whether in health or sickness, to renounce all other methods of trying to get to heaven, but by "looking unto Jesus." No change of character can take place in any other way. "Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am G.o.d, and beside me there is none else." They looked unto Him and were lightened. "O! it is easy to look to the hills from whence cometh our help," when the Holy Spirit is working upon the heart. But ah, it is a tremendously difficult task to perform when the poor sinner is bereft of this divine power.

CHAPTER XII.

DESt.i.tUTION AND REFORMATION.

Oh, use me Lord, use even me, Just _as_ Thou wilt, and _when_ and _where_, Until Thy blessed face I see, Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share.

Her willingness to toil in any direction attests the grand purpose of her life and the ingenious methods employed in a.s.sisting and saving souls.

"I visited one family," she writes, "a few days since who had not eaten anything for twenty-four hours. The father was out of employment, and in desperation was just about to take the children to some charitable home, when I came in time to supply their wants and procure aid and work for him. Many others, rather than make known their wants, have p.a.w.ned everything they possessed. I have had to give and lend them articles of clothing to cover them, and have procured coal and groceries for nine families during the past month."

The remarkable and unprecedented success of this one woman in reaching others of her own s.e.x is nearly unparalleled. This fact has encouraged us to persevere in our attempt to make these truths known to the Christian world; for how emphatically true are the words of Gray:

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear, And full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

This thought stimulates us to renewed efforts to present her experience in her own language, as she conscientiously discharged her duty with an eye single to the glory of G.o.d.

She mentions a case of reformation of an intemperate woman who had deserted her home, and after p.a.w.ning and ridding herself of all she possessed, was at length brought to herself and sent for the Bible woman, and, through the omnipotence of loving-kindness, has been won to reformation, which she trusts may be permanent.

This case presents a sad and dark picture in the history of womanhood.

An intemperate woman, through the blasting and blighting influence of liquor, leaving her home, and like the prodigal, spending her substance in riotous living, and at length being compelled to feed on the husks.

A fallen woman seeking pleasure away from home with all its endearments. Alas! alas! "There is no peace saith my G.o.d unto the wicked. Whither, oh, whither can they fly as wretched wanderers from their homes?"

"Home, sweet home!

There is no place like home!"

It is a divine inst.i.tution. A place of rest and peace and joy. To forsake home is to despise bliss and accept woe. It is to reject felicity and receive sorrow. When G.o.d has been so kind as to furnish a peaceable, well-governed home, nothing should tempt the young to leave it. All that is necessary for pure pleasure can be found in the family circle. The unwary are sometimes induced to leave home through false representations, and a desire to gratify every earthly propensity. Idle curiosity may be greatly augmented, and the new acquaintances formed may, for the time being, partially please the senses; but the calm recollection of former unalloyed joys in the cottage home naturally extorts the old cry from pale quivering lips, and a broken heart, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say: father I have sinned against heaven and before thee."

Such a course of turning to G.o.d, and such a cry, is always richly rewarded. Personal reformation is not only gratifying to relatives and friends, but well-pleasing to G.o.d. "Won to reformation" by the Bible woman through the omnipotence of _loving kindness_! We are reminded by this incident of a story we heard told by the late John B. Gough. It was part of his experience a few days after he became a total abstainer. He had returned to work. But his burning thirst for liquor was intense. In his agony of mind and body, he said to his employer, "I have signed the pledge." The reply was, "You will keep it about a week." "If so, then I will go and get a drink now, for I cannot endure this awful agony any longer," he retorted. He rushed out of the room and down the stairs leading to the street, when he was accosted by the kind, gentle voice of a strange gentleman who met him.

"How do you do, Mr. Gough? I am so glad to see you; I was delighted to see you at the meeting last night, and I am so thankful that you had courage given you to go forward and sign the pledge. I simply called over to shake you by the hand and wish you G.o.d speed in your n.o.ble endeavor. Here is my card; I want you to call at my office, as I desire to get acquainted with you." Those kind words entered into his heart, and from that auspicious hour he resolved to be steadfast and immovable in his renunciation of his drinking habits.

G.o.d loves and prospers those who, like Jesus, speak kind words of encouragement to those who have gone astray from the paths of rect.i.tude. The brevity and uncertainty of life ought to teach us the practical lesson that if we would save men and women from their sins we must be watchful and willing at all times to rescue the wanderers from their critical condition, constantly remembering that He has said, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our G.o.d for he will abundantly pardon."

"When I was hungry ye gave me meat; when I was thirsty ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me." Little did this n.o.ble-minded woman think that when she was entering her daily experience in her diary that her deeds of charity were to be brought to light after death. A story is told of Xenophon, the disciple of Socrates, that while offering a solemn sacrifice he heard that his eldest son was slain at Mantinea. He did not, however, desist, but only laid down his crown and asked how he had fallen. When he understood that his son had fallen in battle fighting bravely for his country, he calmly replaced the crown upon his head, calling the G.o.ds to witness that he received greater pleasure from the bravery of his son, than pain from his death. We do not, naturally speaking, like to lose our loved ones, but when we think of their bravery and fidelity, we feel disposed to praise G.o.d for them. O, what transcendent dignity and honor are conferred on the faithful at the hour of death. It seems there is a reciprocal response on earth to the acclamations of heaven perpetually ringing in the ears of the ransomed, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

The Church's loss is her gain. Still the deeds of mercy call forth praise. Let us ever remember that a holy and just and good G.o.d is treasuring up all our words of faith and labors of love against the great day of account--the day of recognition and remuneration. Pollock beautifully describes the man or woman like her of whom we write, a person of enlarged benevolence and liberality, as practically ill.u.s.trated in the foregoing authentic record of Christian experience.

He says:

"Breathe all thy minstrelsy, immortal harp!

Breathe numbers warm with love while I rehea.r.s.e, Delightful theme! remembering the songs Which day and night are sung before the Lamb!

Thy praise, O Charity! thy labors most Divine! thy sympathy with sighs, and tears, And groans; thy great, thy G.o.d-like wish to heal All misery, all fortune's wounds; and make The soul of every living thing rejoice-- A finishing and polish without which No man e'er entered heaven. Let me record His praise; the man of great benevolence, Who pressed thee softly to his glowing heart, And to thy gentle bidding made his feet Swift minister of all mankind, his soul Was most in sympathy with heaven; Nor did he wait till to his door, The voice of supplication came, but went abroad With foot as silent as the starry dews, In search of misery that pined unseen, And would not ask. And who can tell what sights She saw, what groans she heard in that cold world Below, where sin in league with gloomy death, March daily through the length and breadth of all The land, wasting at will and making earth, Fair earth! a lazer-house, a dungeon dark!

Oh, who can tell what sights she saw, what shapes Of wretchedness! or who describe what smile Of grat.i.tude illumed the face of woe?"

Similarity of character is the firmest bond for forming permanent friendship, hence Christ says to all his followers, Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command thee. A glance at the picture presented to us in St. John's gospel, eleventh chapter, at the Feast of the Pa.s.sover of the Jews, remind us of the character and spirit of Jesus when he took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to the mult.i.tude who were set down upon the gra.s.s. For services of this kind G.o.d selects his servants. By filling them with the spirit of Jesus, they are thus thoroughly qualified to minister to the necessitous.

CHAPTER XIII.

HER FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS.

There are small things in daily life In which I may obey, And thus may show my love to Thee; And always--every day-- There are some little loving words Which I for Thee may say.

"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful in much."

She continues to write with her usual forcible descriptiveness: "I found a mother and daughter in a damp room, on the ground floor of a tenement building, in a wretched condition. The room was furnished with a broken stove, one chair, two trunks, and some bedding spread on the floor, as they had no bedstead. _Both_ were very lame, and the girl quite feeble for want of care and nourishment. After relieving their immediate wants, I tried to lead them to Christ. The girl was so sick and discouraged it was difficult to convince her that any one cared for her, but at length she cried, and said, 'How nice it is to have some one talk kindly to me.' From that time she began to read the Bible for herself, and would often speak to me of different pa.s.sages of the Scriptures. But after a while the landlord ordered them to move, because they could not pay their rent, and with some effort I succeeded in sending the mother into the country, and placing the girl in a hospital.

"Two other persons, who through a blessing on my labors have become deeply interested, and even led to study the Bible, have now openly professed Christ."

Take another glance at the above touching scene and behold the lively exercise of her wonderful sagacity and powers of observation. This graphic representation of squalor and consummate misery gives pre-eminence to her adaptedness as a successful missionary of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The eyes of the blessed Jesus, the model worker, were not closed to the wants and woes of humanity, hence his formidable power in preparing an entrance into the hearts of the people.

Her Christ-like visits, carrying the rich treasure of the glad tidings, found an echo in the soul of those she visited. Although her elementary education had been sadly neglected, yet nevertheless, by her close study of G.o.d's Word and her varied experience for over fifty years in the lower part of a city like New York, she knew full well how to adapt herself to circ.u.mstances. Let us calmly follow her footsteps into this lofty tenement building and watch her movements. See how minutely she describes the sad scene. If a murder had been committed in the house and a reporter from the _New York Herald_, or any other paper, had called to take notes, he could not have been more minute in his description of the surroundings than she. All the collateral or subordinate information essentially necessary to convey an accurate idea of a true picture peculiarly calculated to throw a flood of light on the whole panorama are carefully furnished us by her notes. And here we are forcibly reminded of the pithy and succinct saying of Scotia's beloved bard, Burns:

"A chiel's amang ye taking notes."

Notice how she enumerates the persons and things in the apartment. The mother and daughter. The damp room. The ground floor. The wretchedness.

The broken stove. The one chair. The two trunks. The bedding spread on the floor. The absence of a bedstead. The lameness. The feebleness. How consummate the skill displayed in her graphic and touching description of pitiable facts emanating from her pen with such brilliancy of rhetorical power; and all spontaneously springing not from the schools of moral and intellectual philosophy, but from the school of Christ Jesus her Lord who said to his sorrowful disciples: "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, _he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you_." The _Paraclete_, who is infinitely competent to perform the instruction necessary amid all the exigencies of life, and by whose divine influence every difficulty and trial is easily adjusted, was evidently her great instructor.

"The girl," she says, "was quite feeble for want of care and nourishment." In a public address recently delivered in this city by the good and kind Dr. John Hall, of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, at the opening of a Newsboys' Lodging House, on the corner of Eighth Street and Avenue B, an inst.i.tution built through the liberality of Mrs. Robert L. Stuart, at a cost of $50,000, the doctor said, "A man left to himself will choose the bad rather than the good, because the majority do, and it is easier besides. As crime breeds misery, so misery too often breeds crime. _We should take note of this fact and try to mend it._"

Mr. Bruce, another speaker, said "thousands of children, a.s.sisted, have gone West, and now own farms and are prosperous." He concluded his address by asking the boys to cheer Mrs. Stuart, which they did gratefully for their new home provided by this inestimable and generous lady.--_New York Daily Tribune_, Tuesday, March 29, 1887.

It is the philanthropist's great aim to defend the moral honor of the homeless as well as to minister to their temporal necessities. This important service was rendered to thousands by our model missionary woman, and eternity alone will disclose the gigantic results.

But let us more specifically a.n.a.lyze her course of conduct under the foregoing circ.u.mstance. In the first place _she immediately relieved their wants_. I have read somewhere the story of Dr. Guthrie when he was first called to the metropolis of Edinburgh. Of their filling his pockets with tracts, and with all the ardor of his n.o.ble heart, commenced his great work. He ascended the creaking stairs of a high building in the old town, and knocking at the door, an elderly woman made her appearance, whereupon he proffered her a tract. Looking earnestly upon him, and in a loud shrill voice she exclaimed, pathetically: "'Deed, Sir, I dinna want yeer tracts, I weed thank ye for a loaf o' breed." Ah! he thought to himself, here is a case of dest.i.tution, and excusing himself he hurried down-stairs, and going to the baker he ordered bread, and to the butcher he ordered beef, and to the grocer he ordered some English breakfast tea and sugar, a few dainties, and a cart of coal, and requested them to be sent at once to the woman in want. Calling a few days afterward he found her comfortably seated with a neighbor around a cheerful hearthstone drinking their newly made tea. When she opened the door she enthusiastically exclaimed, "Come awa, noo, Doctor, I am ready to hear you on the subject o'

religion." Our departed sister also recognized the necessity of attending to the temporal as well as the spiritual wants of her parishioners simultaneously. "_After relieving their wants I tried to lead them to Christ._"

We shall now proceed to show that this incident, in conformity to the teaching of G.o.d's Word, a.s.sures us that suffering and want are the means used by the kind providence of G.o.d to lead the careless sinner to seek a saving interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. David says, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, and thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." He delivereth the poor in his affliction. "The Lord will not cast us off forever. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compa.s.sion according to the mult.i.tude of his mercies." And here is the reason given: "_For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men_."--Lam. iii. 31-33.

In this instructive part of the diary we find described a truly pathetic and animated scene. A humble missionary woman leading souls to Christ. This employment excites the deep interest and profound admiration of heaven. The general a.s.sembly and church of the first born above are intently gazing on, not as idle spectators, but the angels may be observed pressing through the crowd of crowned ones with glory-lit face, and sanctified step, communicating the cheering intelligence of accessions to the ranks of the church militant which must swell the highest strains of celestial music and deeply increase and augment the joy of the church triumphant.

In the hour of deep distress this woman was sent by G.o.d to relieve the wants of this stricken household, and at the same time lead them "to the Lamb of G.o.d who taketh away the sin of the world." There are many, alas, who see no beauty in the despised Nazarene until, by deep suffering, they are absolutely compelled to completely renounce self and to fall down, wounded and bleeding and bruised and heart-broken at the feet of Him who shed the last drop of his crimson blood on the Cross of Calvary for our salvation.

"Two others," she adds, "at this date, have been led to _study the Bible_ and have openly professed Christ." What extraordinary events cl.u.s.ter around this _special agency_ employed by the Holy Spirit to bring about such a glorious result. It is the enemy's intention to lead persons in distress and misery to commit crime. This is the testimony of all history, but G.o.d saves His own in the hour of peril, and not unfrequently by weak instrumentalities. Near Loch Katrine, encircled by lofty mountains and where the scenery which fringes it is of the wildest character; where, as Scott says in his "Lady of the Lake," the briar rose and fell in streamers green,

And creeping shrubs of thousand dyes, Waved in the west wind's summer sighs, Boon nature scattered free and wild Each plant or flower, the mountain's child, Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there.

The primrose pale and violet flower, Found in each cliff's narrow bower; Foxglove and nightshade side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride; Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft the ash and warrior oak, Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And higher yet the pine-tree hung, His shattered trunk, and frequent flung Where seemed the cliff to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrow sky, So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream.

Here, in a roughly wooded island, the country people secreted their wives and children, and their most valuable effects from the rapacity of Cromwell's soldiers during their inroad into Scotland. The soldiers resolved to plunder this island; an expert swimmer swam toward it to fetch the boat to his comrades, which had carried the women to their place of refuge. It lay moored in one of the creeks; his companions stood watching on the sh.o.r.e; but just as the soldier reached the nearest point of the island, and was laying hold of a black rock to get on sh.o.r.e, a heroine who stood on the very point where he meant to land, hastily s.n.a.t.c.hing a dagger from below her tartan ap.r.o.n, with one quick, sharp stroke severed his jugular vein, killing him instantly.