Stories Worth Rereading Part 33

Nevertheless, Susi and Chuma took up their precious burden, and, looking to Livingstone's G.o.d for help, began the most remarkable funeral march on record. They followed the track their master had marked with his footsteps when he penetrated to Lake Bangweolo, pa.s.sing to the south of Lake Lumbi, which is a continuation of Tanganyika, then crossing to Unyanyembe, where it was found out that they were carrying a dead body. Shelter was hard to get, or even food; and at Kasekera they could get nothing for which they asked, except on condition that they would bury the remains they were carrying.

Now indeed their love and generalship were put to a new test. But again they were equal to the emergency. They made up another package like the precious burden, only it contained branches instead of human bones; and this, with mock solemnity, they bore on their shoulders to a safe distance, scattered the contents far and wide in the brushwood, and came back without the bundle. Meanwhile others of their party had repacked the remains, doubling them up into the semblance of a bale of cotton cloth, and so they once more managed to procure what they needed and go on with their charge.

The true story of that nine months' march has never been written, and it never will be, for the full data cannot be supplied. But here is material waiting for some coming English Homer or Milton to crystallize into one of the world's n.o.blest epics; and it deserves the master hand of a great poet artist to do it justice.

See these black men, whom some scientific philosophers would place at one remove from the gorilla, run all manner of risks, by day and night, for forty weeks; now going around by circuitous route to resort to strategem to get their precious burden through the country; sometimes forced to fight their foes in order to carry out their holy mission. Follow them as they ford the rivers and travel trackless deserts; facing torrid heat and drenching tropical storms; daring perils from wild beasts and relentless wild men; exposing themselves to the fatal fever, and burying several of their little band on the way. Yet on they went, patient and persevering, never fainting nor halting, until love and grat.i.tude had done all that could be done, and they laid down at the feet of the British consul, on the twelfth of March, 1874, all that was left of Scotland's great hero.

When, a little more than a month later, the coffin of Livingstone was landed in England, April 15, it was felt that no less a shrine than Britain's greatest burial-place could fitly hold such precious dust. But so improbable and incredible did it seem that a few rude Africans could actually have done this splendid deed, at such a cost of time and such risk, that not until the fractured bones of the arm, which the lion crushed at Jabotsa thirty years before, identified the body, was certain that this was Livingstone's corpse. And then, on the eighteenth of April, 1874, such a funeral cortege entered the great abbey of Britain's ill.u.s.trious dead as few warriors or heroes or princes ever drew to that mausoleum.

The faithful body-servants who had religiously brought home every relic of the person or property of the great missionary explorer were accorded places of honor. And well they might be. No triumphal procession of earth's mightiest conqueror ever equaled for sublimity that lonely journey through Africa's forests. An example of tenderness, grat.i.tude, devotion, heroism, equal to this, the world had never seen. The exquisite inventiveness of a love that lavished tears as water on the feet of Jesus, and made tresses of hair a towel, and broke the alabaster flask for his anointing; the feminine tenderness that lifted his mangled body from the cross and wrapped it in new linen, with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb, have at length been surpa.s.sed by the ingenious devotion of the cursed sons of Canaan.

The grandeur and pathos of that burial scene, amid the stately columns and arches of England's famous Abbey, pale in l.u.s.ter when contrasted with that simpler scene near Ilala, when, in G.o.d's greater cathedral of nature, whose columns and arches are the trees, whose surpliced choir are the singing birds, whose organ is the moaning wind, the gra.s.sy carpet was lifted, and dark hands laid Livingstone's heart to rest, In that great cortege that moved up the nave no truer n.o.bleman was found than that black man, Susi, who in illness had nursed the Blantyre hero, had laid his heart in Africa's bosom, and whose hand was now upon his pall.

Let those who doubt and deride Christian missions to the degraded children of Africa, who tell us that it is not worth while to sacrifice precious lives for the sake of these doubly lost millions of the Dark Continent,--let such tell us whether it is not worth while, at any cost, to seek out and save men with whom such Christian heroism is possible.

Burn on, thou humble candle, burn within thy hut of gra.s.s, Though few may be the pilgrim feet that through Ilala pa.s.s; G.o.d's hand hath lit thee, long to shine, and shed thy holy light Till the new day-dawn pour its beams o'er Afric's long midnight.

--_Arthur T. Pierson_, in "The Miracles of Missions," second series.

SPARE MOMENTS

A lean, awkward boy came to the door of the princ.i.p.al of a celebrated school one morning, and asked to see him. The servant eyed his mean clothes, and thinking he looked more like a beggar than anything else, told him to go around to the kitchen. The boy did as he was bidden, and soon appeared at the back door.

"I should like to see Mr. Slade," said he.

"You want a breakfast, more like," said the servant girl, "and I can give you that without troubling him."

"Thank you," said the boy; "I should like to see Mr. Slade, if he can see me."

"Some old clothes maybe you want," remarked the servant again, eying the boy's patched clothes. "I guess he has none to spare; he gives away a sight." And, without minding the boy's request, she went about her work.

"May I see Mr. Slade?" again asked the boy, after finishing his bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Well, he is in the library; if he must be disturbed, he must. He does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl in a peevish tone.

She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such a fellow into her master's presence. However, she wiped her hands, and bade him follow.

Opening the library door, she said:--

"Here's somebody, sir, who is dreadful anxious to see you, and so I let him in."

I do not know how the boy introduced himself, or now he opened the business, but I know that, after talking awhile, the princ.i.p.al put aside the volume that he was studying, and took up some Greek books, and began to examine the boy. The examination lasted for some time. Every question the princ.i.p.al asked was answered promptly.

"Upon my word," exclaimed the princ.i.p.al, "you do well!" looking at the boy from head to foot over his spectacles. "Why, my boy, where did you pick up so much?"

"In my spare moments," answered the boy.

Here was a poor, hard-working boy, with few opportunities for schooling, yet almost fitted for college by simply improving his spare moments.

Truly are spare moments the "gold-dust of time"! How precious they should be regarded! What account can you give for your spare moments? What can you show for them? Look and see. This boy can tell you how very much can be laid up by improving them; and there are many, very many other boys, I am afraid, in jail and in the house of correction, in the forecastle of a whaleship, in the gambling-house, in the tippling-shop, who, if you should ask them when they began their sinful course, might answer, "In my spare moments." "In my spare moments I gambled for marbles." "In my spare moments I began to swear and drink." "It was in my spare moments that I began to steal chestnuts from the old woman's stand." "It was in my spare moments that I gathered with wicked a.s.sociates."

Then be very careful how you spend your spare moments. The tempter always hunts you out in small seasons like these; when you are not busy, he gets into your hearts, if he possibly can, in just such gaps. There he hides himself, planning all sorts of mischief Take care of your spare moments.--_Selected_.

A GOLD MEDAL

[Right and generous deeds are not always rewarded nor always recognized; but the doing of them is our duty, even diough they pa.s.s unnoticed.

Sometimes, however, a n.o.ble, unselfish, manly act is met by a reward that betrays, on the part of the giver, the same praiseworthy spirit as that which prompted the act. Do right, be courteous, be n.o.ble, though man may never express his appreciation. The G.o.d of right will, in his own good time, give the reward.]

I shall never forget a lesson I once received. We saw a boy named Watson driving a cow to pasture. In the evening he drove her back again, we did not know where. This was continued several weeks.

The boys attending the school were nearly all sons of wealthy parents, and some of them were dunces enough to look with disdain on a student who had to drive a cow. With admirable good nature Watson bore all their attempts to annoy him.

"I suppose, Watson," said Jackson, another boy, one day, "I suppose your father intends to make a milkman of you?"

"Why not?" asked Watson.

"O, nothing! Only don't leave much water in the cans after you rinse them, that's all."

The boys laughed, and Watson, not in the least mortified, replied:--

"Never fear. If ever I am a milkman, I'll give good measure and good milk."

The day after this conversation, there was a public examination, at which ladies and gentlemen from the neighboring towns were present, and prizes were awarded by the princ.i.p.al of our school. Both Watson and Jackson received a creditable number; for, in respect to scholarship, they were about equal. After the ceremony of distribution, the princ.i.p.al remarked that there was one prize, consisting of a gold medal, which was rarely awarded, not so much on account of its great cost, as because the instances were rare which rendered its bestowal proper. It was the prize of heroism.

The last medal was awarded about three years ago to a boy in the first cla.s.s, who rescued a poor girl from drowning.

The princ.i.p.al then said that, with the permission of the company, he would relate a short anecdote:--

"Not long ago some boys were flying a kite in the street, just as a poor lad on horseback rode by on his way to the mill. The horse took fright and threw the boy, injuring him so badly that he was carried home, and confined some weeks to his bed. Of the boys who had unintentionally caused the disaster, none followed to learn the fate of the wounded lad. There was one boy, however, who witnessed the accident from a distance, who not only went to make inquiries, but stayed to render service.

"This boy soon learned that the wounded boy was the grandson of a poor widow, whose sole support consisted in selling the milk of a cow, of which she was the owner. She was old and lame, and her grandson, on whom she depended to drive her cow to the pasture, was now helpless with his bruises. 'Never mind,' said the friendly boy, 'I will drive the cow.'

"But his kindness did not stop there. Money was wanted to get articles from the apothecary. 'I have money that my mother sent me to buy boots with,'

said he, 'but I can do without them for a while.' 'O, no,' said the old woman, 'I can't consent to that; but here is a pair of heavy boots that I bought for Thomas, who can't wear them. If you would only buy these, we should get on nicely.' The boy bought the boots, clumsy as they were, and has worn them up to this time.

"Well, when it was discovered by the other boys at the school that our student was in the habit of driving a cow, he was a.s.sailed every day with laughter and ridicule. His cowhide boots in particular were made matter of mirth. But he kept on cheerfully and bravely, day after day, never shunning observation, driving the widow's cow and wearing his thick boots. He never explained why he drove the cow; for he was not inclined to make a boast of his charitable motives. It was by mere accident that his kindness and self-denial were discovered by his teacher.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, Was there not true heroism in this boy's conduct? Nay, Master Watson, do not get out of sight behind the blackboard. You were not afraid of ridicule; you must not be afraid of praise."

As Watson, with blushing cheeks, came forward, a round of applause spoke the general approbation, and the medal was presented to him amid the cheers of the audience.--_The Children's Own_.