Stories Worth Rereading Part 43

"Get right down here and tell him what you want."

"But," he said, "I was never on my knees in my life. I have been cursing all the day, and I don't know how to pray, or what to pray for."

"Well," I said, "it is mortifying to call on G.o.d for mercy when you have never used his name except in oaths, but he will not turn you away. Ask G.o.d to forgive you, if you want to be forgiven."

He knelt down and prayed, only a few sentences. After he prayed, he rose and said, "What shall I do now?"

I said, "Go down to the church, and tell the people there that you want to be an out-and-out Christian."

"I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to church except to some funeral."

"Then it is high time for you to go for something else," I said.

At the next church meeting the man was there, and I sat right in front of him. He stood up and put his hands on the seat, and he trembled so much that I could feel the seat shake. He said:--

"My friends, you know all about me; if G.o.d can save a wretch like me, I want to have you pray for my salvation."

That was thirty years ago. Some time since I was back in that town, but did not see him. But when I was in California, a man asked me to have dinner with him. I told him I could not do so. Then he asked me if I remembered him, and told me his name.

"O!" I exclaimed. "Tell me, have you ever sworn since that night you knelt in your drawing-room, and asked G.o.d to help you?"

"No," he replied, "I have never had a desire to swear since then."--_D.L.

Moody, in "Weighed in the Balances," Published by Morgan & Scott._

THE CAROLS OF BETHLEHEM CENTER

There might have been no church had not the Rev. James McKenzie come just when it seemed tottering to a fall. There might have been no Sunday-school had not Harold Thornton tended it as carefully as he tended his own orchard. There might have been no cla.s.s number four had it not been for Gertrude Windsor. But there would have been no glad tidings in one wintry heart save for the voices with which Eddie and the two w.i.l.l.i.e.s and Charlie and little Phil sang the carols that morning in the snow; and they came straight from Him who gave the angels the songs of, "On earth peace, good will to men."

At the end of the winter term in Gertrude's junior year the doctor had prescribed a year of rest for her, and she had come to find it with Aunt Mehitable, in the quiet of Bethlehem Center.

On her first Sunday she attended the little Sunday-school, and at the close of service there was an official conference.

"She would be just the one if she would," said the pastor.

"It can't go on as it is," answered the superintendent. "The deacon means well, but he doesn't know boys. There wasn't one here today, and only Eddie last Sunday. I wish she'd be chorister, too," he added. "Did you hear her sing?"

"I doubt if she would do that. I am told she nearly broke down in college, and is here to rest."

"Yes, so Mr. Thompson told me. But we do need her."

"Well, I will call on her, and let you know what I learn."

Gertrude hesitated; for had not the doctor said "It is not so much college, Miss Windsor; it is church and Sunday-school and Christian Endeavor and Student Volunteer, and all the rest on top of college work that is breaking you down, and you must stop it"?

But the wistful face of Harry, who brought their milk, decided her; and the second Sunday saw her instructing Eddie and little Phil in the quarterly temperance lesson. It was not until school was over that she learned the reason of little Phil's conscious silence; and next day, when she met him with his father on the street, she tried to atone for her former ignorance.

"Are you Phil's father?" she asked, stepping toward them.

Tim Shartow, who was believed by some to regard neither G.o.d, man, nor the devil, grew strangely embarra.s.sed as he took her hand, after a hurried inspection of his own.

"Yes'm," he answered.

"I am to be his Sunday-school teacher," she went on; "and of course I want to know the fathers and mothers of my boys. I hope Phil can come regularly.

We are going to have some very interesting lessons."

"I guess he can come," answered his father. "It's a better place for him than on the street, anyway."

This was faint praise, but well meant. Gertrude smiled her appreciation, and in that brief meeting won not only Phil's lifelong regard, but, had she known it, that of his father as well; for thenceforth Tim Shartow felt that he had two friends in Bethlehem Center of whom he need not be ashamed.

His other friend was the Rev. James McKenzie. The mutual though qualified respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when Mr. McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked permission to tack up some bills advertising his revival services.

"I guess you can," the proprietor had answered, standing alertly on his guard.

The bills had been posted, and the unwonted visitor turned to the man behind the bar. They were alone together.

"We should be very glad, Mr. Shartow," he said, "if you would attend some of the meetings."

"It'll be a cold day when I do," answered the saloon-keeper.

Mr. McKenzie did not reply.

"The worst enemies I've got are in that church," added Tim, by way of explanation.

A smile lighted up the pastor's earnest face. "No, Mr. Shartow," he said, "you're wrong. They don't like your business,--_I_ don't like your business,--but you haven't an enemy in our church. And I want to tell you now"--his foot was upon the bar rail, and he was looking straight into the eyes of the man to whom he spoke--"that every night, as I pray that G.o.d will remove this saloon, I shall pray that he will bring you to know my Saviour. And if ever you need help that I can give, I want you to feel free to come to me. We are traveling different roads, Mr. Shartow, but we are not enemies; we are friends."

And the pastor departed, leaving Tim, the saloonkeeper, "that shook up," to use his own phrase, that it is doubtful whether he ever entirely regained his former att.i.tude toward "them church folks."

By Gertrude's second Sunday as teacher, the two w.i.l.l.i.e.s had come to test the truth of rumors that had reached them. Charlie and Harry came next, and, after Gertrude announced the mid-week cla.s.s-meetings as a reward for full attendance, not one absence occurred for thirteen weeks.

To Harold Thornton it had the look of a miracle that the cla.s.s for whom no teacher could be found was as clay in the hands of the potter. There was nothing Gertrude could not do with them. They listened spellbound while she talked, took part in the responsive readings, answered questions, studied their lessons, sat wherever the superintendent wished; they even pocketed their papers without a glance at them until the session was over. And they sang with a wild abandon that was exhilarating to hear. Even Harry, who held throughout the note on which his voice first fastened, never failed to sing; and, though it added little to the harmony, it spoke volumes for the spirit of the school and the devotion to the chorister.

But if Gertrude was doing much for the boys, they were doing much for Gertrude; and in obeying her orders to rest, exercise, and grow strong, she could not have had better helpers. From the time when the first pale blossoms of the bloodroot showed beside the snow, through the seasons of violets and wild strawberries and goldenrod, to the time when the frost had spread the ground with the split shucks of the hickory-nuts, the spoil of all the woodland was brought to her.

Their cla.s.s-meetings became long tramps, during which Gertrude told them interesting things about insects, birds, and flowers, and they told as much that was strange to her. Every one of them had become a conspirator in the plot to keep her out of doors, away from her books; hardly a day pa.s.sed that she did not go somewhere with one or more of them. And as the healthy color began to show beneath the tan, as strength came back, and every pulse beat brought the returning joy of life, she often felt that all her work for cla.s.s number four had been repaid a hundredfold.

It was one mid-August afternoon, when the ta.s.seled corn stood high, and the thistles had begun to take wing and fly away to join the dandelions, that there came the first thoughts of the carols. Harry had to drive cows that day; but the others were with her, and as they came out through Mr.

Giertz's woods, and looked down upon the pasture where the sheep were feeding, little Phil began the quaint old version of the shepherd psalm that she had taught them,--

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want; He maketh me down to lie,"--

and, the other boys joining, they sang through to the end.

It was beautiful. She had never realized that they could sing so well, and, suddenly, as she listened, the plan came full-grown into her mind, and she proposed it then and there. The boys were jubilant; for a half-hour they discussed details; and then, "all seated on the ground," like those of whom they sang, she taught them the beginning of, "While shepherds watched their flocks by night."