The Home Mission Part 20

Tears came into Henry's eyes. But he said no more. In a moment or two he silently left the room.

"Mrs. Noland! How could you resist that dear little fellow? I declare it was right down cruel in you."

The eyes of Mrs. Stanley glistened as she spoke.

"It would have been far more cruel to him if I had yielded, after once having said 'no'--far more cruel had I given him what I knew would have injured him."

"But, I don't see how you could refuse so dear a child, when he asked you in such a sweet, affectionate manner. I should have given him any thing in the world he had asked for."

"That's not my way. I say 'no' only when I have good reason, and then I never change."

"Never?"

"Never."

Henry appeared at the parlour door again.

"Come in, dear," said Mrs. Noland.

The child came quickly forward, put up his mouth to kiss her, and then nestled closely by his mother's side. The conversation continued, without the slightest interruption from him.

"Dear little fellow," said Mrs. Stanley, once or twice, looking into the child's face, and smoothing his hair with her hand.

When the tea bell rung, the family a.s.sembled in the dining-room. A visiter made it necessary that one of the children should wait.

Henry was by the table as usual.

"Harry, dear," said his mother, "you will have to wait and come with Ellen."

The child felt very much disappointed. He looked up into his mother's face for a moment, and then, without a word, went out of the room.

"Poor little fellow! It is really a pity to make him wait; and he is so good," said Mrs. Stanley. "I am sure we can make room for him. Do call him back, and let him sit by me."

And she moved close to one of the older children as she spoke. "Here is plenty of room."

Mrs. Noland thought for a moment, and then told the waiter to call Henry back. The child came in as quietly as he had gone out, and came up to his mother's side.

"My dear," said Mrs. Noland, "this good lady here has made room for you by her side. You can go and sit by her."

The child's face brightened. He went quickly and took the offered seat. By the time tea was over, Henry had fallen asleep in his chair. Mrs. Noland, when all arose from the table, took Henry in her arms, and went with him, accompanied by Mrs. Stanley, to her chamber, where she undressed him, and kissing fondly his bright young cheek, laid him in his little bed.

Mrs. Stanley stood for some moments over the sleeping child, and looked down upon his calm face. As she did so, she remembered her own little Charley, and under what different circ.u.mstances and feelings he had been put to bed on the evening of Mrs. Noland's visit to her.

Whether the contrast did her any good, we have no means of knowing.

We trust the lesson was not without its good effect upon her.

THE EVENING PRAYER.

"Our Father."

"OUR Father." The mother's voice was low, and tender, and solemn.

"Our Father." On two sweet voices the words were borne upward. It was the innocence of reverent childhood that gave them utterance.

"Who art in the heavens."

"Who art in the heavens," repeated the children, one with her eyes bent meekly down, and the other looking upward, as if she would penetrate the heavens into which her heart aspired.

"Hallowed be Thy name."

Lower fell the voices of the little ones. In a gentle murmur they said: "Hallowed be Thy name."

"Thy kingdom come."

And the burden of the prayer was still taken up by the children--"Thy kingdom come."

"Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven."

Like a low, sweet echo from the land of angels--"Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven," filled the chamber.

And the mother continued--"Give us this day our daily bread."

"Our daily bread" lingered a moment on the air, as the mother's voice was hushed into silence.

"And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors."

The eyes of the children had drooped for a moment. But they were uplifted again as they prayed--"And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors."

"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."

All these holy words were said, piously and fervently, by the little ones, as they knelt with clasped hands beside their mother. Then, as their thoughts, uplifted on the wings of prayer to their heavenly Father, came back again and rested on their earthly parents, a warmer love came gus.h.i.+ng from their hearts.

Pure kisses--tender embraces--the fond "good night." What a sweet agitation pervaded all their feelings! Then two dear heads were placed side by side on the snowy pillow, the mother's last kiss given, and the shadowy curtains drawn.

What a pulseless stillness reigns throughout the chamber! Inwardly the parents' listening ears are bent. They have given these innocent ones into the keeping of G.o.d's angels, and they can almost hear the rustle of their garments as they gather around their sleeping babes.

A sigh, deep and tremulous, breaks on the air. Quickly the mother turns to the father of her children, with a look of earnest inquiry on her countenance. And he answers thus her silent question.

"Far back, through many years, have my thoughts been wandering. At my mother's knee thus said I nightly, in childhood, my evening prayer. It was that best and holiest of all prayers, "Our Father,"

that she taught me. Childhood and my mother pa.s.sed away. I went forth as a man into the world, strong, confident, and self-seeking.

Once I came into great temptation. Had I fallen in that temptation, I would have fallen, I sadly fear, never to have risen again. The struggle in my mind went on for hours. I was about yielding. All the barriers I could oppose to the in-rus.h.i.+ng flood seemed just ready to give way, when, as I sat in my room one evening, there came from an adjoining chamber, now first occupied for many weeks, the murmur of low voices. I listened. At first, no articulate sound was heard, and yet something in the tones stirred my heart with new and strange emotions. At length, there came to my ears, in the earnest, loving voice of a woman, the words--'Deliver us from evil.' For an instant, it seemed to me as if the voice were that of my mother. Back, with a sudden bound through all the intervening years, went my thoughts; and, a child in heart again, I was kneeling at my mother's knee.

Humbly and reverently I said over the words of the holy prayer she had taught me, heart and eyes uplifted to heaven. The hour and the power of darkness had pa.s.sed. I was no longer standing in slippery places, with a flood of waters ready to sweep me to destruction; but my feet were on a rock. My mother's pious care had saved her son. In the holy words she taught me in childhood, was a living power to resist evil through all my after life. Ah! that unknown mother, as she taught her child to repeat his evening prayer, how little dreamed she that the holy words were to reach a stranger's ears, and save him through memories of his own childhood and his own mother!

And yet it was so. What a power there is in G.o.d's Word, as it flows into and rests in the minds of innocent children!"

Tears were in the eyes of the wife and mother as she lifted her face, and gazed with a subdued tenderness upon the countenance of her husband. Her heart was too full for utterance. A little while she thus gazed, and then, with a trembling joy, laid her head upon his bosom. Angels were in the chamber where their dear ones slept, and they felt their holy presence.