Choice Readings for the Home Circle Part 45

Maggie rose from her seat and folded her arms about her teacher's neck.

"I pray G.o.d to teach me the sweet lesson you have learned. I am so sorry that I said 'you had not so much cause for grief as I.' But why do they call you Miss Levick?"

"Your question is very natural. It was simply a mistake on the part of Mrs. Champlan, and I had not energy enough at the time to correct it.

After that I felt it was just as well, I should escape questioning."

They went forth in a few hours, each to her appointed lot, and the angels looked down upon them both.

ALONE.

"Alone with G.o.d!" the keynote this Of every holy life, The secret power of fragrant growth, And victory over strife.

"Alone with G.o.d!" in private prayer And quietness we feel That he draws near our waiting souls, And doth himself reveal.

"Alone with G.o.d!" earth's laurels fade, Ambition tempts not there; The world and self are judged aright, And no false colors wear.

"Alone with G.o.d!" true knowledge gained, While sitting at his feet; We learn life's greatest lessons there, Which make for service meet.

EVENING PRAYER.

"Our Father."

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

"Our Father."

On two sweet voices the tones were borne upward.

It was the innocence of reverent children that gave them utterance.

"Who art in heaven."

"Who art in heaven," 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 was aspiring.

"Hallowed be thy name."

Lower fell the voice 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 by the children--

"Thy will be done on earth as it is 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."

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."

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

What a pulseless stillness reigns without the chamber. Inwardly, the parents' ears are bent. They have given those 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 upon her countenance.

And he answers thus her silent questions:--

"Far back through many years have my thoughts been wandering. At my mother's knee thus said I nightly my childhood's 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 should have fallen never to rise again. I was about yielding. All the barriers I could oppose to it in 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 strong 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 that voice were that of my mother. Back with a sudden bound, through all the intervening years, went my thoughts, and a child 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 eye uplifted to heaven. The hour and power of darkness had pa.s.sed. I was no longer standing in slippery places, with a flood of water ready to sweep me to destruction; but my feet were on a rock. My pious mother's care had saved her son. In the holy words she had 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 this evening prayer, how little dreamed she that the holy words were to reach a stranger's ears, and save him through the memory 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 childhood."

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 hand upon his bosom.

Angels were in the chamber where their dear ones slept, and they felt their holy presence.

Hallowed, ay, hallowed! not alone in prayer, But in our daily thoughts and daily speech; At altar and at hearthstone--everywhere That temple-priests or home-apostles preach.

Oh, not by words alone, but by our deeds, And by our faith, and hope, and spirit's flame, And by the nature of our private creeds, We hallow best, and glorify _thy_ Name.

Nature doth hallow it. In every star, And every flower, and leaf, and leaping wave, She praises Thee, who, from Thy realm afar, Such stores of beauty to this fair earth gave.

But these alone should not Thy love proclaim-- Our hearts, our souls respond--"_All hallowed be Thy Name_."

THE HAPPY NEW YEAR

"Happy New Year, papa!" The sitting-room doors were thrown open, and a sweet little girl came bounding in. Her cheeks were all aglow. Smiles played around her cherry lips, and her eyes were dancing with sunny light.

"Happy New Year, my sweet one!" responded Mr. Edgar, as he clasped the child fondly to his heart. "May all your New Years be happy," he added, in a low voice, and with a prayer in his heart.