Stepping Heavenward Part 31

"It is a sin only as you deliberately and wilfully fulfill the conditions that lead to such results. Now I am sure if you could once make up your mind in the fear of G.o.d, never to undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry, and the instant you find yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this simple, common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish. Will you try it for one month, my darling?"

"But we can't afford it," I cried, with almost a groan. "Why, you have told me this very day that our expenses must be cut down, and now you want me to add to them by doing less work. But the work must be done. The children must be clothed, there is no end to the st.i.tches to be taken for them, and your stockings must be mended-you make enormous holes in them! and you don't like it if you ever find a b.u.t.ton wanting to a s.h.i.+rt or your supply of s.h.i.+rts getting low."

"All you say may be very true," he returned, "but I am determined that you shall not be driven to desperation as you have been of late."

By this time we had reached the house where his visit was to be made, and I had nothing to do but lean back and revolve all he had been saying, over and over again, and to see its reasonableness while I could not see what was so be done for my relief. Ah, I have often felt in moments of bitter grief at my impatience with my children, that perhaps G.o.d pitied more than He blamed me for it! And now my dear husband was doing the same!

When Ernest had finished his visit we drove on again in silence.

At last, I asked:

"Do tell me, Ernest, if you worked out this problem all by yourself?"

He smiled a little.

"No, I did not. But I have had a patient for two or three years whose case has interested me a good deal, and for whom I finally prescribed just as I have done for you. The thing worked like a charm, and she is now physically and morally quite well.

"I dare say her husband is a rich man," I said.

"He is not as poor as your husband, at any rate," Ernest replied.

"But rich or poor I am determined not to sit looking on while you exert yourself so far beyond your strength. Just think, dear, suppose for fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars a year you could buy a sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind, would you hesitate one moment to do so? And you can do it if you will. You are not ill-tempered but quick-tempered; the irritability which annoys you so is a physical infirmity which will disappear the moment you cease to be goaded into it by that exacting mistress you have hitherto been to yourself."

All this sounded very plausible while Ernest was talking, but the moment I got home I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my work from mere force of habit.

"I may as well finish this as it is begun," I said to myself, arid the st.i.tches flew from my needle like sparks of fire. Little Ernest came and begged for a story, but I put him off. Then Una wanted to sit in my lap, but I told her I was too busy. In the course of an hour the influence of the fresh air and Ernest's talk had nearly lost their power over me; my thread kept breaking, the children leaned on and tired me, the baby woke up and cried, and I got all out of patience.

"Do go away, Ernest," I said, "and let mamma have a little peace.

Don't you see how busy I am? Go and play with Una like a good boy."

But he would not go, and kept teasing Una till she too, began to cry, and she and baby made a regular concert of it.

"Oh, ,dear!" I! sighed, "this work will never be done!" and threw it down impatiently, and took the baby impatiently, and began to walk up and down with him impatiently. I was not willing that this little darling, whom I love so dearly, should get through with his nap and interrupt my work; yet I was displeased with myself, and tried by kissing him to make some amends for the hasty, un pleasant tones with which I had grieved him and frightened the other children. This evening Ernest came to me with a larger sum of money than he had ever given me at one time.

"Now every cent of this is to be spent," he said, "in having work done. I know any number of poor women who will be thankful to have all you can give them."

Dear me I it is easy to talk, and I do feel grateful to Ernest for his thoughtfulness and kindness. But I am almost in rags, and need every cent of this money to make myself decent. I am positively ashamed to go anywhere, my clothes are so shabby. Besides, supposing I leave off sewing and all sorts of over-doing of a kindred nature, I must nurse baby, I suppose, and be up with him nights and others will have their cross days and their sick and father will have his. Alas, there can be for no royal road to a "sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind!"

JANUARY I, 1844.-Mother says Ernest is entirely right in forbidding my working so hard. I own that I already feel better. I have all the time I need to read my Bible and to pray now, and the children do not irritate and annoy me as they did. Who knows but I shall yet become quite amiable?

Ernest made his father very happy to-day by telling him that ,the last of those wretched debts is paid. I think that he might have told me that this deliverance was at hand. I did not know but we had years of these struggles with poverty before us. What with the relief from this anxiety, my improved state of health, and father's pleasure, I am in splendid spirits to-day. Ernest, too, seems wonderfully cheerful, and we both feel that we may now look forward to a quiet happiness we have never known. With such a husband and such children as mine, I ought to be the most grateful creature on earth. And I have dear mother and James besides. I don't quite know what to think about James' relation to Lucy. He is so brimful running over with happiness that he is also full of fun and of love, and after all he may only like her as a cousin.

FEB. 14.-Father has not been so well of late. It seems as if he kept up until he was relieved about those debts, and then sunk down. I read to him a good deal, and so does mother, but his mind is still dark, and he looks forward to the hour of death with painful misgivings. He is getting a little childish about my leaving him, and clings to me exactly as if I were his own child. Martha spends a good deal of time with him, and fusses over him in a way that I wonder she does not see is annoying to him. He wants to be read to, to hear a hymn sung or a verse repeated, and to be left otherwise in perfect quiet. But she is continually pulling out and shaking up his pillows, bathing his head in hot vinegar and soaking his feet. It looks so odd to see her in one of the elegant silk dresses old .Mr. Underhill makes her wear, with her sleeves rolled up, the skirt hid away under a large ap.r.o.n, rubbing away at poor father till it seems as if his tired soul would fly out of him.

FEB. 20.-Father grows weaker every day. Ernest has sent for his other children, John and Helen. Martha is no longer able to come here; her husband is very sick with a fever, and cannot be left alone. No doubt he enjoys her bustling way of nursing, and likes to have his pillows pushed from under him every five minutes. I am afraid I feel glad that she is kept away, and that I have father all to myself. Ernest never was so fond of me as he is now. I don't know what to make of it.

FEB 22.-John and his wife and Helen have come. They stay at Martha's, where there is plenty of room. John's wife is a little soft dumpling thing, and looks up to him as a mouse would up at a steeple. He strikes me as a very selfish man. He steers straight for the best seat, leaving her standing, if need be, accepts her humble attentions with the air of one collecting his just debt and is continually snubbing and setting her right. Yet in some things he is very like Ernest, and perhaps a wife dest.i.tute of self-a.s.sertion and without much individuality would have spoiled him as Harriet has spoiled John. For I think it must be partly her fault that he dares to be so egotistical. Helen, is the dearest, prettiest creature I ever saw.

Oh, why would James take a fancy to Lucy! I feel the new delight of having a sister to love and to admire. And she will love me in time; I feel sure of it.

MARCH 1.-Father is very feeble and in great mental distress. He gropes about in the dark, and shudders at the approach of death. We can do nothing but pray for him. And the cloud will be lifted when he leaves this world, if not before. For I know he is a good, yes, a saintly man, dear to and dear to Christ.

MARCH 4.-Dear father has gone. We were all kneeling and praying and weeping around him, when suddenly he called me to come to him. I went and let him lean his head on my breast, as he loved to do. Sometimes I have stood so by the hour together ready to sink with fatigue, and only kept up with the thought that if this were my own precious father's bruised head I could stand and hold it forever.

"Daughter Katherine," he said, in his faint, tremulous way, "you have come with me to the very brink of the river. I thank G.o.d for all your cheering words and ways. I thank G.o.d for giving you to be a helpmeet to my son. Farewell, now," he added, in a low, firm voice, "I feel the bottom, and it is good!"

He lay back on his pillow looking upward with an expression of seraphic peace and joy on his worn, meagre face, and so his life pa.s.sed gently away.

Oh, the affluence of G.o.d's payments! What a recompense for the poor love I had given my husband's father, and the poor little services I had rendered him! Oh, that I had never been impatient with him, never smiled at his peculiarities, never in my secret heart felt him unwelcome to my home! And how wholly I overlooked, in my blind selfishness, what he must have suffered in feeling himself, homeless, dwelling with us on sufferance, but master and head nowhere on earth!

May G.o.d carry the lessons home to my heart of hearts, and make the cloud of mingled remorse and shame which now envelops me to descend in showers of love and benediction on every human soul that mine can bless!

Chapter 20

XX.

APRIL.

I HAVE had a new lesson which has almost broken my heart. In looking over his father's papers, Ernest found a little journal, brief in its records indeed, but we learn from it that on all those wedding and birthdays, when I fancied his austere religion made him hold aloof from our merry-making, he was spending the time in fasting and praying for us and for our children! Oh, shall I ever learn the sweet charity that thinketh no evil, and believeth all things? What blessings may not have descended upon us and our children through those prayers! What evils may they not have warded off! Dear old father! Oh, that I could once more put my loving arms about him and bid him welcome to our home! And how gladly would I now confess to him all my unjust judgments concerning him and entreat his forgiveness! Must life always go on thus? Must I always be erring, ignorant and blind? How I hate this arrogant sweeping past my brother man; this utter ignoring of his hidden life?

I see now that it is well for mother that she did not come to live with me at the beginning of my married life. I should not have borne with her little peculiarities, nor have made her half so happy as I can now. I thank G.o.d that my varied disappointments and discomforts, my feeble health, my poverty, my mortifications have done me some little good, and driven me to Him a thousand times because I could not get along without His help. But I am not satisfied with my state in His sight. I am sure something is lacking, though I know not what it is.

MAY Helen is going to stay here and live with Martha How glad how enchanted I am! Old Mr. Underhill is getting well; I saw him to-day.

He can talk of nothing but his illness, of Martha's wonderful skill in nursing him declaring that he owes his life to her. I felt a little piqued at this speech, because Ernest was very attentive to him, and no doubt did his share towards the cure. We have fitted up father's room for a nursery. Hitherto all the children have had to sleep in our room which has been bad for them and bad for us. I have been so afraid they would keep Ernest awake if they were unwell and restless. I have secured an excellent nurse, who is as fresh and blooming as the flower whose name she bears. The children are already attached to her, and I feel that the worst of my life is now over.

JUNE.-Little Ernest was taken sick on the day I wrote that. The attack was fearfully sudden and violent. He is still very, very ill.

I have not forgotten that I said once that I would give my children to G.o.d should He ask for them. but oh, this agony of suspense! It eats into my soul and eats it away. Oh, my little Ernest! My first-born son! My pride, my joy, my hope! And I thought the worst of my life was over!

AUGUST.-We have come into the country with what G.o.d has left us, our two youngest children. Yes, I have tasted the bitter cup of bereavement, and drunk it down to its dregs. I gave my darling to G.o.d, I gave him, I gave him! But, oh, with what anguish I saw those round, dimpled limbs wither and waste away, the glad smile fade forever from that beautiful face! What a fearful thing it is to be a mother! But I have given my child to G.o.d. I would not recall him if I could. I am thankful He has counted me worthy to present Him so costly a gift.

I cannot shed a tear, and I must find relief in writing, or I shall lose my senses. My n.o.ble, beautiful boy! My first-born son! And to think that my delicate little Una still lives, and that death has claimed that bright, glad creature who was the suns.h.i.+ne of our home!

But let me not forget my mercies. Let me not forget that I have a precious husband and two darling children, and my kind, sympathizing mother left to me. Let me not forget how many kind friends gathered about us in our sorrow. Above all let me remember G.o.d's loving-kindness and tender mercy. He has not left us to the bitterness of a grief that refuses and disdains to be comforted. We believe in Him, we love Him, we wors.h.i.+p as we never did before. My dear Ernest has felt this sorrow to his heart's core. But he has not for one moment questioned the goodness or the love of our Father in thus taking from us the child who promised to be our greatest earthly joy Our consent to G.o.d's will has drawn us together very closely, together we bear the yoke in our youth, together we pray and sing praises in the very midst of our tears "I was dumb with silence because Thou didst it."

SEPT. The old pain and cough have come back with the first cool nights of this month Perhaps I am going to my darling- I do not know I am certainly very feeble Consenting to suffer does not annul the suffering Such a child could not go hence without rending and tearing its way out of the heart that loved it. This world is wholly changed to me and I walk in it like one in a dream. And dear Ernest is changed, too. He says little, and is all kindness and goodness to me, but I can see here is a wound that will never be healed. I am confined to my room now with nothing do but to think, think, think. I do not believe G.o.d has taken our child in mere displeasure, but cannot but feel that this affliction might not have been necessary if I had not so chafed and writhed and secretly repined at the way in which my home was invaded, and at our galling poverty. G.o.d has exchanged the one discipline for the other; and oh, how far more bitter is this cup!

Oct. 4.- My darling boy would have been six years old to-day. Ernest still keeps me shut up, but he rather urges my seeing a friend now and. People say very strange things in the way of consolation. I begin to think that a tender clasp of the hand is about all one can give to the afflicted. One says I must not grieve, because my child is better off in heaven. Yes, he is better off; I know it, I .feel it; but I miss him none the less. Others say he might have grown up to be a bad man and broken my heart. Perhaps he might, but I cannot make myself believe that likely. One lady asked me if this affliction was not a rebuke of my idolatry of my darling; and another, if I had not been in a cold, worldly state, needing this severe blow on that account.

But I find no consolation or support in the remarks. My comfort is in my perfect faith in the goodness and love of my Father, my certainty that He had a reason in thus afflicting me that I should admire and adore if I knew what it was. And in the midst of my sorrow I have had and do have a delight in Him hitherto unknown, so that sometimes this room in which I am a prisoner seems like the very gate of heaven.

MAY.-A long winter in my room, and all sorts of painful remedies and appliances and deprivations. And now I am getting well, and drive out every day. Martha sends her carriage, and mother goes with me. Dear mother! How nearly perfect she is! I never saw a sweeter face, nor.

ever heard sweeter expressions of faith in G.o.d, and love to all about her than hers. She has been my tower strength all through these weary months; and she has shared my sorrow and made it her own.

I can see that dear Ernest's affliction and this prolonged anxiety about me have been a heavenly benediction to him I am sure that every mother whose sick child he visits will have a sympathy he could not have given while all our own little ones were alive and well. I thank G.o.d that He has thus increased my dear husband's usefulness as I think that He has mine also How tenderly I already feel towards all suffering children, and how easy it will be now to be patient with them!

KEENE N H JULY 12 It is a year ago this day that the brightest suns.h.i.+ne faded out of our lives, and our beautiful boy was taken from us. I have been tempted to spend this anniversary in bitter tears and lamentations For oh, this sorrow is not healed by time! I feel it more and more But I begged G.o.d when I first awoke this morning not to let me so dishonor and grieve Him. I may suffer, I must suffer, He means it, He wills it, but let it be without repining, without gloomy despondency. The world is full of sorrow; it is not I alone who taste its bitter draughts, nor have I the only right to a sad countenance.

Oh, for patience to bear on, cost what it may!

"Cheerfully and gratefully I lay. myself and all that I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me." This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet.

My dear little Una has improved somewhat in health, but I am never free from anxiety about her. She is my milk-white lamb, my dove, my fragrant flower. One cannot look in her pure face without a sense of peace and rest. She is the sentinel who voluntarily guards my door when I am engaged at my devotions; she is my little comforter when I am sad, my companion and friend at all times. I talk to her of Christ, and always have done, just as I think of Him, and as if I expected sympathy from her in my love to Him. It was the same with my darling Ernest. If I required a little self-denial, I said cheerfully, "This is hard, but doing it for our best Friend sweetens it," and their alacrity was pleasant to see. Ernest threw his whole soul into whatever he did, and sometimes when engaged in play would hesitate a little when directed to do something else, such as carrying a message for me, and the like. But if I said, "If you do this cheerfully and pleasantly, my darling, you do it for Jesus, and that will make Him smile upon you," he would invariably yield at once.