Amy Harrison Part 2

Amy had watched it with especial care: she had plucked off all the dead flowers around it, and this morning she had been thinking it would just be in beautiful bloom by Sunday, that she might take it to school as a present for Mrs. Mordaunt. And now there sat the baby with that very bud in her lap quietly picking it to pieces, and holding up the scattered leaves in Amy's face, she lisped, "Pretty, pretty!" Amy was too angry and too vexed to think, and it was of no use to scold the baby, so she s.n.a.t.c.hed the rose from the baby's hands, and said, "You good-for-nothing, naughty little thing;" and then she burst into tears. The baby began to cry too, and their mother came out to know what was the matter. "O mother, how could you?" sobbed Amy pa.s.sionately. "Why did you let baby sit close to my rose-bush--my beautiful rose? I had been saving it all the week for Mrs.

Mordaunt--and it was my last."

Mrs. Harrison tried to comfort Amy; and Kitty offered her the best flower in her garden. They both felt very sorry for her. But Amy was not to be comforted, and so they gave up trying. Poor Amy's evening was quite spoilt,--not so much, I think, by the loss of her rose as by the loss of her temper.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRUTH SETTING FREE.

The next day she awoke, out of spirits and out of temper. She did not see why she should always work, while Kitty was enjoying herself in bed. She forgot the joy of serving others, and thought it very hard others should not try to serve her. We are apt to be very strict about other people's duties when we forget our own. So Amy lay in bed until the last moment, and then hurried on her clothes, and hurried over her work, and what was worse, hurried over her prayers, and thus went out to meet the day's temptations unarmed.

It never improves the temper to be hurried; and Amy was still further tried this morning by her father, who was in haste to be off to his work, and wondered why she was so slow.

"It's of no use," grumbled Amy to herself, "to try to do right and please everybody. The more one does, the more people expect. n.o.body thinks of scolding Kitty for being slow."

A day so begun seldom grows bright of itself. There is a suns.h.i.+ne which can scatter even such clouds, but Amy did not look up to that; it did not seem to s.h.i.+ne for her; it never does, _if you will not look up_. She felt very discontented and ill-used; it seemed as if no one cared for her, and everything worked together to torment her; and so things got darker and darker, and Amy's temper more bitter and her heart sorer every moment.

At last her mother went out, and Kitty was sent to the bakehouse, and Amy was left alone to rock the cradle and watch that the kettle did not boil over.

Amy had much rather not have been left alone just then; her own thoughts were not at all pleasant; but as she was alone she could not help thinking. At first she thought how unkind every one was, and of all the wrongs she had had to bear,--of Kitty's laziness, of her mother's rebukes, and then of her beautiful rose, and the naughty baby. "Kitty and the baby might do just what they liked, but if she did the least thing wrong she was scolded and punished." But this thought of the rose led her back to Mrs. Mordaunt's lesson on Sunday.

Had the good seed borne good fruit this week,--this week that was to have been the beginning of a new life? Had it led her to overcome one fault, to be a step nearer to G.o.d and goodness than before? Yet she had prayed and tried. What was then wanting? She was afraid she never should be G.o.d's happy child, she was so full of faults, and no one helped her to overcome them; and yet it was wretched to be as she was.

What should she do?

So she sat rocking the cradle, and thinking of her resolutions and her failures until the tears rolled fast over her cheeks, and all the proud heart within her was melted into sorrow. As she sat thus, her elbows on her knees and her hands hiding her face, she heard a gentle voice at the door. She looked up. It was Mrs. Mordaunt asking for her mother. Amy was ashamed to be seen crying, and rose quickly, and answered as briskly as she could. But Mrs. Mordaunt saw she was unhappy, and she came forward, and laying her hand kindly on her shoulder she asked what was the matter.

Amy's tears flowed faster than ever now, and as soon as she could speak she sobbed out in a faint voice, "O ma'am, I cannot do right,--I cannot be good." Mrs. Mordaunt sat down beside her and said, "Don't despair, my child; you know the little song you sing in school. Try again and again until you succeed. Every one succeeds who goes on trying."

"But I have tried again and again," said poor Amy, "and I only get worse and worse. In the very moment when I want it, the strength goes away."

"Our own strength always will," said the lady. "Have you remembered to ask G.o.d for his strength? Do you remember what I told you about the little seed? its enemies are stronger than itself, but G.o.d is stronger than its enemies."

"I have prayed, ma'am," said Amy mournfully, "but I am ashamed to ask G.o.d any more. I have done what he tells us not so very often, I am afraid he never can love me;" and Amy cried bitterly.

"My child," said Mrs. Mordaunt, taking her hand, "if you had disobeyed your mother, and she were angry with you, would you run away from the house in the night, and choose rather to starve or die of cold than ask her forgiveness?"

Amy was silent.

"And if your mother could not bear to see you in want, and were to come out to you in the cold night with food and kind words, would you turn away from her and say, 'I know she can never love me, I have been so naughty;' and would you refuse to receive her kindness, and ask her forgiveness?"

Amy bent down her head.

"Or would you say," continued Mrs. Mordaunt, "as you saw her coming, 'I will not go to meet her now; I will go and try to earn a few pence, and then I will come back to her and say, "Mother, I am very sorry, but here are some pence I have earned. Will you take them and forgive me, and let me be your child again?"' Would that be _humility_ and _grat.i.tude_, or _pride_ and _ingrat.i.tude_, Amy?"

"Pride and ingrat.i.tude," said Amy in a low voice.

"And when the Lord Jesus says to you, 'You have sinned against me and wronged me, and broken my laws; but I have come down from heaven to earth to seek you; come back to me, and I will receive and forgive you,' would it be humility or pride to say, 'Thou canst not forgive me, I am too sinful; but wait a little while, and I will do something good, and make myself better, and then I will come back to thee'?"

"_Pride_," said Amy. "But I thought G.o.d only loved good children, ma'am; and I am not good."

"G.o.d does only love good children, Amy," said Mrs. Mordaunt very seriously, "and G.o.d knows you cannot be good." Amy looked up in wonder.

"Who was Jesus Christ, Amy?"

"The Son of G.o.d," said Amy.

"And what did he become man and come into this world for?"

Amy answered as she had been taught, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

"To save whom?"

"Sinners."

"Not those who _thought themselves good_, but those who _knew_ they had been _sinful_. What did he save them from?"

"From punishment," said Amy thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "from punishment, and from sin. He came to suffer, that we might be delivered and freely forgiven, and to make us holy. Did it cost him nothing to do this, Amy?"

"He died for it on the cross," said Amy softly.

"He did indeed. And did he suffer all that pain and anguish of mind for nothing?"

Amy did not answer.

"It would have been for nothing," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "if we had still to earn forgiveness for ourselves. Jesus bore the punishment for us just because we could not have borne it; and he has borne it so that we shall never have to bear it now. If, then, you go and _give yourself up_ to the blessed Saviour as _He calls you to do_, G.o.d will receive you for his sake, as if you had been always a good and obedient child, and Jesus will give you his Holy Spirit to abide with you always, and to make you good and obedient and happy."

"I must not wait until I am better for G.o.d to love me, then," said Amy doubtfully.

"Again, do you obey your mother in order to become her child; or do you obey her because she loves you and is your mother, Amy?"

"Because she is my mother," said Amy.

"And will your obedience make you more her child than you are, Amy?"

"No, ma'am."

"But because you are her child and she loves you, does that make you careless of obeying her?"

"If I only could be a better child to please her!" said Amy, the tears gathering in her eyes.

"It is so with G.o.d, my child," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "He loves you, not because you are good, but because he is good--because he is love, and so loved you that he gave his Son that you might be saved. Before you can love him, you must believe his word--that he loves you; and believing he loves you, he will make you good and happy. G.o.d has given the Bible to _tell of his love to you_. Read it, my child; believe it."

Mrs. Harrison came in just then, and Mrs. Mordaunt, after saying a few words to her, rose to leave.

That evening Amy took out her Bible with a new interest. "Can it be possible, indeed," thought she, "that G.o.d has written in this book that he loves me--_me_, a little sinful child! I will look and see."