The Little Gleaner Part 71

"A great change was seen in him after this. His mind seemed much brighter, and he laid more calm and quiet. I told him that he perhaps might feel after this comfort some distress of mind again, and he said, 'I have been in distress of mind, father, and the Lord has blessed me.'

This was about a week before he died. We thought he would have been taken away sooner, and he felt so himself, for soon after his deliverance he called us all around him, and shook hands with us all, and gave each one something to keep in remembrance of him. I asked him then if he felt the Lord was with him. He said, 'Yes, I fancy I can see Him coming.' But he recovered from this, and I then said to him, 'The Lord did not come as soon as you expected?' and he answered, 'No; but I must wait the Lord's time.'

"He asked once that I would pray to the Lord to come and take him, and then asked his sisters to sing the hymn commencing, 'How sweet the name of Jesus sounds.' He then said, 'Oh, now I could sing!' I asked him if he could sing that hymn. He said, 'Yes, if I had breath.' Mr. Reed asked him if he could say that Jesus had done all things well. He answered, 'Yes, I have said so, and I can say it again.' He was then asked what his hopes for eternity were. He soon replied, 'Nothing but the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.'

"Speaking to one of his sisters, he said, 'I hope that you pray to the Lord to be your Saviour, and that you read your Bible. Once I did not like reading it, and when father made me come in to read, it almost made me cry, but now it is the best treasure I have on earth.'

"I asked him if he had anything to tell Mr. Daw, 'Yes,' he replied, 'the first Sunday after uncle was buried, June 24th, 1888, when he was preaching from this, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," I felt blessed then, and the tears ran down my face, but the feeling was soon gone.'

"The hymn commencing--

"Awake, ye saints, and sweetly sing The ascended Saviour's love,

was very much blessed to him, and he asked for it to be sung when he was once suffering much for want of breath; then he said, 'I feel as though I could jump into the arms of Jesus.'

"About half-an-hour before he died he cried out, 'Oh, what a mighty Saviour! I shall soon be before the throne, and sing the praises of the Lamb. Don't sorrow.' I said, 'Not for you,' and he replied, 'No.'

"One remarking how ill he seemed, he said, 'I hope I shall soon be better.' 'When you get to heaven,' I whispered, and he said, 'Yes.'

"At another time a remark was made about his pillow being hard. He said, 'It will be soft in heaven.'

"The last audible words from his lips were, 'Rest, father!' and so he died on the 22nd day of August, 1888, aged sixteen years."

Here the father's narrative ends, and truly we can hope that he went right to heaven, and that for him to die was gain. Brother and sister now lie side by side in the pleasant burial-ground at Bodle Street, awaiting the resurrection morning. Can we not, to close these few lines, also say the last verse of the hymn of which we have given the first--

"On earth they sought the Saviour's grace, On earth they loved His name, So now they see His blessed face, And stand before the Lamb"?

J. D.

DENIED, YET ANSWERED.

When Augustine, in his home at Carthage, resolved to visit Rome, his mother wished either to prevent him from going, or to go with him. He would listen to neither proposal, and resorted to a trick to carry out his plan. One evening he went to the sea-sh.o.r.e, and his mother followed.

There were two chapels dedicated to the memory of the martyr Cyprian, and he pressed her to spend one evening in the church of the martyr, while he would accompany a friend on board a s.h.i.+p, there to say farewell. While she was there in tears, praying and wrestling with G.o.d to prevent the voyage, Augustine sailed for Italy, and his deceived mother next morning found herself alone. In quiet resignation she returned to the city, and continued to pray for the salvation of her son. Though meaning well, yet she erred in her prayers, for the journey of Augustine was the means of his salvation. The denial of the prayer was, in fact, the answering of it. Instead of the husk, G.o.d granted rather the substance of her pet.i.tion in the conversion of her son.

"Therefore," said he, "O G.o.d, Thou hadst regard to the aim and essence of her desires, and didst not do what she then prayed for, that Thou mightest do for me what she continually implored."

HONOURING THE LORD'S DAY.

The following interesting incident was related to the writer by a gentleman, who had the narrative from the merchant himself to whom it occurred.

When a youth, the latter obtained a situation in a provision store in one of the great mercantile cities of the United States. On the first Sat.u.r.day evening, he was told by his employer that he would be expected to be at his business post the next day, the same as usual. On the lad respectfully replying that he could not do so, as he had always been taught by his friends to honour the Lord's Day, he was bluntly told that, if he would not do what he was asked, he might come on Monday morning and get his wages, as there would be no further occasion for his services.

We may imagine how such a notice was calculated to discourage the youth; nevertheless he kept to his resolution, and, after a Sabbath spent in a right manner, proceeded on the Monday to get his discharge.

It was his duty to open the store, and as he was on his way to it, he noticed a man, as the morning was dark, trying to make out the inscriptions over the warehouse doors.

Asking him what he wanted, the man replied that he was a s.h.i.+p-captain, and was looking for a provision store in order to get supplies for his vessel, which was coming down the river with the tide. The youth willingly, forgetting his employer's unkind threat of dismissal, at once told the stranger that if he would go with him to his master's premises, he would be sure to find there the articles he was in search of.

On getting to the stores, the captain selected a large supply of provisions, for which he paid well. In short, it was an excellent commercial transaction. When he came to pay the money, the chief clerk, who had now made his appearance, made out the account, and saw that the notes given in payment were those of good banks--a point of no small importance in those days of unsound American currency. By this time, too, the stranger's s.h.i.+p had arrived at the wharf attached to the store, and the goods were placed on board of it, when it proceeded on its voyage.

At a later hour the youth's employer came to business, and the clerk told him that the new lad had been doing an excellent stroke of business before others were astir that morning.

"A very good price, too, he has got for the goods," said the master, as he looked at the invoice. "But," he continued, "depend upon it, he has been taken in, and got bad notes."

"No," replied the clerk; "that's all right. I attended to that myself."

Presently the youth came up to his employer's desk.

"Well," said he, good-humouredly, "what do you want?"

"Oh, sir, you told me I was to come to you to-day, and get my wages and my dismissal."

"Nonsense!" rejoined the master; "go to your work, and let me hear no more of that."

So to work he went, and kept his situation, and a good conscience. When our informant heard the anecdote from him, he had become a successful trader, G.o.d having blessed his youthful conscientiousness.

This incident reminds us of another of somewhat the same character, which was told us by a gentleman, now dead, who at the time held a very important position on the staff of one of our great religious societies.

"When I was a youth," so his narrative ran, "I was sent by my friends to one of the princ.i.p.al towns in an island in the West Indies, to be apprenticed as an articled clerk to a firm of solicitors there. My connections at home, although not Evangelical Christians, respected religion, and when I left, they counselled me to be always particular in observing the Lord's Day and reverencing it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT?" (_See page 252._)]

"On getting to my new situation, the managing clerk, at the close of the first week, told me that I should be expected to put in my appearance at the office on Sunday. I told him that I had been always taught not to do any work on that day, and that I meant to go to church. To church I accordingly went. On the Monday, when I returned to the office, one of the partners, a lively little man, looked hard at me, but said nothing.

The next Sunday and the next I pursued the same course, without any objection being made to it. There were other articled clerks in the office, and they, seeing what I did, gradually did the same, without any opposition from the princ.i.p.als. In course of time, some of the partners ceased to come, until at last the little man I have named was the only one who came, and that for an hour or two. Even this in time ceased, and the office was shut up on the Sunday. Then, more curious still, the other solicitors in the town followed the example that our office had set, till, ere long, no business at all was done on the Lord's Day by any solicitor in the place."

A third anecdote connected with the Lord's Day may here also appropriately be given. The incident occurred to the grandfather of the gentleman who narrated it to us.

The late Lord L---- was well known as a brave warrior during the Peninsular War. His lords.h.i.+p, on his return to Scotland, was anxious to have some timber on his estate cut down, that he might discharge certain pressing debts. Without giving any notice of his intention, he called one Sunday morning upon my friend's grandfather, just as he was preparing to go with his family to church, and asked him to walk with him over the estate, that they might together see what timber was fit for cutting.

The grandfather respectfully replied that that day he had another Master whom he must serve, but that he would be ready at any hour on a working day to be promptly at his lords.h.i.+p's service. His lords.h.i.+p merely said, "Very well," and named another day, when the agent attended him, and did the work that was wanted of him, apparently to his lords.h.i.+p's satisfaction.

The matter seemed to have blown over, when shortly afterwards the agent, who had been many years in his lords.h.i.+p's service, received a notice that he was wanted to meet Lord L---- at the office of his man of business on a particular day, and in a neighbouring town. The request was an unusual one, and much surmising took place among his friends as to what could be the meaning of it.

"Depend upon it," said some, who pretended to see farther than others, "his lords.h.i.+p, though he said nothing at the time, has taken offence at your refusal to work for him on Sunday, and, now that the business is finished, intends to give you notice of dismissal."

The day came, and the agent kept the appointment, when, to his joyful surprise, instead of giving a notice of dismissal, his lords.h.i.+p told him, with expressions of esteem, that he desired to show his sense of the conscientious manner in which he had so long discharged his duties, and that he had asked him to attend in order that he might settle a pension upon him.

The reader may imagine his happiness when he found all his fears at an end, and had this proof of the approbation of his conduct by a divine and an earthly master. The worthy man lived long to enjoy Lord L----'s bounty, having died at the age of 102. On the anniversary of his hundredth birthday, some of his neighbours, by whom he was much respected, entertained him at a public dinner, and gave him a Bible, accompanied with the hope that he might have to the end of his pilgrimage the guidance of Him who had guided him "a hundred years."--H.

M., in _Friendly Greetings_.