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The Old Stone House

A >> Anne March >> The Old Stone House




Thus, trained in these habits, the children grew into men and women
with physical health to help them in their contest with evil. And it,
is a great help. Aunt Faith knew that all the cleanliness in the world
could not compensate for the lack of godliness, but she reasoned that
while first attention should be paid to the inside of the platter,
certainly second attention should be given to the outside that both
may be clean together. A clean heart in a clean body, she thought, was
better than a clean heart in a dirty body; health and steady nerves
help a man to be orderly and even-tempered, while nervousness,
dyspepsia and weakness are so many additional temptations besetting
him on every side.

This July Sunday, the cousins started from the old stone house with
time enough for a leisurely walk amid the music of the bells, arriving
at the church-door before the service commenced, without hurry, quiet
and composed, and ready to join in the worship without distracting
thoughts. The church was full, Aunt Faith had two pews, one for
herself with Gem and Tom, another immediately behind for Sibyl,
Bessie, and Hugh. As the organ was pealing out the opening voluntary,
a young girl came up the aisle and entered the first seat; Aunt Faith
looked up and recognizing Margaret Brown, she smiled and pressed her
hand cordially. When she visited Margaret, she asked her to accept a
seat in her pew when ever she desired to come to that church, but the
invitation had passed from her mind among the occupations of her busy
life, so that she was surprised as well as pleased when the young girl
appeared. Aunt Faith had no respect for persons; she thought of them
only as so many souls sent into the world, all equally dear to the
Creator, and precious to the Saviour of mankind. That there were great
differences in their lot on earth, that some were more easily tempted
than others, that, some had apparently small chance for improvement
and religious privileges while others found all ready to their hand,
that some suffered trouble, affliction, sickness and hard labor while
others seemed to pass through life without a cloud, she well knew, but
she did not attempt to explain it. She left it all in the hands of a
Higher Wisdom and addressed herself to the evident duty that lay
before her. Some of her friends said that she was narrow minded, that
she had no interest in the progress of humanity; it is true that she
cared more about having the children of the Irish laborer, down on the
flats, washed and comfortably dressed, than about an essay on
philanthropy, and took more pleasure in aiding Margaret Brown than in
talking about the sufferings of human nature; but perhaps she was none
the worse for that. Once when an enthusiastic lady called to ask her
aid in establishing an International Society for Reform, Aunt Faith
listened quietly, and then said, "I will join you, Mrs. B------, when
I have the leisure time at my disposal." She never found the time, but
in her answer, she was not insincere. If she had been left unemployed,
she might have joined some organization for religious work, and
esteemed it a pleasant privilege, but as it was, her daily home duties
stood first, and as long as they surrounded her, she did not lift her
eyes beyond.

The minister was an old man, who had officiated in the same church
many years of his life, and hoped to die, as he expressed it, "in the
harness." The people loved him, and respected his wishes with more
unanimity than they might have given to a younger man; there was no
discord, no restless desire for novelty among the congregation, and
the various good works connected with the church moved forward at a
steady pace, growing with the growth of the town, but not running into
any violent extremes to the right hand or the left.

Mr. Hays, the venerable minister, was a gentle, kind-hearted man; the
children in the Sunday school listened to him with attention, and
their parents loved to hear his sermons. He had the rare faculty of
interesting children, and when he addressed them, the teachers had no
difficulty in keeping their classes in order, because the children
really wished to hear what he said. In church, among older hearers,
the effect was the same; his sermons were simple, but all liked to
hear them. As he grew older, he seemed to think more and more of the
beautiful words, "God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten son;" on this text all that he said and did was founded, and
he never wearied of telling his hearers about this great love, and
urging them to give their reverent affection in return.

"If we were all like Mr. Hays, the world would be a very different
place, Aunt Faith," said Hugh, as they walked home together; "I
suppose he has had nothing but love all his life."

"You are greatly mistaken, Hugh. He has endured severe suffering, and
no doubt the want of earthly affection has taught him to appreciate
the dearer worth of heavenly love."

"I thought he had lived here in Westerton for forty years without
anything to disturb his quiet," said Hugh.

"Because his troubles came to him long ago, they were none the less
heavy to bear, Hugh. Before he came here, a half-brother to whom he
had trusted all his little fortune, disappeared, carrying the whole
with him; and not only that, but upon hearing of his loss, the young
girl to whom he was engaged, broke her promise and married another.
Thus he was left doubly bereft; not only forsaken and injured, but
also wounded by the discovery of treachery in those he trusted with
all his heart."

"I could never recover from such a blow," said impulsive Hugh; "the
thought of being deceived and betrayed by those we love and trust is
fearful to me."

"It was fearful to Mr. Hays also, Hugh; after a short time he came to
Westerton, and threw his whole strength into his work. It may have
been a hard struggle at first, but you can yourself see how he has
conquered at last; love is the groundwork of all he says and all he
does, and his sufferings instead of turning his heart into bitterness,
seem rather to have given it a new sweetness."

"Yes, that is why I like Mr. Hays. He is not censorious. He does not
denounce sin so continually that he has no time to tell of
forgiveness; he does not keep us so constantly trembling over the past
that we have not the courage to hope for better things in the future;
I like him for that."

Aunt Faith did not reply. She knew when to be silent, and she had long
hoped that the gentle, fervent words of the good old man would yet
bring her impulsive nephew into the right path. She knew that much
harm was sometimes done by too much urging, and when she saw that Mr.
Hays' words had made an impression upon Hugh, she left the impression
to sink by its own weight.

The Sunday-noon meal at the old stone house was always a simple lunch,
prepared the previous day in order to give the servants full liberty
to attend church. It was, however, abundant and attractive. In the
winter, Aunt Faith added a hot soup, prepared by her own hands, but at
this season of the year, cold dishes were the most appetizing.
Directly after lunch the family dispersed, Sibyl, Bessie, and Hugh
going to their rooms, and Aunt Faith remaining in the sitting-room
with Tom and Gem while they looked over their Sunday school lessons.
At half-past two, the children started for the church, and then Aunt
Faith rested quietly on the sofa until it was time to prepare for
afternoon service at the chapel where Mr. Leslie officiated, a mission
in whose welfare she was much interested. There was never any
regularity about attending this afternoon service; sometimes Aunt
Faith would go alone, sometimes Sibyl would accompany her, and
sometimes the three cousins would all go. This afternoon they all came
down, and Aunt Faith welcomed them pleasantly; she knew that Hugh
might have been influenced by the beauty of the weather, Bessie by
Hugh's companionship, and Sibyl by the opportunity of seeing Mr.
Leslie; but she believed that all her children were truly reverent at
heart, and she had large faith in the solemn influence of the house of
God, so she always encouraged them to go to church whenever they
would, and on this occasion she made the walk pleasant with her
cheerful conversation.

The chapel stood in one of the suburbs of Westerton, where the houses
of the railroad workmen were crowded together in long rows, with the
smoke from the mills and shops hanging in a cloud over them all the
week. Busy, grimy men lived there, careless, tired women, and a throng
of children, some neglected, some apparently well-tended, but all
poor. In the midst of this bustle and smoke Mr. Leslie lived and
worked. When he first came to Westerton, this chapel was almost
deserted, but now it was filled with a congregation of its own, a
congregation drawn from the neighboring houses, the laborers and their
families whose zeal and liberty according to their means, might have
put to shame many a church record in the rich quarters of the town.

Aunt Faith and her party entered the door as the little bell rang out
its last note, and took their seats upon the benches, for there were
no pews, and the sittings were free to all. The organ was played by a
young workman, a German, with the national taste for music, and when
the hymn was given out, the congregation as with one voice took up the
strain, and in a powerful burst of melody, carried the words, as it
were, high towards heaven. The music was inspiring, as true
congregational music always is. All sang the air, but the harmony was
well supplied by the organ; all sang, men, women, and children, and if
there were any discordant voices, they were lost in the powerful
melody. Hugh liked to sing, and he liked the simple hymns which Mr.
Leslie always selected for his congregation; so he found all the
places and sang with real enjoyment, while Bessie, looking over the
same book, joined in after awhile in her low alto, as if borne along
by his example. Then came the sermon, and, as Mr. Leslie gave out his
text, Aunt Faith recognized it as one of the verses which she had read
in the morning,--St. John, the seventeenth chapter, and the fifteenth
verse, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." "My friends," said Mr.
Leslie, speaking as usual without notes, "we often hear and read of
the great desire felt by Christians of this and all ages to leave this
world, this world of sickness and sorrow, of labor and poverty, and
enter immediately into another life. Young persons who have lost dear
friends wish to go and join them, for life looks dreary without love,
and the days seem very long when they are not broken by the sound of
that well-known footstep on the walk, and the words of love in that
well-known voice which they can never hear on earth again. 'I cannot
stay on earth alone,' they cry; 'I shall grow wicked in my wild grief.
Let me go to them, since they cannot come back to me.' The middle-aged
who have outlived the quick feelings of youth, sigh over the years
still before them, years neither dark nor light, neither hard nor
easy, the dull, monotonous path lengthening out before them, with
neither great joy to lighten it, or great sorrow to darken it, the
same commonplace cares and duties until the end. 'This is doing us no
good,' they think; 'life is slowly withering, zeal is gone. A flower
cannot bloom in the desert! Let me go to a better country.'

"The old, who are past all labor, sometimes grow weary of waiting. 'I
am of no use,' they say; 'I am only a burden to myself and every one
else. I have outlived my time, and it would be better for the world if
I was taken out of it. My day is over. Let me go.' Thus they all
lament, and thus they sometimes pray, forgetting that the Lord knoweth
best.

"The feeling is natural, and is founded upon the innate aspiration of
the soul towards immortality, the consciousness and certainty that
better things are laid up in store for us in another world. This
innate consciousness of immortality is found in all men, even the most
ignorant heathen possessing a glimmering of the idea, and this fact is
an eternal contradiction to the arguments of the atheist; he cannot
destroy this soul hope, for even if he should succeed in blighting it
in the father, it would be there to confront him in the child, and so
on from generation to generation. That there are persons who have
wilfully stifled this divinely-given hope, that there are persons who
have brought themselves to contradict their very being is an idea so
awful that we shudder to think of it. A man may murder his companion
and yet repent and be forgiven; but a man who murders his soul, a man
who turns his back upon his Creator cannot repent, for he does not
believe in his sin, and he cannot ask for forgiveness because he
cannot believe in the existence of a power to forgive. My friends, the
idea of such a man is almost super-human; and some wise persons have
said that no such men have ever existed. They may think they have
stifled their consciences and souls, and even live a long life in this
belief, but sooner or later the terrible certainty of their mistake
will overwhelm them, and they will find themselves stripped of their
poor sophistries, of all sinners the most miserable.

"I hope and believe that there are no such persons in this
congregation to-day. Do you not, on the contrary, feel in your hearts,
the certainty of another and better life? I feel sure that you
do,--that there is not one of you who is not looking forward to that
happiness which God has prepared for those who love Him; a happiness
which eye has not seen, which ear has not heard, and which it has not
entered into the heart of men to conceive.

"But this precious engrafted hope must not be abused. It must not be
twisted into an excuse for neglecting our duties here on _earth_. We
are put into the world to live in it, and the duties which lie nearest
to us must be faithfully performed, no matter how humble or how
commonplace they may be. We must not go sighing through life, deluding
ourselves with the idea that we are too good for our lot, and that it
is praiseworthy to hold ourselves above common labor and dull routine,
and devote our time to so-called religious aspiration. If the labor
and routine are placed before us, it is our duty to accept them, and,
whatever we do, do it with our _might_. I tell you, my friends, our
path is clear before us, and we are sinning if we turn out of it.
Suppose we are afflicted, suppose our loved ones are taken from us; we
may weep, for Jesus wept. But we must not throw down our appointed
work, and sit with idle hands and gloomy regret, while the precious
time slips by. The mourner who stays in her darkened room, and refuses
to interest herself in anything but her sorrow, is far less a
Christian mourner than she who goes forth to take up her tasks again,
thinking of her lost ones as only 'gone before.'

"Those of us who have dull lives, with neither the sunshine nor the
thunder-cloud to vary the monotonous gray of our horizon, must still
strive to perform faithfully our uninteresting duties. We must not
murmur over our lot, or think we are fitted for better things; we are
not so fitted if the Lord keeps us there. There is, perhaps, some
fatal weakness in our character which needs just that routine; we must
learn patience and humility in the world, not _out_ of it. _Here_ is
our school-house. _This_ is our appointed lesson.

"The old, also, who are full of eagerness to go,--they, too, are wrong.
To them, life with its joys and sorrows, its labor and care, is over,
and they look uneasily around them; their occupation is gone. Perhaps
they were busy workers, and it is hard to be idle; perhaps they were
self-reliant, and it is hard to become a care to others; perhaps they
have had powerful intellects, and it is hard to endure the
consciousness that their mental powers are failing, day by day. Still,
there is one duty remaining, and that they must learn. It is this: to
wait. To wait patiently for the Lord in the world in which He has
placed them. And this is, sometimes, the hardest duty of a long life.

"My friends, I cannot too heartily condemn the spirit of scorn for
this world which we sometimes meet among Christians. The world is full
of beauty. God Himself pronounced it very good. The evil, and the
sorrow in it, are owing to man. What can be more fair than this very
summer afternoon? What more beautiful than that lake, with those white
clouds heaped over the horizon? Let us enjoy it, and praise God for
His goodness; it is ungrateful not to admire and love His tender care
for us in every flower by the roadside, in every tree that shades the
heated land. I say, then, love this fair world; notice its beauties;
take pleasure in the gifts it offers to you, its fruits and its
flowers, its spring-time and harvest. Learn to admire them; thank God
for them, and teach your children to appreciate them. The same words
apply here which the beloved disciple used in reference to our love
for our fellow-men: 'For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath
seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?' That is, if we have
never tried to love on earth, if our hearts have never been softened
by unselfish affection for those of our own household, how can we
expect to love in heaven? And, in the same manner, it seems to me that
if we scorn this world, if we neglect the innocent pleasures it offers
us, and never pause to admire and love its beauties, it will be very
hard for us to love the Celestial country. We must learn to love here
on earth if we would love in heaven.

"My friends, the text is a part of our Saviour's last prayer before
he entered the garden of Gethsemane. He was praying for his disciples,
so soon to be left to temptation and danger. Notice the words: 'I pray
not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou
shouldest keep them from the evil.' He did not ask that they should be
taken _away_ from the earth, but that strength should be given them to
fulfil their duty _on_ the earth; they were men, the earth was their
home, and on the earth were their duties.

"And so it is with us now. We have our work to do, and the time is
none too long to accomplish it; every day brings its task and the man
who stays among his fellows, doing his part with energy, actuated by
firm religious principles, is a far better Christian than he who shuts
himself up apart, scorning the fair world, unmindful of the suffering
he might relieve, neglecting his own plain duties, and occupied only
with his own brooding thoughts and gloomy self-analysis.

"No, my friends; we are not to be taken out of the world until our
Lord so wills, we must not think of it, must not pray for it. He knows
best. And, while He leaves us on the earth, let us work with all our
might. Let us see to it that our faith is earnest, and that our
gratitude and praise are expressed in our daily lives.

"I fear we do not think sufficiently of the great part which praise
should hold in our worship; whereas if there is any lesson taught us
by the whole created universe, and by the long testimony of holy men
from the beginning of the world until now, it is this: 'Praise ye the
Lord. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'"

Such were some of the points in Mr. Leslie's sermon. He spoke in a
direct manner, using all the powers of eloquence which nature and
cultivation had given him, but his ideas were plain and his words
simple, and the charm of the discourse lay in its earnestness. He
spoke as though his heart was in his words; and so it was. Another
great attraction was that his sermons were short; before the attention
of the congregation flagged in the least, the sermon was done. There
was no looking at watches, no stifled yawning, no uneasy change of
position, no watching the clock; strangers visiting the chapel
listened, at first, from real interest, with a feeling that by-and-by
they would relapse into their usual listlessness, but before they had
time to _relapse_, behold the sermon was done. This afternoon there
was the accustomed attention, and then after the closing hymn, the
congregation streamed out into the late afternoon again to enjoy the
quiet of the Sabbath, the working-man's blessed day of rest.

The party from the old stone house walked homeward by a circuitous
route, taking in the bank of the lake on their way. Here on the grassy
slope they found a religious service going on, under the direction of
the Young Men's Christian Association, and they lingered to hear the
final hymn which sounded sweetly on the evening breeze with the pathos
of open-air music. The lake looked very beautiful, the sinking sun lay
behind a screen of white clouds, and in the distance vessels could be
seen sailing gayly before the wind with all their canvas up, or
beating up against it with the patience that belongs to inland
navigation. Towards the west extended the headland of Stony Point, and
still farther the faint outline of White River beach, looking like an
enchanted island floating in the sky.

"The lake looks very beautiful this evening," said Aunt Faith; "it
makes one think of the sea of glass mingled with fire."

"It is treacherous with all its beauty," said Bessie; "these
fresh-water seas cannot be relied upon for two hours at a time. They
are more dangerous than the ocean."

"You make too much of the little ponds," said Hugh.

"They may be ponds," returned Bessie, "but they are deep enough to
drown men, and cruel enough to tear vessels to pieces. I should feel
safer on the ocean in a storm than on our lake, for there you can run
away from it, or scud before it, but here there is no place to run to,
no offing, and always a lee shore."

"Where did you learn your nautical terms?" said Hugh, laughing, as
they turned towards home.

"You may laugh, Hugh, but I am in earnest. You have not watched the
storms as I have; you do not know how suddenly they come. Even in the
summer, a speck of a cloud will grow into a thunder-storm in a few
minutes, and in the autumn the gales are fearful. I remember last year
in September, two vessels were lost in plain sight from the bank where
we were standing a moment ago. One came driving down the lake at
daylight and went ashore on the spiles of the old pier; the crew were
all lost, we saw them go down before our eyes. The next, a fine
three-master, came in about noon and anchored off the harbor, hoping
that the wind might go down before night; but, as the gale increased,
the captain made an attempt to enter the river. The vessel missed and
ran ashore below; only two of the men were rescued, for the surf was
tremendous."

"Well, Bessie, are there not wrecks at sea, also?"

"Yes; but one expects danger on the great ocean, whereas here on the
Lakes, a stranger would not dream of it."

"As far as that goes," said Hugh, "a fall down-stairs might kill a man
quite as effectually as a fall from Mount Blanc."

"But he would so much prefer the latter," said Bessie.

"Well,--for hair-splitting differences, give me a young lady of
sixteen," said Hugh as they rejoined the others. "Aunt Faith, you have
no idea how romantic Bessie is!"

"Oh yes, I have!" said Aunt Faith smiling. "A girl who plays the harp
as Bessie plays, and who paints such pictures as Bessie paints, must
necessarily be both romantic and poetical; and I use both adjectives
in their best sense."

Bessie colored at Aunt Faith's praise. "I only play snatches, and
paint fragments," she said quickly.

"I know it, my dear," replied her aunt; "that is your great fault, you
do not finish your work. But I hope you will correct this defect, and
give us the pleasure of--"

"Of hearing you play one tune entirely through, and seeing one picture
entirely finished: before old age deafens and blinds our senses,"
interrupted Hugh, laughing. "You don't know the studio as well as I
do, Aunt Faith; there are heads without bodies, and bodies without
heads, but no poor unfortunate is completely finished. Sometimes I
think Bessie is studying the antique. Antiques, you know, are
generally dismembered."

Bessie had now quite recovered her composure; praise disconcerted her,
but she _was_ accustomed to raillery, and parried Hugh's attack with
her usual spirit. They reached the old stone house before sunset, and
soon assembled in the dining-room for the pleasant meal which might be
called a tea-dinner, or a dinner-tea, although not exactly
corresponding to either designation. Tom and Gem had returned from
Sunday School some time before, and since then they had been absorbed
in reading their library-books, their customary employment at that
hour. After the meal was over, the family went into the sitting-room
and seated themselves near the open windows. They rarely attended
evening service, although they were at liberty to go if they pleased;
the church was at some distance, and Aunt Faith always kept the
children with her on Sunday evening, so that generally they were all
at home, talking quietly, reading, or singing sacred music; this last
occupation giving pleasure to all, as the five cousins were naturally
fond of music, and Aunt Faith had taken care that their taste should
be rightly directed and enlarged.

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