Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

"I SHINE in the light of God,

His likeness stamps my brow;

Through the valley of death my feet have trod,
And I reign in glory now.

No breaking heart is here;

No keen and thrilling pain;

No wasted cheek, where the frequent tear

Hath rolled, and left its stain.

"I have found the joy of heaven;
I am one of the angel band;
To my head a crown is given,
And a harp is in my hand.
I have learned the song they sing,
Whom Jesus hath made free;

And the glorious walls on high still ring
With my new-born melody.

"No sin, no grief, no pain;

Safe in my happy home;

My fears all fled-my doubts all slain;
My hour of triumph come.

Friend of my mortal years,

The trusted and the tried!

Thou art walking still in the valley of tears,
But I am at thy side.

"Do I forget? Oh, no!

For memory's golden chain

Shall bind my heart to the heart below

Till they meet and touch again.

Each link is strong and bright,

And love's electric flame

Flows freely down, like a river of light,
To the world from which I came.

"Do you mourn when another star
Shines out from the glittering sky?
Do you weep when the noise of war
And the rage of conflict die ?
Then why should your tears roll down,
And your heart with grief be riven,
For another gem in the Saviour's crown,
And another soul in heaven?"

Tales and Sketches.

"IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS."

BY MRS. H. B. STOWE.

THIS was one of the golden sayings of Jedediah Pettisol. One might think so, at least, by the frequency and emphasis with which it fell from his lips.

Jedediah was reckoned one of the richest men in the village of Needwall. He lived in that great white house you see yonder, with the tufts of lilacs before each of the front windows, the great sugar maples in the grassy yard, the light, neat picket fences; the large barns so perfectly built, so trimly kept and surrounded by the welltended acres of the richest farm of the neighbourhood.

Jedediah was reputed a snug, safe manan excellent manager of money-of which he had laid by an untold store-how much it was difficult to say, but there was a slow, dry smile" which curled his hard features when the inquiry was made that stimulated the imagination of the questioner more than the mention of any definite

[ocr errors]

sum.

Jedediah was an excellent householder in all pertaining to his own. His wife lacked for nothing rustled to church in the stiffest of silks and heaviest of satins, wore an India shawl, and got her bonnets quarterly from New York, to the great edification of Miss Pewit, the country milliner, and of all her rural neighbours. All Jedediah's sons and daughters walked in brightness and lived on the fat of the land; they went to the best schools, wore the best clothes, ate the best things, and were reported to do everything in the best way. He rubbed his hands as he looked round on his rising race. He flattered himself there were no such children going. He took care of them; they were his, and Jedediah always took care of his own things. Whatever was his, though but the breadth and thickness of a hair, was his, and was attended to with microscopic nicety.

But to all that was not his, to everybody not his own, to every one's cares, wants, outside the circle of his own, Jedediah had one short golden saying:-"It's none of my business."

Jedediah was a proper, church-going

man-nay, a church member'; and being a church member, his townsmen thought the least they could do for a man of such substance and admirable management, was to make him deacon.

They hoped thereby, in a measure, to bring the affairs of the church into the charmed circle which he called his own. They were much mistaken. He was too shrewd for them. "If they think they're going to get their burdens off on to my shoulders, they're mistaken. I pay my subscription punctually, that's all I agreed to do; as to the rest, it's not my business."

If a subscription was up for any charitable object Jedediah was very acute in finding out that it was none of his business. "Subscribe to a town library?

No;

I'm

what do I want with a town library? able to buy all the books we want, and prefer to read my own books."

"But, Mr. Pettisol, think how many of your neighbours are not, and what an ex-cellent thing for them it would be!

دو

"Well, let them get it; it's none of my business, I'm sure; we've more books than we can ever read now."

"Mr. Pettisol, we called to see if you would subscribe for a furnace for the church?"

"No. What's the use of a furnace? The stove keeps us comfortable enough."

"Your pew and two or three about it are comfortable, but the galleries, where the poorer people sit, and the pews by the door, in short, half the pews in the house, are very

uncomfortable."

"Well, let them that find it so subscribe.. I don't; so it's none of my business."

Now Mr. Pettisol was a very orthodox man, and believed devoutly every one of the five points of Calvinism; and he could set any young minister right in a twinkling, that blundered on them. He kept an austere watch on his new pastor, Mr. Service, whom he suspected somehow of not having precisely the good old ways. "I don't hear you preach the strong old points," he would say, "Divine Sovereignty, and Election," and the minister smiled in a manner that Mr. Pettisol wondered at.

"Did you ever hear of this doctrine Mr. Pettisol,Look not every man on his A A

own things, but every man on the things of others'?"

"That isn't a doctrine," said Mr. Pettisol; "it's a declaration of the Bible."

"Why isn't it a doctrine?" said Mr. Service, and left him.

Mr. Pettisol felt for some time that dull, confused sensation in his brain that is produced by a new idea fumbling at the rusty lock of a very old door. He had been to the sacrament punctually every two months for twenty years. He had supposed himself primed in all the ins and outs of doctrine, and in all this time nobody had ever said such a singular thing to him as this. It confused him, and he put it out of his head. The minister was young and modest; he supposed he had dropped a seed which he hoped would germinate; he did not make allowance for that flock of domestic fowls called old prejudices, who make it their business instantly to gobble up all such seeds. When he thought his seed had germinated, he called on Jedediah to open a case which lay heavily on his mind, and in which no one in his parish was so able to give him material aid.

There had recently been a factory established in a distant part of his parish, which had brought into the place a large population of young lads and girls, who, as often happens in such cases, seemed to be under very indifferent moral influences. Sunday was a perfect carnival of unseemly proceedings. The boys marauded through the fields, robbed orchards and melonpatches, and the girls, flaunting in gay dresses and laughing loudly, were often seen in certain dubious coffee-houses, which had sprung up like mushrooms in the neighbourhood of the factory.

Mr. Service, with two or three energetic self-denying men and women of his parish, had ventured into this region and set up a Sabbath-school, and succeeded in producing some interest in better things.

That morning at table Mr. Service had said to his wife, "If I only were rich, now, I know what I would do. I'd put up a neat little hall, for our Sunday-school and have a library in it, and I could draw in ever so many; it might become the nucleus of a church, as well as serve for the use of a Sunday-school."

[ocr errors]

Well, let's get up a subscription for it," said his wife; "there's Deacon Pettisol owns the land, perhaps he'll give us that."

"I doubt it," said Mr. Service.

"Oh, yes! only go and talk to him-tell him all about it-he can't refuse."

So that evening Mr. Service called at Mr. Pettisol's, and was cordially received; some fine pears and grapes were offered to him in the best front parlour; and Mrs. Pettisol and Mr. Pettisol were delighted to see him.

He told his story.

"I hardly see what call you have to meddle with that factory population," said Mr. Pettisol. "If I mistake not, the factory stands the other side of the town line, and it's the business of Smith and Simons to provide such things, if anybody. Why don't you go to them?"

"I have been to them, and they are mere money-making men of the world, and don't care for any thing of the sort."

"Well, then," said Jedediah, "I believe the factory, in point of fact, stands in Mr. Brown's parish."

66

'Perhaps in mere point of geography the line may run this side the factory, but in point of fact the people are much nearer to us than to him. The fact is, Mr. Pettisol, it is for our interest to take care of this population, or they will corrupt the state of morals among us. These roving, idle young men and boys, many of them bright and active, will be leading away the boys of this parish; even now the Sabbath is dreadfully profaned among us."

"I'll risk my children," said Mr. Pettisol. "I can't cut down all the dockweed in my neighbourhood, or clear off all the caterpillars from my neighbour's trees, but I can keep the weeds off my own farm."

"I doubt it," said Mr. Service; "but if you could, it would be less work to cut down one stalk of dockweed, green in your neighbour's field, than to hoe up a thousand young docks after the wind has seeded your farm with them. If any one would have made it their business to clear the caterpillars off the wild cherry tree at the head of the street, you would have saved two days' work in your orchards about."

"I know that," said Mr. Pettisol; "but I ain't going to do other people's work. That tree stands on Jim Stenton's ground, and if he don't attend to it, I ain't going to do it for him, I'm sure."

"Not if it fills every tree of your orchard with caterpillars ?," said Mr. Service.

"I can take care of my own trees," said Mr. Pettisol. "I'd rather do twice the work on my own place than do work that isn't my business."

"Mr. Pettisol," said Mr. Service, "have you thought of that doctrine I spoke to you about?

"What doctrine, sir?"

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others." What do you think of that doctrine? It's in the Bible, as plain as the doctrine of Election."

At this point Mr. Pettisol began to have secret doubts of the validity of Paul's epistles; but he did not venture to assert them in so many words, so he passed the grape dish again to his minister, and said:

"I trust I am always ready to do my duty in my own field. But I believe in order, sir, order; in every one sticking to his business. Now we have engaged you, sir, to attend to us-keep up our preaching, and weekly lecture, and prayer-meeting, and really, sir, I don't see how you can burden yourself with this work without taking the strength you need for your main business."

"Mr. Pettisol," said Mr. Service, "I do not consider myself in the light_of_a_man hired to take care of you, merely; I am the servant and shepherd of Christ, and my duty is to all wandering souls whom I am able to reach and care for; but if I thought of nothing but your interests and that of your children, I would gladly do twice as much as I do now for this population; it is the only way I can save the children and youth of my parish from corruption."

"I don't know how it is with other people," said Mr. Pettisol, "but I don't think my children will wish to associate with factory hands."

"I don't think you can answer for your boys more than I for mine, Mr. Pettisol; boys, are more attracted by boys than they are by fathers and mothers; and if there are gay, lively fellows who keep some kind of jolly thing going, they care very little what station they belong to."

"I shall forbid my sons all such associations," said Mr. Pettisol, "and I should like to see any of them dare to disobey me." "I should not," said Mr. Service; "nevertheless, I fear they will."

"Well, perhaps I may feel it my duty to give something," said the deacon.

"If you would only give us that lot of land this side the factory, to put our hall on," said Mr. Service.

"Why, Mr. Service, you ain't up in business matters," said Mr. Pettisol, with a patronizing smile; "that lot of land is rising in value ten per cent. a year.'

"For all that, I think it would be your best investment to give it for this cause. It is in one sense far more our business to

take care of these factory people than it is the business of the owners of the facto They do not live here. They have no children here. They will not in their persons or their families suffer as we shall, from leaving them to go to ruin."

"Who wants to leave them to go to ruin?'' said Mr. Pettisol. "Can't they come to our church if they want to? There are free seats in the gallery, without our going down to build a place for them."

"But they won't come to our church, and experience has shown they will come to a place appropriated to them alone. Our poor little room is crowded every Sunday, and some go away for want of room."

"Well, Mr. Service, I'll think of it, and send you something, though I must say I don't think as you do. If people won't attend the stated means of grace, I really don't see the need of going down on our knees to them-it's their own affair, after all."

"The Lord Jesus did not think it our own affair whether we went to destruction or not," said Mr. Service. "He did much more, one would think, than His part. We were enemies, and He left heaven for us, lived poor all His life, died the worst of deaths; and is He to do all this for us, and we feel that we are not to lift a finger for each other?"

"Well, well, Mr. Service, I'll think of it and let you know. I'll subscribe something,' ," said Mr. Pettisol; and so the minister rose and left.

"He is a good man, my dear," said Jedediah Pettisol. "I believe Mr. Service is a very good man-but I doubt about his orthodoxy."

"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Pettisol, "what makes you doubt his orthodoxy?"

"Oh! these modern young ministers, with their humanitarian notions, want to carry the world on their shoulders, but they're dumb on the doctrines. He says he believes them, but he don't preach them. Haven't heard a sermon on Divine sovereignty and man's dependance since he's been here. If he had more faith in that he would be quieter."

"I think," said Mrs. Pettisol, "what he said about our children is ridiculous. I'd risk our Johnny anywhere-poor little fellow, he went to bed with the headache, early this evening."

[ocr errors][merged small]

down at Smith's factory learning to play billiards with Mike Dornor, a sharp, shrewd, adroit, droll fellow, who led all the boys of the village, and had taken entire possession of Johnny Pettisol.

The next morning Mr. Pettisol enclosed in a very cold note seventy-five cents to his minister.

Shortly after secret dissatisfactions arose in the parish. Mr. Service was accused of heresy. There was a great meeting for counsel, much talk, and much discussion. Poor Mr. Service was badgered, and baited, and obliged to spend so many anxious hours, and so much time and strength, in explaining exactly his views of the consistence of God's decrees with human ability, and in defining the exact state of the heathen in the future world, that the heathen in Smithville were let to go on their own way. In

a short time Mr. Service was dismissed; the church hired ministers at ten dollars a Sabbath to supply the pulpit, and said that this was economy. Grog shops grew up in the village-the poor-house increased its inmates-boys grew up godless, dissipated young men, broke their fathers' and mothers' hearts, and Johnny Pettisol first and fore

most.

There were days, long and bitter, when Mr. Pettisol, old and trembling with paralysis, and his wife, sad and broken-hearted, wept over their spendthrift, undutiful sons, and wondered why they should have turned out so bad in spite of such excellent instructions.

The dockweed and caterpillars could not be got out of Jedediah's field, with all his energy; and in his own secret soul, while trembling on the verge of eternity, and reviewing the use he had made of his life, he sometimes remembered Mr. Service, and wished he had given more thought to the great doctrine," Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

A DREAM THAT WAS NOT ALL A DREAM.

A MERCHANT at the close of a day during which, in addition to uncommon business perplexity, his patience had been sorely taxed by repeated and importunate applications for donations to various charities, found himself in his favourite retreat-his library. Wrapped in a sumptuous gown, his feet clad in easy and richly wrought slippers, he had flung his wearied frame into his study chair, and, exhausted by the

[merged small][ocr errors]

"My friend, I come to beg of you, in view of the special necessities of our Master's cause at this time, an increase, for this year, of one-third, upon your ordinary subscription to the cause of Foreign Missions."

"Sir," he replied, "this year will be to me one of uncommon expense. My new house is just finished and furnished, and such are the demands upon my purse that I shall hardly be able to give as much for that cause as I did last year."

The stranger en drew forth a second paper from his bosom, and made the sam nest with reference to the Domestic Miss.or work.

The merchant, annoyed at this, repeated his reply with additional emphasis and in briefer terms.

No way disconcerted by the rebuff, the stranger, laying the two papers upon the table, and drawing another from his bosom, made a like request in behalf of the Bible cause.

To this the half-angry merchant gave a short and not over-kind response.

This paper the stranger laid upon the table, and drew still another from his bosom, and asked the same favour for the Colporteur work.

This request being answered with a frown, the stranger laid it upon the table, drew forth yet another, and asked for a like increase to his ordinary subscription for that. And so he continued his appeals, until quite a pile of subscription papers lay upon the merchant's table, while the irri tated, and, in his own view, insulted man, looked on in sullen silence.

At last the stranger, more in sorrow than in anger, yet in a tone that thrilled the listener to his very heart, said,

"Look at me and listen! Five years ago you were on the very verge of bankruptcy. Your fortune seemed just spreading its wings to leave you penniless, and your family without means to buy even bread to eat. And in that dark hour, oh how you prayed-prayed for relief from the threatened ruin! Who was it that pitied your distress, heard your prayer, and rolled the

dismal cloud away?

"Seven years ago you lay upon what you deemed, and your weeping friends con sidered, a bed of death. The physician had

« НазадПродовжити »