Читать книгу Sheer Off: A Tale - A. L. O. E. - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Ned Franks took down his cap from its peg, as soon as his merry young scholars, like a swarm of bees from the hive, had poured out from the low-browed porch of the school-house. But before he had time to start for the mill, Persis, baby in arms, was at his side, with a sandwich neatly put up in paper for her husband to eat on his way.

"No fear of my being put on half rations while wifie has charge of the stores," said Ned Franks.

He only lingered to kiss the soft little face of his babe, fragrant and sweet as a rosebud, and then set off for his visit to Bat Bell, though not very hopeful as to its result. The sun was shining brightly, the trees bursting into leaf; the lark in the blue sky, the thrush from its bough, were pouring forth songs of joy. Every sight, scent, and sound was a source of pleasure to Ned Franks.

"Those merry little fellows are piping aloft," thought he, "to cheer their mates in their nests. Well may my heart sing, too, for who has such a home, and such a mate, and such a nestling as mine? The birds carol merrily, for they cannot look forward, the pleasure of the day is enough for them; but far more cause have I to sing, for I can look forward and think,—the spring-time is bright, but the harvest will be brighter; there is joy now, but the fulness of joy is to come! Ay, I can look forward and upward, too, and see what the birds cannot see,—the hand that scatters the blessings over my path, the Father's hand that filleth all things with plenteousness! And even like his free bounty should be that of his children; freely ye have received, freely give!"

A thin, weary wayfarer was sitting on the side of the path; his patched coat, his half-worn-out shoes, and sunken cheek told of need, although the man was no beggar. Following simply the impulse of his heart, Franks pulled out his sandwich and courteously offered it to the stranger. The smile and hearty blessing with which it was received sent the one-armed school-master on his way with a heart even more joyous than it had been a few minutes before. To give is a godlike pleasure, and he who does not know what it is to do so with delight has missed one of the richest luxuries which man can enjoy below.

As Ned Franks passed along the high road, he could see in a neighboring field a man engaged in sowing.

"To bury seed is not to lose seed," thought Ned, "though it seem for a while to disappear, like money which is given to the Lord, or to the poor for his sake. A man who spends all that he has on himself or his family alone seems to me like one who grinds and bakes and eats all his seed-corn. He gains some present advantage, no doubt, but he will find want and dearth in the end, for he has not sown for the future. And the man who lays by and hoards what ought to be given in charity is like one who locks up his seed-corn in a chest until it grows mouldy and worthless. It neither feeds him nor grows for him; it is worse than good for nothing. While he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord, and the Lord will give him rich increase, not because of the man's deserts, but because of our heavenly Father's own free bounty towards those who seek to please him."

Ned, walking on with quick, active step, overtook Ben Stone, who, carrying his basket of carpenter's tools, was proceeding at a more leisurely pace in the same direction.

"Whither bound, messmate?" cried Franks, as he came up with the burly carpenter.

"I've a job at the Hall," replied Stone; "the new baronet will be coming down to the old house one of these days, and will want to find everything right there. Where are you going, Ned Franks?"

"I'm going to see if Bat Bell won't add something to the collection for the tumble-down cottages in Wild Rose Hollow. He was not at church yesterday."

Ben Stone burst out laughing, as he had a habit of doing upon the slightest occasion. "Going to ask Bat Bell for money! Going to try how much meal you can scrape off an old knife-board! ha! ha! ha! I put my shilling in the plate yesterday;"—the carpenter said this with a self-satisfied air, as one who felt conscious of having done the handsome thing;—"but I don't mind promising to double whatever you manage to squeeze out of Bat Bell; only, of course he mustn't know that I've said so."

"Don't make a rash engagement, messmate," said Ned Franks, with a smile; "I may come down upon you for some ready rhino."

"Well, and if you do," answered the good-humored carpenter, "I'll not flinch from my word. I've enough and to spare, and what one gives away, as we all know, goes to our good account in the end."

"That depends on the spirit in which we give," said Franks, more gravely, for he had good reason for suspecting that his companion held very mistaken views on the subject. "One can't keep a debtor and creditor account in heaven. We know from the Bible that a man might give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet that it might profit him nothing to do so."

"That's one of the texts as I never can make out the meaning of," said the carpenter. "To give is to give, and money is money; and why, when two men do exactly the same thing, one should have a blessing, and another none, quite passes my poor understanding."

"If one could suppose that all money given in charity could be put to a test, that only what is really offered for the Lord's sake should remain money, and all the rest be turned into withered leaves, don't you think we should have heaps of dry leaves, as in autumn, to be scattered about by the wind? Consider all that's given for mere show, all that's given from natural pity, all that's given because it would be thought strange and mean to do less than others; none of that money is given to God, so we must not expect that God will accept it."

"Well, I grant ye this," said the carpenter, "if every man's almsgiving could be known only to himself and to God, there's many a one as gives now would keep his money snug in his pocket. But I'm not one of those, my good friend. I know, as we can carry nothing out of the world, that it's best to have something laid up in the bank above. But here your way divides from my way,—you go down the dell, I keep to the road. Good-day to you, Ned Franks, let me know what you get from Bat Bell; I'll be bound 'twill be nothing to ruin me. I've not much to do at the Hall to-day, but measuring and fitting, so maybe I'll be back before you return; just drop in at my shop and tell me what's your success;" and with a friendly nod and complacent smile, the carpenter went along the high road, while the school-master turned down the little wooded lane which led to the mill.

"I should have liked to have had a little longer talk with Ben Stone," thought Franks. "I'm afraid that he thinks that he is actually buying God's favor, and earning heaven, by the little kind acts that he does! That's a kind of error which so many people run foul of. The sunken rock of self-righteousness is, maybe, just as dangerous as the sandbank of love of money. I must have a care that I don't take to judging others, and so split on it myself. I spoke very hardly yester-evening of Bat Bell the miller, yet, when I consider what a poor wretched sinner I am, receiving so much from God, and showing my gratitude in such a poor way, I'm scarce likely to run on that rock. When one measures one's little drop of charity, and even that not pure, with the great unfathomable ocean of love of Him who gave his life-blood for us, one is far more inclined to ask forgiveness for doing so little, than to expect reward for doing so much. There's nothing that can give the best of us any claim to the least of God's mercies, but the merits of Christ. That is a truth that I see the more plainly the longer I live. To attempt to hold by one's own merits would be like trying to go to sea in a bark made of gossamer threads. The gossamer web looks goodly enough when the sunbeams are glinting upon it, and the dew-drops are nestling in it, but no man in his senses would trust his life to its power to bear up his weight. It would be a madder thing still for him to trust his soul's salvation to his own merits. If any mortal had anything in himself to boast of or to trust to, that mortal was St. Paul, who was ready to spend and to be spent; who had suffered the loss of all things for God,—a very different kind of self-denial from what we dare to call by that name,—and yet what was the feeling of St. Paul? Did he think thus he had earned heaven? Did he not say, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? If we were to strip ourselves of all that we have, if we were to give away health and time and life itself for God's service, we should never get beyond that verse, we should have nothing whereof to boast, nothing (out of Christ) whereon to rest."

Ned had now descended to the bottom of a beautiful little dell, through which gushed a rapid stream of water, turning the large wheel of Bell's mill. The wheel was, however, at this time still, and its monotonous clack did not mingle with the gurgle of the brook and the song of the birds. Franks had many delightful associations connected with that wooded dell; for there stood the cottage in which Persis, as a maiden, had dwelt with her aged grandfather; it was there that he had wooed and won her; from that little ivy-mantled nest he had, three years before, taken his bride to church. The cottage had now other inhabitants, but Franks could not pass the spot without stooping to pluck a violet to carry back to his wife.

"I'll give this to Persis," he said to himself; "she'll like a flower from the old home, though, thank God, I believe that she has never regretted leaving it for the new one. This much I can answer for, leastways, that every day since that happy one on which God gave her to me has made me prize his gift more dearly."