Читать книгу Rose Clark - Fern Fanny - Страница 11

Mr. Clifton, the minister of Difftown village was one of those few clergymen who possessed of decided talent was yet content to labor in an humble sphere. Many of his brother clergymen had left their country parishes to become stars in cities. Some, unspoiled by the breath of applause, had laid their honors meekly at the Saviour's feet; others, inflated with pride and self-conceit, preached soft things to those who built them palaces of ease, and healed the hurt of the daughter of God's people slightly.

Mr. Clifton feared the test. Appreciation is as dear to the sanctified as the unsanctified heart. It were pleasant to see the heart's dear ones, fitted by nature to enjoy the refinements of life, in full possession of them; it were pleasant to have daily intercourse with the large circle of the gifted who congregate in cities – but what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Mr. Clifton felt that with his ardent social and impulsive temperament, his quiet village parish, with its home endearments, was most favorable to his growth in grace; and so, turning a deaf ear to the Syren voices which would have called him away, he cheerfully broke the bread of life, year after year, to his humble flock.

It was Sabbath evening – Mr. Clifton lay upon the sofa, suffering under one of those torturing head-aches which excessive mental excitement was sure to bring on. He loved his calling – it was not mere lip service for him to expound the word of God, and teach its sacred truths – the humblest among his people knew this; the tremor in his voice, the moisture in his eye, told their own eloquent tale. There must have been something to enchain those whose active limbs, never still during the other days of the week from dawn till dark, could sit on those narrow seats and never droop with uneasiness or sleep.

But the physical reaction was too apt to come to the delicately strung frame; and with closed eyelids, Mr. Clifton lay upon the sofa in the parlor of the little parsonage, while his wife bent over him, bathing his aching temples.

The parsonage parlor! how difficult to furnish it to suit every carping eye, for there were those, even in Mr. Clifton's parish, as in all others, whom his blameless life and welling sympathies could neither appease nor conciliate.

The parsonage parlor! The father of Mary Clifton would gladly have filled it with luxuries for his only daughter; but Mary shook her little head, and planted her little foot firmly on the plain Kidderminster carpet, and sat down contentedly in the bamboo rocking-chair, and hung the pretty pictures her girlhood had cherished in a spare room up-stairs, and looked round upon the bare walls of the parlor without a murmur of dissatisfaction.

Flowers she still clung to. The parsonage parlor was never without them. They were on the breakfast and tea-table – sometimes but a single blossom, for Mary had little time to cull them – sometimes only a green branch or sprig, whose wondrously beautiful leaves, shaded with the nicest skill, had given her a thrill of pleasure – sometimes a bunch of simple clover – sometimes a tuft of moss, or a waving corn tassel, mixed with spears of oats and grass-blades.

Mr. Clifton loved Mary all the better that she loved these things; and when she came to him with her blue eye beaming, and her cheek flushed with pleasure, and held up to him some tiny floral treasure, whose beauty no eye less spiritual than her's could have discerned, and pointed out its delicate tinting, he thanked God her heart could be made happy by such pure, innocent, and simple pleasures.

But it was at such times as I have alluded to, when Mr. Clifton sank under his pastoral duties, that Mary's love shone forth the brightest. On the Sabbath eve of which we speak, his eyes were closed, but he heard the rustle of her dress and her light foot-fall on the carpet. He felt her fragrant breath upon his cheek, and the touch of her soft fingers charming the fever from his temples. Gradually it crept away, yielding to her magnetic touch, and the smile came back to her husband's lip, and the beam to his languid eye. And now the healing cup of tea was prepared, and the little stand with its tray set before him, and Mary herself sweetened it, more with the smile on her lip and the love-beam in her eye than with the big lump of sugar she dropped into it; and as her husband drained the cup and laid his head back again upon the cushions, he thanked God, as many a convalescent has done, for the untold wealth of love which sickness may draw forth.

"Did you see that sweet child, George, in Dolly Smith's pew to-day?" asked Mary. "Her little face quite fascinated me. It was as sad as it was sweet. I fancied the child must have known sorrow; perhaps be motherless," and Mary kissed her own little blue-eyed baby. "You know, George, things sometimes come to me like a revelation. I am sure that child's heart is sore. When you read the hymn I saw the tears standing in her eyes, but then your voice is so musical, George, it might have been from excess of pleasure."

"Foolish little wife," said her husband; "as if every body saw me through your eyes, and heard me with your partial ears."

"Well, be that as it may," said Mary, "I want you to call at Dolly's and see that child; get her into my Sabbath-school class if you can, and if she has a sorrow, we will try to lighten it."