Amy Harrison.
by Amy Harrison.
CHAPTER I.
THE WALK.
One fine Sunday morning two little girls, called Amy and Kitty Harrison, set out from their mother"s cottage to go to the Sunday school in the neighbouring village. The little hamlet where they lived was half a mile from the school. In fine weather it was a very pleasant walk, for the way lay by the side of a little chattering stream, which fed the roots of many pretty wild flowers; and then, leaving the valley, the path struck across some corn-fields, which were now quite yellow for harvest. And even in wet weather the little girls seldom missed the school; for their mother was a careful woman, and they themselves loved their teacher and their lessons. Mrs.
Mordaunt, the wife of the clergyman, taught them on Sunday, for both Amy and Kitty were in the first cla.s.s.
Amy was tripping lightly along, enjoying the sunshine. Every now and then she bent down and gathered a wild flower,--the four-leaved yellow potentilla, or the meadow-sweet, or a spike of golden rod, or a handful of forget-me-nots, watered by the stream, to make a little nosegay for her teacher; for Mrs. Mordaunt loved flowers and would sometimes take the lesson for the day from them. And she loved better still the affectionate remembrances of her children.
Kitty, meanwhile, was walking very soberly along, reading her hymn-book. Perhaps from this you may think that Kitty was the more industrious and thoughtful of the two; but it was not so. Amy had risen early that morning, and got her lessons all ready, and so she could enjoy the pleasant walk freely; for you know, or if you do not know I hope you will learn, that it is always those who are busiest at their work that can be merriest in their hours of leisure. Nothing gives us such an appet.i.te for enjoyment as hearty work. So Amy tripped on, humming a cheerful hymn, while poor Kitty kept on saying over and over again the words of her hymn, and vainly trying to stop her ears from hearing and her eyes from seeing all the pleasant sights and sounds around her. But the birds were so busy singing, and the fish kept springing up from the stream, and every now and then a bright b.u.t.terfly would flit across, or a little bird perch on a spray close to her, and everything around seemed trying so mischievously to take her attention from her book, so that they had reached the gate at the end of the wood before Kitty had learned two verses of her hymn.
You see, these two little girls were not quite like each other, although they had the same home, and the same lessons, and the same plays. If you sow two seeds of the same plant in the same soil, you know they will grow up exactly like each other. The flowers will be of the same colour, the same smell, the same shape; the roots will suck up the same nourishment from the soil, and the little vessels of the stems and leaves will cook it into the very same sweet, or sour, or bitter juices. But with little children it is quite different. You may often see two children of one family, with the same friends, the same teaching, the same means of improvement, as different in temper and character from each other as if they had been brought up on opposite sides of the world. Indeed, it is as strange for children of one family to be alike, as for flowers to be unlike. Why is this? Among other reasons one great one is, that G.o.d has given to children a _will_--a power of choosing good or evil. Flowers have no will; they cannot help being beautiful, and being what G.o.d meant them to be. The earth feeds them, and the rains water them and make them grow without any choice or will of theirs; but with you, children, it is quite otherwise. G.o.d has given you _wills_; and it is in your own power to choose whether you will be good and happy children, and a blessing to all around you, and turning everything around you into a blessing, every year growing wiser and better; or whether you will yield to the evil within and around you, and turn health, and time, and Christian teaching, and all the good things G.o.d sends to feed your souls, into food for your selfish and idle natures, and so grow every year worse and worse. You must do one of these two things,--you may do the best.
Remember I do not say you can do them _for_ or _by yourselves_, but you _can do_ them. G.o.d has said so. The flowers cannot choose or ask for food, and so G.o.d chooses for them and gives without asking. You are higher creatures than they, and can choose and ask, and so G.o.d will wait for you to ask before he gives; but he is only waiting for this, and he is always ready to hear.
Mrs. Mordaunt had told the children something of this last Sunday, and Amy thought of it as she walked, and did ask G.o.d to bless her teacher"s words to her that day.
Now you have seen how Amy and Kitty Harrison used their power of choice. The sun had beamed into the room for Kitty as well as for Amy that morning. G.o.d had given them both the pleasant morning hours of his day to use as they liked best. Kitty had chosen to spend them in dozing lazily in bed, while Amy had jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, and gone out to her favourite seat under an old cherry tree to learn her lessons.
So the little girls reached the gate at the end of the wood. Outside was a road, across which lay the corn-fields leading to the church, and beside it stood a cottage where Amy and Kitty used to stop to call for little Jane Hutton, one of their school-fellows. Jane"s father was a blacksmith; and the Huttons were richer than the Harrisons, so that Jane had gayer bonnets and smarter dresses than Kitty and Amy. This morning she had such beautiful new ribbons that Kitty"s attention was quite caught by them. And Jane too was not a little proud of them; her mother had given a shilling a yard for them at the next town. If Kitty had found it difficult to learn her lessons before, she now found it quite impossible; for in the midst of every line she could not help reckoning how many weeks" halfpence it would take, and how many times she would have to open the gate for travellers who came to see the waterfall near the cottage, before she could buy a ribbon like that.
CHAPTER II.
AT SCHOOL.
At length the children reached the school before the hymn was learned, and Kitty felt very much ashamed when, after stammering through three verses, Mrs. Mordaunt gave her back the book, saying, "I would rather have no lesson from you, Kitty, than one learned so carelessly as this." However, it was too late to repair the fault, so Kitty resolved to give her very best attention to the chapter they were going to read. It was the parable of the sower and the seed, in the thirteenth of St. Matthew. I cannot tell you all that Mrs. Mordaunt said about it, but it was something of this kind:--
"The Saviour was sitting on a little strip of level land by the side of the Sea of Galilee. Behind him were high mountains, towering one above another to the clouds; before him, the waves came rippling quietly against the low sh.o.r.e. Around him were crowds of people gathered together from the villages and towns many miles around to listen unto him. Had all these people come to Jesus for the same thing, do you think, Jane Hutton?"
Jane Hutton started at the question. She had been playing with her new parasol, and her thoughts were very far from the Sea of Galilee. Mrs.
Mordaunt repeated the question in another way. "Do you think all the people who came to Jesus came because they loved him, and wanted to be his disciples?"
"No; there were the Pharisees," said Kitty.
"Yes; they came to try to find fault with him."
"And the sick," said Amy timidly, "who came to be healed."
"True," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "And then there were very many, doubtless, who came from mere curiosity, because they had heard their friends talk of his wonderful power of healing, or the new, wise, and strange words of him who seemed to them only the son of a poor carpenter of Nazareth. But were there any who gathered close around him, and loved his words for their own sake, not because they were new or interesting, but because they were _true_ and _G.o.d"s words_, because they had sins to be forgiven and Jesus could forgive, and sick souls which only Jesus could heal?"
"Yes; there were the disciples."
"What do you mean by disciples?"
"Does it not mean those who love Jesus?" asked Amy.
"No; don"t you remember it means scholars?" said Kitty, who was quicker than her sister, and rather proud of her better memory.
"You are both right," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "The disciples of Jesus are those who come to learn of him; and the first lesson every one who comes to Jesus learns is to love him. Nothing can be learned of Christ without loving him.
"Well," she continued, "our Lord looked round on the crowd: the proud and clever men who stood knitting their brows, and eagerly watching his words, and from time to time whispering to one another; the eager mult.i.tude, who listened in mute wonder to his wonderful lessons; the little group of disciples who gathered affectionately about him; the sick whom he had healed; the possessed and mad whom he had restored to reason; the despised sinners whom he had received and forgiven; and perhaps there were some pious mothers there with little children who were not afraid to come close to him, for he loved little children.
But he saw more of that crowd than we should have seen if we had been there. What was it that he saw which we cannot see?"
The children were silent a minute, and then Amy murmured, "Was it their hearts, ma"am?"
Mrs. Mordaunt replied kindly, "Yes; and he saw how differently his words would tell on the hearts of the crowd around. And so he taught them a lesson in this story which we call--"
"The parable of the sower," said Kitty quickly.
Then Mrs. Mordaunt examined the children about the parable, and finding they had attended to it and understood it, she talked to them about it.
"Now, dear children," she said, "this school-room, with its whitewashed walls, is a very different place from the sh.o.r.es of the Sea of Galilee; and you, little children, with your pleasant English homes, and your Bibles, and your Sunday schools, I daresay think yourselves very different from the grave priests, and clever lawyers, and rough Hebrew labourers and farmers, and Roman soldiers, who gathered around the Saviour then. But among you, as among that mult.i.tude, who have so long since gone the way of all the earth, the eye of Jesus Christ (for he sees here as well as there) sees two great divisions, not of rich and poor, or clever and stupid, but of those who are his disciples and those who are not. Which cla.s.s would you like to belong to?"
Kitty answered eagerly, "His disciples, ma"am."
Some of the children were silent, and some spoke with Kitty; but little Amy said nothing--the tears filled her eyes and choked her voice.
"You may all be Christ"s little disciples," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "He calls you to him. You may all come to him _privately_, as the disciples did; pray to him in secret, and have his words made clear to you, if you will. You may all bring forth fruit to his glory, thirty, or sixty, or a hundred fold.
"You see," she continued, "although there are only two great bodies or parties in the world,--those in whom Christ"s words _live_, and those in whom they _die_,--yet there are many smaller differences among each of these parties. Some of the seed in the parable fell merely on the surface, and never was seen any more after it was sown: just as, I am afraid, some of you have often left all thoughts of G.o.d behind when you left the school or the church, and never thought of him or his words from one Sunday to another. The fowls of the air--that is, some light thought or play, or Satan, who goes about to put these in your heart--come the moment the words die on your ear, and take the good seed quite away. And then some of you like to hear about Christ, and his words and works, and are quick, and easily understand and take in new thoughts, and, perhaps, think you would like to be good children, and to love Christ, and be his disciples, and go home and go to sleep full of good intentions and plans of correcting your faults. But the next morning other lessons have to be learned, and other things to be thought about, and your faults and bad habits are strong; and so every day the echo of the Sunday"s teaching grows fainter, and at last the end of the week comes, and finds you no nearer G.o.d or the fulfilment of your good resolutions than the beginning. The thorns have sprung up--the cares and pleasures of this world--and choked the good seed that was beginning to grow. And then, again, perhaps, there are some of you who would like very much to be pious, only you are afraid of being unlike others, afraid of being teased for being strict, or laughed at; for persecution does not only consist in burning or hurting the body,--little annoyances are often harder to bear than great sorrows. But think how very cowardly this would be, how very ungrateful and ungenerous to Jesus. He bore the sneers and taunts of crowds for your sake, and bore them too when he was suffering _great pain_; and can you not bear a little laugh for his sake? Think how happy it is to be able to bear a little for him who bore so very much for us; think what joy to have his eye on us, and to hear his kind voice saying, "Blessed are ye, little children, who confess me as your Master before men; for I will confess you to be my beloved ones before the angels of G.o.d." And then, dear children," Mrs. Mordaunt added, "I hope there are some of you who do love your Saviour, and are treasuring up his words in your hearts; and to you I would say, there are differences even among Christ"s disciples. Some bring forth fruit thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold. Seek, then, not only to bring forth fruit, but _much_ fruit; to be better and happier every day. G.o.d means you to do this; he will certainly enable you to do it if you ask.
"And before you leave," she said, "I will first tell you three things which I particularly wish you to remember: the _place_ where the seed is to grow; the _enemies_ which try to destroy its life; and _what makes it grow_. First, where is the seed sown?"
"In the heart," replied all the children.
"Are your spelling lessons, or your lessons on the multiplication table, sown in your hearts?"
The children smiled, and answered, "No."
"Then you do not expect them to bear fruit in your life. It does not improve your tempers or your hearts to learn that _h e a r t_ spells heart, does it? or that 12 times 12 are 144?"
The children thought not.
"Then all you are expected to do with such lessons is to remember them; is it not?"
"Yes, ma"am," was the reply.
"Now that is precisely the point where your lessons in reading and spelling differ from your lessons about the Bible. When you sow seed in your memories, it is like laying up grains in a closed box. We do not expect them to grow; we are quite content if we find as many as we leave; we do not expect any fruit or growth. But when I sow seed in your hearts, it is like putting it into the ground; we want it to _grow_. It is not enough for it to remain safe and sound; we hope that it will bear fruit in your lives. I do not care only for finding it safe in your memories the next Sunday. I long to know that it has been making you better and wiser children _during the week_, helping you to fight with faults, teaching you to love G.o.d and one another. And speaking of your faults leads me to think of the enemies the little seed has to encounter. Can you think of some of the things which try to hinder its growth?"
"There were the fowls," answered Kitty.