THE DANGEROUS DOOR
"Oh, cousin Will, do tell us a story! There"s just time before the school-bell rings." And Harry, Kate, Bob, and little Peace crowded about their older cousin until he declared himself ready to do anything they wished.
"Very well," said Cousin Will. "I will tell you about some dangerous doors I have seen."
"Oh, that"s good!" exclaimed Bob. "Were they all iron and heavy bars?
And if one pa.s.sed in, did they shut and keep them there forever?"
"No; the doors I mean are pink or scarlet, and when they open you can see a row of little servants standing all in white, and behind them is a little lady dressed in crimson."
"What? That"s splendid!" cried Kate. "I should like to go in myself."
"Ah! it is what comes out of these doors that makes them so dangerous.
They need a strong guard on each side, or else there is great trouble."
"Why, what comes out?" said little Peace, with wondering eyes.
"When the guards are away," said Cousin Will, "I have known some things to come out sharper than arrows, and they make terrible wounds. Quite lately I saw two pretty little doors, and one opened and the little lady began to talk like this: "What a stuck-up thing Lucy Waters is! And did you see that horrid dress made out of her sister"s old one?" "Oh, yes,"
said the other little crimson lady from the other door, "and what a turned-up nose she has!" Then poor Lucy, who was around the corner, ran home and cried all evening."
"I know what you mean," cried Kate, coloring.
"Were you listening?"
"Oh, you mean our mouths are doors!" exclaimed Harry, "and the crimson lady is Miss Tongue; but who are the guards, and where do they come from?"
"You may ask the Great King. This is what you must say: "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: keep the door of my lips." Then He will send Patience to stand on one side and Love on the other, and no unkind word will dare come out."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
THE GOLDEN WINDOWS
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Ruth impatiently, as she put the library to rights.
"I do wish we could have a new carpet this spring. I never liked this at all, and now it is so faded and worn it is simply dreadful. It makes me miserable every time I look at it."
"Then, since you say you cannot very well have a new one just now, why do you look at it?" asked Aunt Rachel, smiling. "There are a great many unpleasant things in our lives--we find them every day--some of which we are unable to prevent. If we persist in thinking of them and keep fretting about them, we make ourselves and everybody about us miserable.
"It seems to me we might all learn a lesson from the bees. I have read that when anything objectionable that they are unable to remove gets into a hive, they set to work immediately to cover it all over with wax. They just shut it up in an airtight cell, and then forget all about it. Isn"t that a wise way for us to manage with our vexations and troubles?
"Someone sent me a postal the other day with this motto: "The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do." It is not in having and doing just as we like, but in being determined to make the best of the inevitable. When you find an unpleasant thing in your life that cannot be removed, learn to seal it up and forget it.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"And then I think that many times it helps to get a different view of things. You remember the fable of the golden windows, do you not? A little boy who had very few pretty things in his own home because his parents were poor, used often to stand in his own doorway at sunset time and look longingly at the big house at the top of the opposite hill.
Such a wonderful house as it was! Its windows were all of gold, which shone so bright that it often made his eyes blink to look at them. "If only our house was as beautiful," he would say. "I would not mind wearing patched clothes and having only bread and milk for supper."
"One afternoon his father told him he might do just as he pleased, so he trudged down the hill from his house and up the other long hill. He was going to see the golden windows. But when he reached the top of the other hill he stopped in dismay; his lips began to quiver, his eyes filled with tears. There were no golden windows there--nothing but plain, common windows like his own. "I thought you had beautiful golden windows in your house," he said to the little girl in the yard.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_A lovely house with truly golden windows_."]
""Oh, no!" she said; "our windows aren"t worth looking at, but stand beside me and you will see a lovely house with truly golden windows.
See?" The little boy looked. "Why, that is my house," he said, "and I never knew we had golden windows!"
"You see, much depends on your point of view.
"I have lived to be an old woman, my dear, and I have come to feel that the most heroic lives are lived by those who put their own vexations and troubles out of sight, and strive by every means in their power to ease the burden of the world; who leave always behind them the influence of a brave, cheery, loving spirit."
TRUST ALWAYS: NEVER FRET
Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and follow after faithfulness: Delight thyself also in the Lord; And He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Commit thy way unto the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pa.s.s.
And He shall make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, And thy judgment as the noonday.
Rest in the Lord, And wait patiently for Him: Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pa.s.s.
Cease from, anger, and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself; it tendeth only to evil-doing.
PSALM 37:3-8.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _"The light of the sun does us no good unless we are living in it!"_]
THE NEW LIFE
"The light of the sun does us no good unless we are living in it! Yes, that is just what the minister said," mused Tim, as he tossed his Sabbath-school paper upon the table, and gave himself up to the flow of his own thoughts. "Yes, he said just that, and more, too. He said that the life of Christ will do us little good unless we are living in it; that is, unless we are Christians, it makes little difference to us whether Christ gave His life for us or not."
"What is on your mind, now?" It was Tim"s sister Ada who asked this question as she came running into the room upon her return from school.
She had stopped on her way to gather violets, and that, you see, is why she had not reached home as soon as Tim.
"Oh, I was just thinking about what the minister said last Sabbath, that is all," replied the lad in a low voice.
"Oh, yes, what he said about people being "born again" if they would live the Christ life, and that reminds me that I must write his text down in my text book. Let"s see, it was last Christmas, wasn"t it, when Mrs. Martin gave us those little books, and told us to write in them the text of every sermon we heard preached; and I am glad to say that I have not missed many Sabbaths since then."