The Old Homestead. Ann S. Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ lifted her eyes, filled with touching awe, and choked back the agony of her grief.

      "Father, I listen."

      Oh, the holy love with which those eyes looked down into hers!

      "Have you read the Bible that I left behind for you?"

      "Yes, father; oh, yes, morning and night."

      "Then, you know that the good meet again, after death?"

      "But I—I am not good. Oh, father, father, I cannot make myself good enough to see you again; you will go, and I shall be left behind—I and mother!—I and mother!"

      "Have you been patient with your mother—respectful to her?" he asked, sadly.

      "There—there it is. I have tried and tried, but when she strikes me, or brings those people here, or comes home with that horrible bottle under her shawl, I cannot be respectful—I get angry and long to hide away when she comes up stairs."

      "Hush, my child, hush; these are wicked words!"

      "I know it, father; it seems to me as if no one ever was so wicked—try ever so much, I cannot be good. I thought when you came"—

      "Well, my child."

      "I thought that you would tell me how, and you talk of—. Don't, father, don't; I want you so much."

      "It is God who takes me," said Fuller, gently; "He will teach you how to be good."

      "Oh, but it takes so long; I have asked and asked so often."

      Again that beautiful smile beamed over the dying man's face.

      "He will hear you—He has heard you—I felt that you had need of me, and came; see how God has answered your want in this, my child!"

      "But I can do nothing alone; when you are with me, I feel strong; but if you leave me, what can I do?"

      "Pray without ceasing; and in everything give thanks," said that faint gentle voice once more.

      "But I have prayed till my heart seemed full of tears."

      "They were sweet tears, Mary."

      "No, no; my heart grew heavy with them; and—mother, how could I give thanks when she came home so—!"

      "Hush, hush, Mary—it is your mother!"

      "But I can't give thanks for that, when I remember how she let you suffer—how miserable everything was—how she left you to starve, day by day, spending all the money you had laid up in drink!"

      "Oh, my child, my child!" cried the dying man, sweeping the tears from his eyes with one pale hand, and dropping it heavily on her shoulder.

      She cowered beneath the pressure.

      "It is wrong—I know it," she said, clasping her hands and dropping them heavily before her, as if weighed down by a sense of her utter unworthiness. "But oh, father, what shall I do! what shall I do!"

      "Honor your mother!"

      "How can I honor her, when she degrades and abuses us all!"

      "God does not make you the judge of your parents, but commands you unconditionally to honor them."

      Mary dropped her eyes and stooped more humble downward. She saw now why the darkness had hung so long over her prayers. Filled with unforgiving bitterness against her mother she had asked God to forgive her, scarcely deeming her fault one to be repented of. A brief struggle against the memory of bitter ill-usage and fierce wrong inflicted by her mother, and Mary drew a deep free breath. Her eyes filled, and meekly folding her hands she held them toward her father.

      "What shall I do, father?"

      He drew her toward him, and a look of holy faith lay upon his face.

      "Listen to me, Mary; God may yet help you to save this woman, your mother and my wife; for next to God I always loved her."

      "But what can I do? She hates me because I am so small and ugly. She will never let me love her, and without that what can a poor little thing like me do?"

      "My child, there is no human being so weak or so humble that it is incapable of doing good, of being happy, and of making others happy also. The power of doing good does not rest so much in what we possess, as in what we are. Gentle words, kind acts are more precious than gold. These are the wealth of the poor; more precious than worldly wealth, because it is never exhausted. The more you give, the more you possess."

      A strange beautiful light came into Mary's eyes, as she listened.

      "Go on, father, say more."

      She drew a deep breath.

      "Then the good are never poor!"

      "Never, my child."

      "And never unhappy?"

      "Never utterly miserable, as the wicked are—never without hope."

      "Oh, father, tell me more; ask God to help me—He will listen to you."

      He laid his pale hands upon her head, and as a flower folds itself beneath the night shadow, Mary sunk to her knees. She clasped her little hands, and dropping them upon her father's knee, buried her face there; then the lips of that dying man parted, and the last pulses of his life glowed out in a prayer so fervent, so powerful in its faith, that the very angels of heaven must have veiled their faces as they listened to that blending of eternal faith and human sorrow.

      Mary listened at first tremblingly, and with strange awe; then the burning words began to thrill her, heart and limb, and yielding to the might of a spirit which his prayer had drawn down from heaven. She also broke forth with a cry of the same holy anguish; and the voice of father and child rose and swelled together up to the throne of God.

      As he prayed, the face of the sick man grew sublime in its paleness, and the death sweat rolled over it like rain, while that of the child grew strangely luminous. Gradually mouth, eyes and forehead kindled with glorious joy, and instead of that heart-rending petition that broke from her at first, her voice mellowed into soft throes and murmurs of praise.

      The sick man hushed his soul and listened; his exhausted voice broke into sighs, and thus, after a little time, they both sunk into silence—the child filled with strange ecstasy—the father bowing with calm joy beneath the hand of death.

      "Let me lie down. I am very, very weak," he said, attempting to rise.

      Mary stood up and helped him. She had grown marvellously strong within the last hour, and her soul, better than that slight form, supported the dying man.

      He lay down. She placed the pillow under his head and knelt again.

       It seemed as if her heart could give forth its silent gratitude to

       God best in that position.

      He laid his hand upon her head. It was СКАЧАТЬ