The Annals of the Poor Part 15

But far more impressively than these causes can possibly affect, has the word of G.o.d endeared the subject to our hearts, and sanctified it to Christian experience. Who does not look back with love and veneration to those days of holy simplicity, when patriarchs of the church of G.o.d lived in tents and watched their flocks? With what a strength and beauty of allusion do the prophets refer to the intercourse between the shepherd and flock for an ill.u.s.tration of the Saviour's kingdom on earth! The Psalmist rejoiced in the consideration that the Lord was his Shepherd, and that therefore he should not want. The Redeemer himself a.s.sumed this interesting t.i.tle, and declared that "his sheep hear his voice, he knows them, and they follow him, and he gives unto them eternal life."

Perhaps at no previous moment was this comparison ever expressed so powerfully, as when his risen Lord gave the pastoral charge to the lately offending but now penitent disciple, saying, "Feed my sheep." Every principle of grace, mercy, and peace, met together on that occasion.

Peter had thrice denied his Master: his Master now thrice asked him, "Lovest thou me?" Peter each time appealed to his own, or to his Lord's consciousness of what he felt within his heart. As often Jesus commited to his care the flock which he had purchased with his blood. And that none might be forgotten, he not only said, "Feed my sheep," but "Feed my lambs," also.

May every instructor of the young keep this injunction enforced on his conscience and affections,--I return to little Jane.

It was about fifteen months from the first period of her attendance on my Sat.u.r.day school, when I missed her from her customary place. Two or three weeks had gone by, without my making any particular inquiry respecting her. I was at length informed that she was not well; but apprehending no peculiar cause for alarm, nearly two months pa.s.sed away without any further mention of her name being made.

At length a poor old woman in the village, of whose religious disposition I had formed a good opinion, came and said to me, "Sir, have you not missed Jane S--- at your house on Sat.u.r.day afternoons?"

"Yes," I replied, "I believe she is not well."

"Nor ever will be, I fear," said the woman.

"What! do you apprehend any danger in the case?"

"Sir, she is very poorly indeed, and I think is in a decline. She wants to see you, sir; but is afraid you would not come to see such a poor young child as she is."

"Not go where poverty and sickness may call me? How can she imagine so?

At which house does she live?"

"Sir, it is a poor place, and she is ashamed to ask you to come there.

Her near neighbours are noisy wicked people, and her own father and mother are strange folks. They all make game at poor Jenny because she reads her Bible so much."

"Do not tell me about poor places and wicked people: that is the very situation where a minister of the gospel is called to do the most good. I shall go to see her; you may let her know my intention."

"I will, sir; I go in most days to speak to her, and it does one's heart good to hear her talk."

"Indeed!" said I, "what does she talk about?"

"Talk about, poor thing! why, nothing but good things, such as the Bible, and Jesus Christ, and life, and death, and her soul, and heaven, and h.e.l.l, and your discourses, and the books you used to teach her, sir. Her father says he'll have no such G.o.dly things in his house; and her own mother scoffs at her, and says she supposes Jenny counts herself better than other folks. But she does not mind all that. She will read her books, and then talk so pretty to her mother, and beg that she would think about her soul."

"The Lord forgive me," thought I, "for not being more attentive to this poor child's case!" I seemed to feel the importance of infantine instruction more than ever I had done before, and felt a rising hope that this girl might prove a kind of first-fruits of my labours.

I now recollected her quiet, orderly, diligent attendance on our little weekly meetings; and her marked approbation of the epitaph, as related in my last paper, rushed into my thoughts. "I hope, I really hope," said I, "this dear child will prove a true child of G.o.d. And if so, what a mercy to her, and what a mercy for me!"

{Little Jane's Cottage: p137.jpg}

The next morning I went to see the child. Her dwelling was of the humblest kind. It stood against a high bank of earth, which formed a sort of garden behind it. It was so steep, that but little would grow in it; yet that little served to show not only, on the one hand, the poverty of its owners, but also to ill.u.s.trate the happy truth, that even in the worst of circ.u.mstances the Lord does make a kind provision for the support of his creatures. The front aspect of the cottage was chiefly rendered pleasing by a honeysuckle, which luxuriantly climbed up the wall, enclosing the door, windows, and even the chimney, with its twining branches. As I entered the house-door, its flowers put forth a very sweet and refres.h.i.+ng smell. Intent on the object of my visit, I at the same moment offered up silent prayer to G.o.d, and entertained a hope, that the welcome fragrance of the shrub might be ill.u.s.trative of that all-prevailing intercession of a Redeemer, which I trusted was, in the case of this little child, as "a sweet-smelling savour" to her heavenly Father. The very flowers and leaves of the garden and field are emblematical of higher things, when grace teaches us to make them so.

Jane was in bed upstairs. I found no one in the house with her except the woman who had brought me the message on the evening before. The instant I looked on the girl, I perceived a very marked change in her countenance: it had acquired the consumptive hue, both white and red. A delicacy unknown to it before quite surprised me, owing to the alteration it produced in her look. She received me first with a very sweet smile, and then instantly burst into a flood of tears, just sobbing out,--

"I am so glad to see you, sir!"

"I am very much concerned at your being so ill, my child, and grieved that I was not sooner aware of your state. But I hope the Lord designs it for your good." Her eye, not her tongue, powerfully expressed, "I hope and think he does."

"Well, my poor child, since you can no longer come to see me, I will come and see you, and we will talk over the subjects which I have been used to explain to you."

"Indeed, sir, I shall be so glad!"

"That I believe she will," said the woman; "for she loves to talk of nothing so much as what she has heard you say in your sermons, and in the books you have given her."

"Are you really desirous, my dear child, to be a true Christian?"

"Oh, yes, yes, sir; I am sure I desire that above all things."

I was astonished and delighted at the earnestness and simplicity with which she spoke these words.

"Sir," added she, "I have been thinking, as I lay on my bed for many weeks past, how good you are to instruct us poor children; what must become of us without it!"

"I am truly glad to perceive that my instructions have not been lost upon you, and pray G.o.d that this your present sickness may be an instrument of blessing in his hands to prove, humble, and sanctify you. My dear child, you have a soul, an immortal soul to think of; you remember what I have often said to you about the value of a soul: 'What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

"Yes, sir, I remember well you told us, that when our bodies are put into the grave, our souls will then go either to the good or the bad place."

"And to which of these places do you think that, as a sinner in the sight of G.o.d, you deserve to go?"

"To the bad one, sir."

"What! to everlasting destruction!"

"Yes, sir."

"Why so?"

"Because I am a great sinner."

"And must all great sinners go to h.e.l.l?"

"They all deserve it; and I am sure I do."

"But is there no way of escape? Is there no way for a great sinner to be saved?"

"Yes, sir, Christ is the Saviour."

"And whom does he save?"

"All believers."

"And do you believe in Christ yourself?"

"I do not know, sir; I wish I did; but I feel that I love him."

"What do you love him for?"

"Because he is good to poor children's souls like mine."

"What has he done for you?"

"He died for me, sir; and what could he do more?"