Matty's hungry missionary-box and the message it brought

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EIU (eed
nun eteninonn
Hone
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The Baldwin Library









msde

MATT Y’S
HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

agree







- a
T.NELSON AND SONS.
c LONDON, EDINBURGH ANB NEW YORK.
a a rccnreeesss once nsiaeelets ante b Fi ACR









MATTY’S
HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

AND

THE MESSAGE IT BROUGHT.

A Tale for the Poung.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“COPSLEY ANNALS ;” ‘VILLAGE MISSIONARIES,” ce.



LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

1872.







El ontents.





Marty’s Hunery Misstonary-Box—
Chapter L.,
Chapter II., ...

Chapter III., ...

ANNIE Kina’s QUESTION, ...

Tunes As TuEy Arg,

32

62

69

- 100









MATTY’S

HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.



CHAPTER I.



WV RS. BRYAN had just taken the
potatoes off the fire, and was pre-
paring to lay the cloth for dinner ;
and Mr. Bryan, who said he did
not like to be told what else was
going to make its appearance on
the table, “because there was a sort of a
pleasure in a surprise,” was entering the
house, after his morning’s work as a stone-
mason, while he inwardly endeavoured to
guess from the savoury odour which per-
vaded the atmosphere what. his good house-
wife Susan had prepared for hee: ; and the



8 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

grandmother of the family, who had come
to spend the day, was doing her best to
quiet the youngest child—of more than a
year old—who seemed to think that it was
time it should be attended to, when patter-
ing steps were heard along the street, and
the door was pushed open, and Matty—the
baby’s brother—entered the room, very
flushed, very much out of breath, and with
both his hands behind him.

“Father, I've got a riddle for you to
guess,” he exclaimed, after pausing for a
moment to take breath; “you'll never find
it out!”

“Then what’s the use of guessing, lad, if
I’m not to find it out?” replied his father,
putting on his spectacles at the same time,
by way of helping out his mental vision.

“Come in, Mat, and wipe your shoes,”
said his mother ; “it’s too cold for riddles,
it is; and the potatoes and something else
are better than all the guessing.”

“Oh, wait, mother ; it’s my own riddle:
at least, I’m to keep it; at least—I mean to
say, it’s to be called mine—that is, however,
not the riddle, but itself.”



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 9



MATTY’S RIDDLE.

Matty’s parents looked up with some sur-
prise at their boy’s not very connected speech, °
while his old grandmother nursed his little
brother in an astonished, perplexed manner,
and, as if to communicate to the restless
infant the reason of her bewilderment, re-
peated Matty’s words after him for his special
benefit, with little original remarks of,
“Bless the boy! the learning now that he
gets! In my days there wasn’t no new
riddles, baby ; no, there wasn’t—a darling.



10 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

The wick of the candle like Athens—that
was always a plenty—wasn’t it, and bless
his little heart \y”

But the boy grew impatient.

“Father, what is it that always has its
mouth open, and—”

“That must be the baby,” interposed his
mother.

“ And is always hungry—”

“That must be you, Matty,” said his
grandmother. .

“No, it isn’t ;—and speaks, though we
can’t hear it with our ears—and—and the
food we give it goes to feed numbers of
other people ; and—”

“Stop! that’s enough, lad; and it be a
riddle sure enough,” replied his father ; “it
be a puzzler—indeed it be.’”

“J thought you'd say so, father,” cried
Matty; “1 said I'd make you open your
eyes quite wide like you do when you're
puzzled—you’ll never find out.”

“The food that goes to feed father goes
to feed us,” said Mrs. Bryan, with quite a
felicitous adaptation of the circumstance of
her placing a steaming dish of stew before



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 11

her husband, and thinking it most probable
that she had solved a portion of the riddle
with great readiness ; “it makes him strong,
and he works to give us food.”

Matty shook his head, but, like a prudent’
boy, would not give up his riddle without
coming to terms.

“Will you give me a penny to feed it
with if I tell you, father?” he inquired
cautiously ; “only one penny ?”

Fathers are often foolish with their
pennies when the children are concerned ;
you see, they haven't all the contriving upon
their minds to make them go as far as pos-
sible; and Matty’s father, after fumbling
for a while in his pocket, produced one, and
laid it on the table~

“And mother, and granny,” continued
the boy, laying his taxes with great system
and coolness, “they’ve to give a halfpenny
each at least, as they can’t find out.”

But Mrs. Bryan took fright at this period
of the negotiation. “Now mind that you're
not to be after bringing anything live about
the house,” she suddenly observed ; the very
idea causing her to stand still with the loaf



12 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

in one hand and the salt-cellar in the other.
“T’ll not have pets any more, lad, that cost
ever so much to keep, and are no good after
all. Them white mice that came, only two
of them, and ate bread-crumbs that was
enough to feed any infant as wasn’t unreason-
able, and grew and multiplied like the chil-
dren of Israel in Egypt, till there ‘was no
biding them ; and them turtles—”

“ Doves, mother.”

“Well, turtles is short for turtle-doves,
isn’t it? Them turtles that billed and cooed
nonsense as was hardly respectable to listen
to, and that was always scaring me for fear
the cat should get at them—which it did at
the last ; and the lame dog which had to be
kept because Mat had found it out of doors,
and which had a family to provide for out
in the stables, and wanted to be feeding them
off our provisions. I’ve had enough of live
things about the house, to say nothifg of
the baby, so I’m not going to welcome in
anything fresh with halfpence, lad.”

Matty listened with rather rueful aspect,
while his mother summed up in one speech
the number of his departedgfavourites, in



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 13

the selection of which he could not but feel
that he had been unfortunate; but, with
a conscious innocence of any such fresh
introduction, he returned bravely to the
charge.

“Tt’s nothing live, mother, though it has
a mouth.”

“And a hungry one,” interposed his father,
who seemed to be half induced, as the result
of his wife’s eloquence, to go over to- the
opposition side,—‘a hungry one, which is
more to the purpose.’

Matty was half inclined to give up his
riddle upon the strength of his father’s penny,
which, by a figure of speech, might be said
to be the bird in the hand worth more than
the two halfpennies, which, by the same
figure of speech, might be said to be still
birds in the bush. But he made one more
effort.

“Tt’s nothing live—it’s nothing that'll do
any harm to anything—it’s—it’s a sort of
savings’ bank—I’m sure it is,” and Matty’s
eyes sparkled as the idea occurred to him;
“for Mr. Graham said that all as was given
would return to us with more upon it—”



14 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

_ “Come, come to dinner, Mat,” interposed
his mother; “I never did, in all my born
days, hear a boy go on so about a thing
that’s got into your head ; tell out the riddle,
and then eat what’s set before you, and have
done.”

“Then youll give me the halfpenny,
mother ?”

“ He’s a clamorous lad, baby, isn’t he?”
murmured his grandmother; “he'll not have
done till he gets his old granny to help him
with her coppers:” the result of which con-
fidences. to the baby was the placing by the
side of the original and solitary penny on
the table, another penny to keep it com-
pany.

Then Matty, who had kept his hands
behind him all this time, withdrew them
hastily, and displaying to the little family
assembly a bright, new missionary-box, took
up the two pennies which lay on the table,
and letting them fall through the money-
hole, where they joined company with an-
other already in the same circumstances of
imprisonment, shook them triumphantly to-
gether with an air which said as plainly as



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. Te



PUTTING IN THE PENNIES.

words that the united performance inside
was musié particularly agreeable in his ears.

“A money-box !” exclaimed his parents ;
“wliy, there isn’t much to make such guess-
work about in that.”

“Ah, father,” replied Matty delightedly,
“but it isn’t just like any common money-
box that’s bought in shops—it’s a mission-
ary-money-box ; and I begged and begged
for it, and Mr. Graham, he said I was such
a little fellow for one ; and I told him how
I had read that a little mouse once set a



16 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

great big roaring lion free that had got
into a net; and that I’d try and work at
setting some of the poor heathen free that
were all entangled up like the lion, though
I was ever such a little mouse; and that I
had a penny of my own to begin with ;—and
so he let me have one. And look, father,
my riddle’s a good one—or at least it was
his—here’s its mouth wide open, and it’s
hungry always, ever so hungry, until there’s
a penny comes peeping out at the top because
there’s no room for more; and that’s what
mine’s to do, and—”

“Ts the boy clean crazed ?” inquired Mrs.
Bryan, as she completed the preparations
for dinner ; “‘ what’s he after now? A money-
box is a money-box, according to me; and
that’s one, though it’s queer-looking enough;
—but what’s all this tacked on to it about
Mr. Graham, and the heathen, and lions, and
such like? It’s got its mouth open, but I’d
like to know what putting pence into it has
to do with feeding ever so many folk besides
his whose it is.”

“'That’s it, mother, exactly,” answered
Matty with glee, his delight and interest it

(304)



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 17

his new acquisition rendering him quite elo-
quent on the subject; “it’s not for us our-
selves that the money’s put in; it’s for black
people, to buy them Bibles, and to send them
preachers to tell them about God, and how
they’re to get to heaven; and Mr. Graham
said that was the. same as giving them the
Bread of life.

Whereupon Matty’s father took off his
spectacles and looked at Matty with fixed
astonishment ; and Matty’s mother, taking
up the missionary-box, at once proceeded to
see whether the pennies consigned to its
custody might not be restored to the outer
world; and Matty’s grandmother confided
to the baby that all the new scholaring had
resulted in the turning of his brother’s head...

“ Now mind, lad, you take this box straight
back to school with you this afternoon,” said
Mr. Bryan angrily ; “and if Mr. Graham or
any of the folks there asks any questions,
you just say that I'll not have you be after
with providing for black people thousands of
miles off, when you ought to be minding
your scholaring, and we saving up to give

you schooling. I’ve heard talk of people
(304) 2



18 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

taking to these here notions before of send-
ing out word to the blacks in outlandish
places that they wasn’t to eat each other up,
and that sort of thing; and what I say is,
it’s no business of ours; their religion’s theirs,
and ours is ours, and I won’t have new-fangled
notions of the sort put into my children’s
heads.”

“T always say, ‘Charity begins at home,’”
continued Mrs. Bryan, as with a two-pronged
fork she made ineffectual endeavours torescue
the imprisoned pence; “and I’d like to know
what we have to do with providing for native
sandwiches—savages, | mean—which is all
one as good as another; and I must say, I
take it very strange of Mr. Graham, or Mr.
any-one-else, to be asking poor folks like us
to be paying for what we know nothing
about; and we, now Christmas time has
come round, scarce able to pay all the bills ;
and the tax-man called yesterday ;—why,
Matthew, your last pair of boots cost six-and-
sixpence, if they cost a penny—six-and-six-
pence they did, and they'll be wanting new
soling, I'll be bound, before you know where
you are. Missionary-box indeed! It’ll be



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 19

time enough for that when we’ve come to be
rich—it’s all well enough for rich folks, I
daresay.” And Mrs. Bryan, finding that she
could by no means succeed in regaining the
pence, placed the offending box high up on
the mantle-shelf, and helping out savoury
portions of the stew, bid the boy put all
the new nonsense out of his head, and sit
down like a reasonable lad to his dinner.

But Matty, whose new pleasure had re-
ceived so sudden a check, and whose little
erection of hopes, of which the missionary-
box was the foundation, had been tumbled
to the ground, could not obey the summons.
Putting his two round hands before his face,
he leant his elbows on the table and sobbed
bitterly. -

“QO father, do—do let me keep it—and
I was so glad—and I'll not ask you for any
money—but—but only earn some of my own
to put in—and—and mother always is say-
ing how she has to think to make a penny
go as far as possible—and this makes it
go so—so far—off to Africa—and-—and I
thought she’d like it so much;” and here
- poor little Matty could go no further. He



20 * MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,



MATTY’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

was a little boy—only nine years old—and
this disappointment was a great one to him.

“Tt’s no use taking on, lad, just like a
baby, and you a great boy now that should
know better,” replied his father; “ what your
mother says is true, ‘ Charity begins at home,’
and rich folks may do better than be putting
on our children to ask for money for’ black
folk, as are no better than heathen ;—the
box shall go back this day to Mr. Graham,
as you say he gave it; and I’d like to know
what way he’d put it that it’s a savings’ bank



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 21

for us, who don’t even get our own back
again.”

“Oh, I wish he’d come in and show you,”
said Matty, sobbing less bitterly; “if only
he would; it’s in the Bible, I know, but I
can’t think where, about our lending to the
Lord, and having it more than back again ;
—if only you’d let me keep the box, father,
it wouldn’t do any harm.”

“'There’s no use whining and crying,” re-
plied his mother; “eat your dinner, Mat, and
be quiet,’and after school you bring back
the box where it came from. If going to
school’s to set you up against your parents,
it'd be far better for you to be biding at
home altogether.?

“There’s no school this afternoon,” replied
the boy, with something of relief in his voice;
“we broke up for Christmas this morning,
and I won’t be seeing Mr. Graham till Sun-
day. There wouldn’t be nobody for me to
bring it back to to-day.”

“Then Ill see that you bring it back on
Sunday,” said his father ; “and I’ve a great
mind to send and ask him for the three-
pence back that won’t come out. I wonder



22 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

what that’s to do beyond being loss to
us ?”

“Fourpence buys a Testament,” sighed
Matty half to himself, “and a Testament
shows the way to heaven perhaps to five
people, and they'll get riches for ever; that’s
just how Mr. Graham put it.”

Mr. Graham had not, however, put the
matter quite so curtly and arithmetically
before the children; but Matty made the
statement in an abridged and succinct form,
freeing it from all superfluous ornament.
His parents did not appear to hear, and
the dinner was silently concluded ;—Matty
every now and then glancing tearfully at
the missionary-box on the shelf, with a
sort of desire to confide to it his troubles,
and to make it understand that it was
not his fault that it had met with so harsh
a reception. =

After the conclusion of the mid-day meal,
his father returned to his work, and _ his
mother went into the back-kitchen with the
baby, and his grandmother put on her bonnet
and warm cloak and went out, and then
Matty was left alone with the fire.



MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 23

I say advisedly “with the fire,” because,
when we have anything on our minds—and
most of us have from time to time—there is
something very consolatory in looking into
the burning embers, and a sort of companion-
ship in them which is soothing to one’s feel-
ings. Matty stood and! looked into the fire
for some time, until a beautiful cavern with’
a ship in the middle fell in with a crash,
and then he clambered on to a chair, and,
taking hold of the missionary-box, established
himself upon a low stool, and placing his
elbows on his knees, and leaning his head on
his hands, contemplated it affectionately and
sorrowfully.

Whereupon ensued a silent conversation
between Matty’s self and Matty’s conscience,
which lasted for some time, while the short
winter afternoon began to close in, and the
red fire burned lower and lower, and the
heavy.clouds that had gathered in the morn-
ing began to let fall their burden of fleecy
snow till the world without became quite
white.

“T’m so sorry about it,” began Matty with
a sigh ; “I wanted so to have kept the box,



24 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.









BY THE FIRE,

-and got it quite full to give back to Mr.
Graham.”
“Yes,” said Matty’s conscience; “ but was



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 25

it only that you might send the Bible to the
poor heathen that you asked for the box,
Matty?”

“Well, I did care for the heathen, I’m
sure,” replied Matty; “I felt very sorry
when I heard of the slaves being beaten, and
the mothers giving their babies to crocodiles.”

“Yes, you did, when Mr. Graham told
you the stories about it; and you felt just
then as if youd have done anything for
them ; but afterwards, what made you so
anxious about your box?” asked Matty’s
conscience.

“T don’t mean to say,” continued Matty,
rather vexed with the faithfulness of his —
inward monitor— I don’t mean to say that

‘I didn’t think it would be very nice to fill
my box before any of the other boys, especially
Jaines Smith, who calls me ‘little shrimp,’
and makes fun of me all play-time ; but still
I’m sure, all the same, it’s mostly for the
heathen I cared for it.”

But here Matty’s conscience became quite
bold. “You know quite well, Matty,” it
began, “that you thought very little about
the heathen at all; that you wanted to



26 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

make Mr. Graham see that you would fill
your box first ; and that it looked so bright
and new that you thought you would like to
have it for your own, as a kind of toy ;—and
you know that the chief reason why you've
been so unhappy at your parents not letting
you keep it is because you think you'll get
laughed at for being in such a hurry to have
a box, and then bringing it back directly.
But the box shall speak to you itself.”

And here Matty’s conscience opened the
door of his hearing, as he bent down over
his new treasure, and for the first time the
voice of the missionary-box came to his ears.
He had never thought about its having a
voice for him; though when Mr. Graham
had said it had, in what Matty had repeated
to his parents, he had thought it a very good
part of the riddle, and had put it away in
his memory. He had been so delighted and
interested with the picture on the front, of
the native church, with its black congrega-
_ tion and black preacher, that it had not
occurred to him that the words printed on
the top might be the expression (as indeed
they were) of what the missionary-box had



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 27

to say ; and as his eye fell on them—and
because it was getting dark, and he had to
bend towards the fire, and read with difficulty y
he did so with much more interest and atten-
tion than if it had been broad daylight—
they brought a message to Matty’s heart to
which he had never before given heed, and
which, though he was a little boy only, his
faithful friend conscience took up earnestly,
and made the subject of a fresh application :
“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he
became poor, that ye through his poverty might
become rich.”»

“T wonder why that’s written on the
missionary-box,” began Matty to himself.
“Tet me think: Jesus Christ became poor
—that is, he gave up heaven, and came in
the form of a little child—for our sakes, that
he might die for us; and so, when we get to
heaven, that we might have the riches in
glory that Mr. Graham spoke about. But
why do they put this on the missionary-box ?
I suppose to remind us that whatever we
give to Jesus, it’s all nothing compared with
what he did for us; and that we ought to



28 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

be glad to be able to help to get the news to
other folks who don’t know of him.”

“Yes,” said conscience, “ that’s exactly
why it’s put there, Matty; so now, re-
member that pennies put in to try and make
more show than other boys, or for any other
reason except for Christ’s sake, Won’t be the
kind of pennies that the missionary-box asks
for.” And conscience would have said a
little more upon the subject, had not Mrs.
Bryan opened the door of the kitchen then
and there, and called Matty in to nurse the
baby while she “cleaned up a bit.”

“There’s something queer over him,” she
said ; “he was fretful enough to make one’s
heart ache all the morning, and now he’s
been lying as dull as possible. Try and
‘liven him a bit, Mat; there’s a good boy.”

Matty was very fond of his baby brother,
that had seemed to come to comfort him
when his little sister and play-fellow, Nelly,
had been taken away, more than a year
before ; and immediately proceeded to assume
charge over him, doing his best to engage
and amuse him. But little Willie had
caught sight of the missionary-box, and



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 29

held out his hand for it, attracted by its
bright appearance. So Matty gave it to
him, and for a time the little one seemed

i

Tt’ mt Wy



1, (igggetaae



AMUSING WILLIE.

to brighten up with what he evidently re-
garded as a rattle invented for his own par-
ticular amusement. He was shaking it
vigorously when, after some time, the chil-
dren’s father came in from his work.

“The snow’s falling fast,” he said, “and
the evenings close in so early that it’s dat
before you know where you are. Oh dear,



30 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-LOX.

it’s tired I am to-night; but there’ll be
something to add to our savings’ bank this
week when this heavy work will be over.
What’s the matter with Willie, wife ?”

“ He ailing—it’s a chill, I think,” she
replied ; “granny said she’d send some stuff
from the chemist’s for him—he don’t seem
to breathe easy.”

Her husband took Willie in his arms,
missionary-box and all. He hardly noticed
his plaything, as he caught the smile which
the little one gave as he nestled into his
father’s arms, who, when he had first been
placed there after little Nelly had been
taken, seemed to have given him Nelly’s
share of love besides his own.

“ It’s to put by for you, little Willie, and
for Matty, against a rainy day, that father
works,” he continued, as the child lay on
his arm ; “so you'll have to be a good boy.
and work for him when he gets old.” Of
course Willie understood as much of this as
babies of a year old ever do understand of the
discourses addressed, whether personally to
themselves, or, as is often the case, to them,
being intended for a third person present ;



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 3)

on which occasions a baby is well known to
be invaluable. But. he lay quite still; and
when finally laid in his little crib, after the
administration of the medicament sent home
for him by his grandmother, seemed to doze
off quietly. .

During the evening Matty cast wistful
looks at the hungry missionary-box, lying
where Willie had left it on his crib, but
judiciously refrained from pleading for per-
mission to retain it, fearing a still more
decided refusal.

“'To-day’s Tuesday,” he said to himself,
“and Friday’s Christmas-day ; and father
maybe will come to if I ask him on Christ-
mas-day, and then it will be a missionary-
box and a Christmas-box as well. At all
events, there’s till Sunday for him to come
round; and if Willie takes so to playing
with it, he'll perhaps not like to give it
away from him; and on Sunday I shall
have another penny to put in, which will
make it rattle more. Ill ask my teacher
to tell us more about the text on the top of
it.” :





a

TS Rais Rh ESA a Sy
GN WEES ES ea ae de
Al ey -

CHAPTER II.



SFr was the middle of the night, and
ee Matty had been fast asleep for many
eg “Ss hours, when he was roused by hear-
2 ing an unwonted stir in the house.

t He occupied a tiny room which
opened off from the landing leading to that
where his parents slept, and the window of
which looked over a field into the more
straggling part of the town. The moon-
light, reflected by the snow, shone in upon
him as, starting up, he listened to footsteps
on the stairs, and to the hurried voices of his
parents, with which mingled another voice
strange to his ears. Then he grew frightened,
and stealing on tip-toe to his mother’s room,
crept in quietly to where she and his father
bent over little Willie’s crib—always carried
up at night from down-stairs, and placed








MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 33

beside her bed. She was crying as Matty
had only once seen her cry before, and that
was when little Nelly died; and his father
was crying too. The strange gentleman had
his-hand on Willie’s tiny wrist; and Willie
was moaning, and breathing with difficulty.

“Willie, Willie,” said Matty, in a troubled,
frightened voice ; ‘“ Willie, its me! Look
at Matty !”

His brother’s voice roused the sick child,
and a fitful little smile flitted across his
countenance. Mrs. Bryan found no fault
with the boy for having come there, but
threw a shawl over him; and then, after a
minute, it became clear to Matty that his
baby brother was very, very ill, and that
the strange doctor had held out no hope to
his parents of his being spared to them.
He knelt down by the side of the little
crib, and Willie knew him, and put out his
burning hand to play in the tangled curls
of Matty’s brown hair, which it had been
his delight to twist round his fingers in
many a game which the two had had to-
gether; and then the light fell upon his

features, and Matty saw the change on his
(304) 38



e

34 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

face like the change which had come to
little Nelly’s, and he covered his eyes with
the clothes, and sobbed bitterly, and tried to
stop his ears that he might not catch the
sound of Willie’s hurried, laboured breath-
ing, which was even now becoming fainter
and fainter.

“Couldn’t anything more be done?” whis-
pered his father hurriedly to the doctor.

A shake of the head was the only answer,
and they all were still, Matty’s sobs only
breaking the silence, for his parents had
become calmer and quieter ; and then little
Willie opened his eyes, and feebly stretched
out his hand towards something among the
clothes at the foot of his crib, with a little
child’s impulse, even in sickness, for what
looked bright and shining there. Matty
saw that it was his new missionary-box,
that had not been moved from the place
where it had been laid aside the evening
before ; and he put it into his baby brother’s
hand,—into the little hand which had
strength only to hold it for a moment, and
to look at it with a smile of pleasure, while
he pointed with his finger to the bright new



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 35













\ SSS AAA VT AAA ANS
* SS a TRE ‘
\ ih Bey PER

AT WILLIE’S BEDSIDE.

exterior upon which the light gleamed from
the candle; and then he let it fall wearily
on the coverlid, as he turned on the pillow,
and closed his eyelids once more. His
brother tried to rouse him again. Little
Willie was so fond of him, that in these
attempts he hardly ever failed to amuse and
please him ; but now it was in vain.. When
he raised his head again, he saw that all
present were quite still, and that the doctor
had silently left the room, and that his
parents were looking sadly: and tearfully



386 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

into the cradle where little Willie had been
—for he was not there now. There was
only the frail form and delicate casket from
which the jewel had been taken away.-
Willie’s spirit had been carried to His pres-
ence who was himself once a little child on
earth, and who now gathers the lambs in
his arms, and leads them to living fountains
of waters in the land where they shall dwell
for evermore ; and Matty laid his head close
by the sleeping form of the baby brother
who was now an angel in heaven, and cried
till he seemed as if he could cry no longer ,
and then his father took him up, and carried
him to his own little room, where from very
weariness of sorrow, he fell fast asleep.

* * * * *

The Christmas season was coming in with
joy and gladness; but in one house there
were closed blinds, and hushed voices, and a
little silent chamber where one and another
stole in softly from time to time, that they .
might look on the placid face of a sleeping
child—of a little sleeping child who had,
through so short a passage, entered into rest
before the toil and care of a troublesome



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 37

. world had left a trace upon his brow, or cast
a shadow over the course of his brief’ exis-
tence.

Matty was broken-hearted at the loss of
Willie, and quite unable to control his
grief, while, fearful of adding to that of his
parents, he hid himself away that he might
give vent to it more freely, and was found
sobbing in unexpected places by his mother,
who vainly told him to “give over,” since
no crying would bring his brother back.
Mr. Graham. came the next day, and Mrs.°
Bryan received his visit thankfully, and
_ seemed to find a comfort in telling him the
history of little Willie’s brief illness—‘ how
he had been ailing, and with his little breath-
ing oppressed-like—and how then he had
become fractious—and he was such a good
child in general—and how she hadn't thought
nothing of it at first—and then granny had
sent some physic which didn’t seem to re-
lieve his chest ever so little—and then, that
night when John had carried him up-stairs,
she had said, ‘John, I don’t like the child’s.
looks ’—and John had come with her to the
crib, and listened, and ‘at last went for the:



88 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

doctor, who said it was ’cute inflammation ;
and there wasn’t nothing to be done, illness
was so quick with children—and then—and
then— ;? but here the poor mother’s voice



TELLING MR. GRAHAM,

failed, and she was glad to catch the sound
of a knock at the door of the back-kitchen,
which gave her an excuse for leaving her
visitor for a moment while she turned away.
It proved to be a messenger requiring her
attention for some while, and Mr. Graham
told her not to hurry, as he would talk to



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 39°

Matty, who had. crept shyly and sorrowfully
into the room, whither he had been attracted
by the clergyman’s kindly voice.

Mr. Graham took him on his knee, and
did not speak to him just at first, but let
the sobs come, which would have their way.
Then he talked gently and kindly of little
Willie, and began to soothe him with com-
forting words and thoughts, such as a child
might understand, ~ ~

“He'd mind me always,” sobbed Matty.
“When I came home from school, he’d try
and walk across the room to meet me, and
clap his hands—always he would.”

“ And you were a kind little brother to
him, Matty,” said Mr. Graham. © “I’ve
often seen you playing with him when'I’ve
been passing by; and your mother says
you were never rough or rude to him. [’m
so glad you have that to remember.”

“‘ Nobody wasn’t never so to him ; he was
always so good till he was taken ill,” an-
swered the boy. “He was even better
than little Nelly—she were cross some-
times.”

“But, Matty, dear boy, though it’s very



40 MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

sad, you must think of little Willie now,
think how happy he must be. He’s an
angel now, without any pain or sickness,
and better off far than when he was here on
earth.”

“He'd have been so pleased,” continued
Matty sorrowfully. “Id got him a Christ-
mas present—a little yellow bird that made
singing when you pulled a string—here,
PU show it you;”—and he slid off Mr.
Graham’s knee, and produced his treasure
from a drawer in the dresser. “He'd have
clapped his hands so to see it; and it was
my own threepence, it was, that bought it.”

His friend saw that it was a relief to
Matty to tell out simply all the trouble
that was on his mind, and looked at the
“little yellow bird” with much interest,
while the boy, in the midst of his sorrow,
examined it with him, to see by what
mechanism the so-called singing was pro-
Juced. But suddenly the flood of grief at
the thought that Willie’s little hand would
never hold it, came over him again, and
pushing it from him, he gave way to the
sobs which might not be restrained.



eg

MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 41

Again Mr. Graham tried to soothe him
with the words, “Think how happy he is
now, Matty.”

“There'll be more beautiful birds than
that there?” sobbed the boy, looking up
inquiringly through his tears to one whom
he supposed, as a matter of course, must
know all about it. ‘“ He'll like seeing
them.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Graham; “and beautiful
angels with harps, who sing—”

“He always liked me to sing to him,”
interrupted Matty, who in every picture of
the joys of heaven now presented to him
selected those which answered to his re-
membrance of baby Willie’s pleasures on
earth. “Td sing ‘Happy land’ to him
sometimes for an hour.”

“ Angels with crowns of gold,” continued
his friend, “and fountains of water, and
flowers that never fade—”

“He always liked flowers,” interposed
Matty, “only he pulled them to pieces so ;
he won’t there, though,” and a deep sigh
finished the sentence.

“ And thousands of happy children, who



42 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

ft ih

JIN





















“HE ALWAYS LIKED ME TO SING To HIM.”

will welcome him among them; and then,
best of all, Matty——” x
~ “That's what I think so about,” sobbed



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 43

Matty with renewed bitterness; “he'll be
shy among such a number, he always was.
If only I could have been with him just at
first, just till it wasn’t so strange, I know
he’d be all right, but—but—”

The tear was glistening in Mr. Graham’s
eye. There was.something touching in the
strong brotherly love, deepened in the boy’s
heart by Willie’s dependence upon him, and
he drew his arm more closely round the
sorrowful child with the words, ‘“'There’s
One to care for him better than you could,
little Matty. Who gathers the lambs in
his arms, and carries them in his bosom ?”

“ Jesus,” was the low answer.

“ And you must remember, dear boy, that
Willie isn’t a little shy baby now, like he
was on earth ; he knows far more than the
wisest man that we could find; and he’s
come to learn how much Jesus loves him,
and that’s best of all to know.”

“Will Jesus tell him how sorry I am?”
inquired the boy earnestly.

“ Jesus will tell him everything that will
be good for him to know, Matty; and then
Willie will learn what he couldn’t under-



44 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

stand on earth—how it is that he’s been
brought safe to that happy land. For
whose sake is it?”

“ Jesus Christ’s,” was the answer.

“Yes, Matty ; ‘Willie will be told what
he was too little for you to teach him here
—that the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he sees
now in all his glory, couldn’t be happy when
he knew that sinful men were shut out from
his beautiful kingdom in heaven ; and so, as
it was the punishment of their sins that they
should die, he came long ago, and was born
a little child, and grew up to die instead of
us, and to take our punishment upon the
cross. If it hadn’t been for his great love
in doing this we shouldn’t be able to think
of little Willie as an angel in heaven now.”

“Tt’s nice to think he knows what it is to

have been a little baby like Willie was,”
sighed Matty tearfully; “he won't have
forgotten ?”

“ You must think of that this Christmas
time, dear boy ; don’t let it pass away with-
out trying to thank the Lord Jesus for hay-
ing come to be Willie’s Saviour and yours;
for having for your sakes, though he was so



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 45

rich in his glory, become poor, that you
through his poverty might become rich.”

“Why, these are the very words exactly,”
said Matty, raising his head with something
of eagerness—“ that’s the very text that’s
on my missionary-box, and that I wanted to
talk to my teacher about. It’s been put
away now,” he continued, looking round the
room, “and I’m afraid to ask mother for it,
because she said, she and father both, that I
mustn’t keep it.”

“Why mustn’t you, Matty? Did they
think you wouldn’t like to go on with it
after the first?”

“No, not that,” was the half shy reply ;
“but they said they didn’t see why we poor
folks was to mind heathens far away ; and
that charity—that was what they said—
charity begins at home.”

“And you, dear Matty, why did you
wish to keep it?” and Mr. Graham was
glad, for the boy’s sake, to see his interest
diverted for a few minutes from the subject
of his grief.

““T wanted to help the heathen, and—
and” (for Matty was too honest to keep



46 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

back the whole)—“ and then I thought it
looked very pretty to have for my own, and
—I wanted to have it filled before the other
boys—”

“And what of the text on the top,
Matty ?”

“That was just it—I mean, sir, I hadn’t
thought of reading it until that afternoon
by the fire, and it seemed to say—I don’t
know exactly how to say what I mean—but
it seemed as if I hadn’t ought to have taken
it—as if I hadn’t no right to it then.”

' “ Because that text says for the mission-
ary-box what it would say for itself—that
all that is put in should be for love to him
who gave up so much for us—not to try
and appear better than others, or for the
sake of soon having a full box. Then comes
the question, Matty, Do you love the Lord
Jesus Christ ?”

Matty looked down without speaking for
a minute, and Mr. Graham repeated the
question. At last came the answer.

“Tve thought I did a little yesterday
and to-day.”

“And what has brought the love, Matty?”



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOXx. 47

His reply was an interrupted one. “I
had made that same text out by the fire, and
then when—when after that night—I woke
up and—and Willie was gone, I thought
whether he was gone to heaven—and—and
I knew hé was’ (and his voice became
firmer); “I knew he was, and thought
why, because he’d never done anything
good to ‘deserve it ; and then the words on
the missionary-box came to my mind, and I
thought how Christ had become poor—a
little child like him, and in a manger, that
our Willie might be so rich—and for me
too; and then I felt as if I must love him
because it was all done so free.”

“It’s himself that teaches you that, dear
Matty,” said his friend kindly—“to love
him ‘because he first loved us;’ and the
missionary-box won't have spoken i in vain if
it reminds you of this, Ard you must try
and tell all this to Jesus, dear boy ;—do you
think you can ?”

“T never could till—it was this morning
I went in when no one knew—I thought
perhaps they might have made a inistake,
‘and he’d open his eyes if Z called him; and



48 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,.

I turned down the cloth, and then I knew
it was no use trying, he was so white and
cold—and—and—I hid my face and told
Jesus I wanted to—to—love him and go to
heaven like—like little Willie.”

Mr. Graham’s own fatherly heart was
overflowing, and he spoke words of gentle
comfort to the little boy who had opened to
him all his confidence. ‘If father even
doesn’t let you keep the missionary-box,
Matty,” he said after a few minutes of
further conversation, and rising to depart,
“it won’t have been of no use to you. You'll
remember what it said when you were in
trouble.”

Matty sighed an assent, adding, however,
‘But I think, sir, perhaps father will let me
now; he’s so sorry; and if I ask him, I think
he'll not be angry.”:

Here Mrs. Bryan came in with many
apologies for having been detained. Mr.
Graham assured her they were quite un-
necessary. “Matty and I have been talk-
ing,” he said; “and I was very glad to
know him better than I can in the school
among such a number.” f



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 49

Mrs. Bryan looked pleased at his notice
of her boy, and said he was a good lad, and
minded his book—and she hoped in time
he’d make quite a scholar. And then the
clergyman spoke words of sympathy, which
found their way, as wordsof sympathy always
must, to the sorrowful mother’s heart, and
bade her join with him in prayer that little
Willie’s Saviour might be hers and her
family’s ; and went away then, after pro-
mising that he, and no one else, would meet
them on the Sunday at the churchyard,
when all that was mortal of her little one
would be committed to the ground.

Her husband came in later. He had
seemed to feel the blow even more than she
had felt it herself; for, unconfessedly, Willie
had, during the short fourteen months of his
life, been to him as the very apple of his eye.
He had come only a month after little Nellie
had been taken, and was so like her, with his
soft hair, and large brown eyes, and pretty
ways, that he had seemed to occupy her place
and his own in the father’s heart ; and for him
he had often toiled extra hours, that the small
sum entered in his name at the savings’

(304) 4





5

50 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

bank might be increased without Matty’s
losing anything thereby. And now when
he returned to his quiet home, and missed
the welcome which his entrance had always
called forth from the little one who had by
this time learned to clamber on to his knee,
he threw himself down and refused comfort.

They were a silent party, though Matty
tried to cheer his parents as well as he could.
But his father seemed too much wrapped up
in his grief to notice his efforts except by
saying once, “ He’s a good lad, is Matty ; it’s
well he’s left to us ;”—-which was, however,
some consolation to the little boy, who half
feared that his father was too sad to care for
him any longer.

“It’s Christmas-eve, father,” he said, when
preparing to go up to bed in his parents’
room—not to his own, for that was Willie’s
now. “They'll be ringing the bells soon ;
and I saw them putting holly up in the
church.”

“T’d like to know what Christmas is to us
now,” replied Mr. Bryan; “J have no care
for it, for one—every day’s the same to me.”

Matty came and sat down close by his





MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,. 51



father’s knee, and looked dreamily and sadly
into the fire.

“Tt seemed so different to that when Mr.
Graham spoke to mother and me this morn-
ing,” he said; “it made me feel as if it was
just right it showld be Christmas time now.”

Mrs. Bryan looked up in surprise from
the sad black work upon which her fingers

were engaged. “I don’t see that, Matty,”
she interposed; “that’s one of your odd
fancies. I’d rather Christmas was months
off, and we so dull all together.”

“JT mean like this, mother,—how our
Willie’s so happy in heaven, in the ‘riches of



52 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

glory,’ and with a crown and a harp, and all
so beautiful there; and it wouldn’t have
been so but for Christmas, and Jesus Christ’s
coming like a little child himself; and he
became poor that we might become rich, and
died for us that we might go to heaven.”
“Tf our Willie’s not in glory, I don’t
know who is,” murmured his father drearily.
“But he is, father—he is, because of
Christmas night. Do try and feel better
when you think of him there in heaven, for
Christ’s sake. It seems to have it all in
the verse that was upon—” (and here Matty
paused, as it occurred to him dimly that it
would be better not to introduce what had
been a subject of difference) “in that verse
that Mr. Graham said-how the Lord Jesus
Christ became poor—a little child so long
ago, ‘that we through his poverty might
‘become rich.’” And then Matty went up
to bed, and cried himself to sleep, and yet
felt a little joy in the midst of the sorrow, to
think that though he couldn’t have a merry
Christmas, as he had hoped three days ago,
still Jesus Christ had been a little child, and
knew how he felt, and would comfort him.



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 53

His parents did not speak for some time
after he had gone up. Then his mother
broke the silence. “ Matty’s all the better
for schooling. Mr. Graham took a deal of
notice of him to-day,” she said.

“He's a good boy enough,” replied her
husband ; “but he has queer notions. © [
wonder whether that was his. own fancy,
what he said about Christmas-day.”

* * * * *

The night was very still and calm, and
the moon shone so brightly on the pure
white snow as to make the outer world most
fair and serene, when the old church clock
told that the midnight hour approached.
And then, very softly, the door of a little
silent chamber was opened, and with noise-
less tread, as if fearful of wakening him,
Willie’s father approached the bed where,
still and calm as the night, little Willie’ lay
sleeping. He raised the blind, and the
moonbeams stole in, as if they too loved to
linger while they might around the spot
where he lay in such deep quiet slumber ;
and, as if he could not leave the spot, Mr.
Bryan gazed fixedly on the fair face which



54 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

had for him always worn a smile, and on
the clear brow upon which still clustered the
rings of soft brown hair, until the big tears,
which, in the presence of others, had refused
to betray his grief, fell fast over his child’s
little cold hands. Not for Willie himself—
for although he had never taken the trouble
to examine the grounds of his belief, he
never for a moment doubted that he was
happy now—not for Willie he sorrowed, but
for himself, from whom Willie had, gone ;
for the home in which his clear, sweet laugh
would never sound again; for the hearth
which never more would be lit up by his
winning prattle ;—for these, and remem-
brances such as these, the father’s tears fell
like rain.

And then the stillness of the night was
broken by the sound of voices not far off.
He would fain have been undisturbed, and
yet the harmonies were so clear and sweet
that they seemed, after a few moments, to
chime in with his sorrow, and, laden with
comfort, to force their own way into the
heart which he thought barred against all
comfort.



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 55



















































































hi



THE CAROL-SINGERS,

_ The carol-singers were proclaiming, with
slow, solemn cadence, the “good spell” of
Christmas time, the old story—old, yet ever



56 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

“new—of the joy which is for “all people ;”
‘and, through the calm night, their voices,
_mingling with the softly-swelling sounds of
‘their few instruments, fell with such sweet
music on the ear, that the listener, borne
away in spirit by the thrilling chords, might
almost have imagined that once again angels
had descended to bring to earth the tidings
' which in the night at Bethlehem had been

too glad for mere speech, but had caused
them for greatness of joy to burst forth into
singing.

The words and the harmonies were not
new to Willie’s father. He had often sung
in the church choir, and had then, more
than once, heard them rehearsed previously.
But this slight acquaintance with them only
- increased. their power on his mind, as, almost
involuntarily, he lent his ear to the solemn
strains without, and of which he could now
distinctly catch the words as they rose and
fell on the still night air :—

“There came a little child to earth
‘Long ago;
And the angels of God proclaimed his birth,
High and low, f



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 57

“Out in the night so calm and still

Their song was heard;
For they knew that the child on Bethlehem’s hill
Was Christ the Lord.
* * * * * *

“Far away in a goodly land,
Fair and bright,

_ Children with crowns of glory stand,
Robed in white,—

“‘TIn white more pure than the spotless snow;
While their tongues unite
In the psalm which the angels sang long ago
On Christmas night.

“They sing how the Lord of that world so fair
A child was born ;
And, that they might his crown of glory share,
f Wore a crown of thorn.

** And in mortal weakness, in want and pain,
Came forth to die,
That the children of earth might in glory reign
With him on high.

“He has put on his kingly apparel. now
In that goodly land;
And he leads to where fountains of waters flow,
That chosen band.

** And for evermore in their robes so fair
And undefiled,
Those ransomed children his praise declare
Who was once a child.” . -
* * * * * ‘ *

“ Once'a child,”—a child like little Willie,
who lay sleeping there so quietly and peace-
fully, and whose song now blended with
that of. the children in heaven. His father
then, when he thought of what was the ful-



58 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

ness of his joy, would hardly have recalled
him ; for the first time he seemed to realize
how good for him was the exchange of the
striving and care of “this troublesome
world,” for the glory of the heavenly one,
and the company of the redeemed. And
then went on ringing in his ears, after the
soft, solemn music had ceased, the singers’
words :—
“Tn mortal weakness, in want and pain,
He came to die,

That the children of earth might in glory reign
With him on high.”

Very short is the transition from Bethle-
hem to Calvary. Willie’s father prided
himself on being a good Churchman, and
was tolerably regular in his attendance at
his place of worship, and had over and over
again repeated the words, “ By the mystery
of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity
and circumcision; by thine agony and bloody
sweat; by thy cross and passion; by thy pre-
cious death and burial; by thy glorious resur-
rection and ascension, good Lord, deliver us ;”
—but never as now, now by his sleeping
child, had he in any way realized the great-



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 59

ness of “the unspeakable gift ” of Christmas
night, or the wondrous love which had pur-
chased for Willie the entrance into that land
from whence the psalm that died away
almost seemed his parting message. 4 “ In
mortal weakness,”—the weakness of a little
child, “in want and pain,’—and that for
those who had never cared for him; and
then—that he might be so happy—in white
robes, and with a crown of glory, and, by
living fountains of waters—a strange feeling
came over John Bryan at that moment, an
unaccustomed one for him—a desiré to speak
his thankfulness to One who had so gra-
ciously come in the solemn Christmas season,
and had opened for his child the gates of
everlasting life. Matty’s words were not,
after all, so far from being true,—“ It seems
right it should be Christmas time now.”

But he might not longer stay, and he rose
to draw once more the blind of the still
chamber of death, and to look out again
over the moonlit field of purest snow. And
then its glittering whiteness made him think
of the children in heaven, how,

‘Tn white more pure than the spotless snow,”



60 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

they follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth; and he looked up into the starry
sky, as though he would fain have caught
sight of some of the outermost glories of the
land whither little Willie had departed.

As he once more turned his glance into
the room, it fell upon a little box which
the friendly hands that had performed the
last offices for his child had removed from
where it had lain concealed by the coverlid,
and had placed on a small table at the foot
of the bed.

The new missionary-box which Matty had
brought home in triumph only three days
before, and which little Willie had held in
his hand, and had played with, and smiled
upon. He took it up half tenderly... It was
associated in his mind with that last solemn
midnight hour, and he felt as if Willie’s
little hand had consecrated it, and even were
it regarded as only a common plaything, had
made it henceforth sacred and never to be
parted with.

“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, how that though he was rich, yet Jor
your sakes he became poor, that ye through



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 61

his poverty might become rich.” The light
fell upon the words, and there, by the side
of the little one who through His poverty
had become rich, the voice entered the
father’s heart ; while without, the midnight
chimes rang forth their echo to the angels’
song, proclaiming far and near that for all
people the Child who came in great humility
at Bethlehem was their Saviour and their
Redeemer, even Christ the Lord.







CHAPTER III.



“fT ATTY is a tall boy now of fourteen,
ie and his father and mother have
%< already begun to talk of feeling
Â¥ not so young as they were. But
when little Johnny* and Mary
come home from school and climb
about in every direction, or hide under the
table that they may hear mother wonder
why they are so late, or secrete themselves:
behind the door that they may give father a
surprise when he comes back from his work,
they feel young again, without any manner
of mistake. And the Bryans’ home is a
happier one than when first we entered it.
The message which the missionary-box
brought to them one Christmas season more
than five years ago has effected the change
which, whenever fully and entirely received,



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,. 63







JOHNNY AND MARY.

it will effect ; and within its walls there is
the blessing of the Lord, which maketh rich
and bringeth no sorrow with it. -

That same missionary-box stands on the
mantle-shelf, looking well worn, like an old
friend. Many and many a time, since its
installation there, has it been filled and
emptied, and for a long time its position as
one of the family has been established as
completely as has been that of the old clock,
or of the portraits of Mr. Bryan’s parents



>
64> MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

‘on either side of the window, or of the arm-
chair by the fire, or, in fact, of any other
household belonging of old standing, from
which it would as soon enter into the head
of any member of the establishment to part
as to part from one of the family.

But, somehow or other, it has never been
called Matty’s missionary-box—never since
that night when by little Willie’s: hand it
seemed to have been left a legacy to his
home ere he bade it farewell for the “riches
in glory.” And Matty was well-pleased
that it should be called Willie’s; well-
pleased that from that time portions of the
savings which his father used to talk of in-
vesting for his boys to be a nest-egg for a
rainy day, should find their way into its
hidden recesses ; well-pleased that at the
close of the Sabbath evenings he should so
often say how he wondered that he had ever
been able to lie down and sleep when a
stranger to the knowledge of Him “who
for our sakes became poor, that we through
his poverty might become rich ;” and how
little it seemed to give a small portion of
our worldly substance to bring such news



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 65







BRINGING THE BOX,

wherever it could be sent. Yes, “the
hungry missionary-box ” had its first mission
to the Bryans’ home; and its changed

(304) 5



66 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

aspect, its kindly atmosphere, the willing
ministry of its inmates among those, like
themselves poor and lowly, around, all tell
that it has not been unfulfilled. Johnny
and Mary have quite a little store of
pennies, which they hope to put into the
missionary-box by-and-by. Their father
does not allow them to do so yet, because
he says that nobody has a right to put any-
thing in for God who hasn’t known what
Christ has done for him, and doesn’t do it
for the love of One who gave up the glory
of heaven that we might be saved.. Little
Johnny is learning to know about Jesus
now, for Matty is teaching him,—Matty,
whose most earnest hope and aim is that of
some day going out to be a teacher of the
same good news to black children in a far-
off land; and he can sing the carol which
every Christmas-eve sounds in the cottage
before the yearly opening of the missionary-
box, which little ceremonial, for reasons of
his own, Mr. Bryan always performs on that
particular night of the year. Mary was old
enough to guess the reason last Christmas-
eve, and brought it out with a little help



MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 67



OPENING THE BOX.

from her brother. For they had been sing-
ing how,

‘* Far away in a goodly land,
Fair and bright,
Children with crowns of glory stand,
Robed in white ;”

and she whispered to her mother how she
thought father liked to open Willie’s mis-
sionary-box then, because it was then’ that
Jesus became a little child like he had been;
and what went in there was to tell the good
news to other people, and to show how



=
68 MATTY S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

much they loved him for having been born
in a manger, and for having died, that little
Willie, and everybody who loved their
Saviour, might “through his poverty become
rich.”







ANNIE KINGS QUESTION.



NV OTHER,” said Annie King, as she
Mize ran home from school on a fine
Sunday afternoon, — “mother,
Miss Ellis has come home again.
She was in our class to-day, and it
seemed so nice to have her back.”
Annie King was in the first class in the
Crossington Sunday school; and Crossing-
ton was a country village seven miles from
the nearest town, and as quiet and secluded
as village need to be. She was a bright girl
of about thirteen, very fond of reading, and
fonder still of Miss Ellis’s Sunday lessons,
One reason why Annie liked them so much
was, that they never concluded without
leaving to each one who heard them some-





a
70. =: ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

44
4
Z
Z
4
4,

4,
4,
4



ANNIE AND HER MOTHER.

thing that they might distinctly carry away
in their minds; and on this Sunday after-
noon the whole class met after school, to
talk over the question Miss Ellis had left
them to decide.

We will repeat it for our readers before
giving them any of the girls’ remarks upon
the subject. The Scripture lesson for the
day had been Luke xxiv., and their teacher



ANNIE K®NG’S QUESTION. 71

had entered very fully into the history of
the Lord’s ascension. In the course of the
explanation the question had been given,
“ How was it that, after losing the presence
of their Saviour with them on earth, the
disciples yet returned to Jerusalem ‘with
great joy?’” One by one many answers
were produced.

“‘ Because Jesus had promised to be with
them to the end of the world,” replied Jane
Greaves.

“ Because he was to intercede for them at
the right hand of God,” said Fanny Grey.

“ Because he had promised to send them
the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,” answered
Ellen Brown.

“Very good reasons,” assented Miss Ellis.
“Yes, dear girls, these were the thoughts
which made them joyful, and I want you all
to remember that the very same causes for
joy which the disciples possessed, should be
causes of joy to ourselves also.”

“Please, maam,” timidly interrupted
Susie Lee, the youngest of the class, “I
think I’ve found another reason.”

“ Well, Susie ?”



72 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

“T think it must have made them happy
to think that they each had something to do
for Jesus.”

Now it was this answer of Susie’s which
suggested the question which I have men-
tioned ; for, after having entered very fully
into all the reasons given by the girls, Miss
Ellis said that she wished them to consider
during the week what work had been given
them by their ascended Saviour; and each
one was to tell her on the next Sunday
what Jesus Christ had appointed her to do
for him. \

“T can’t think what I shall find to say,”
began Fanny Grey, one of the eldest of the
group. “I can’t make out whether I have
anything particular to do or not.”

‘Trying to help others ; that’s something,”
suggested Lucy Forbes.

“Oh; but everybody’s got to do that,”
answered Jane Greaves. ‘I think it ought
to be something that’s given to us particular
to do—some one thing, I mean, that’s no
one’s duty so much as ours.”

“‘T wonder whether every one has some-
thing appointed that can be found out?”



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 73

said Annie King thoughtfully. “I suppose
so, however, as Miss Ellis said it. I wonder
_ what we shall answer next Sunday !”

After a few minutes they all dispersed,
and Annie went into the house. She lived
with her widowed mother, whose means
were very small, and who helped to support
herself and her two children by going out to
work. Johnny was quite a little fellow of
about three years old, very delicate in health,
and, for that reason, inclined to be fretful,
or, as Mrs. King called it, “ fractious.”

After tea, the bells began to sound out
for evening service, and Mrs. King having
helped Annie to clear the table, left Johnny
in her charge, and, with her large print
Bible and Prayer-Book in hand, went down
the path leading to the church. It was
Annie’s custom on the Sunday evening to
put Johnny to bed as soon as her mother
was gone, and then to learn her lessons for
the next Sunday by his side until he was
safely asleep, when she would take her
books down to a snug little corner in the
garden, just under the window of the room
where he slept, and where she could hear



74 ANNIE KINGS QUESTION.



every sound should he awake. She had
settled it in her mind that this would be the
best opportunity for beginning to find an
answer to Miss Ellis’s question, and there-
fore was particularly anxious that Johnny
should go to sleep as quickly as possible.
Very gently and kindly she undressed him,
amusing him pleasantly all the time, and
then having laid him safely in the little cot
by the side of her mother’s bed, began softly
to sing some of her school hymns with the
hope of sending him to sleep. But whether



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 75

it was that certain intrusive sunbeams would
peep in from under the blind, or whether it
was that Master Johnny was beginning to
show that spirit of opposition to the process
of “going off,” which does show itself
amongst children very early—so it happened
that he proved exceedingly wakeful. Annie
could not get him to lie still or to shut his
eyes, which looked provokingly wide-awake.
So she gently took him in her arms, and
carried him up and down the room, singing
all the time, until she was quite tired ; but
this failed too. He -was fretful, and asked
for some water, which, as soon as his sister
brought, he pushed away, by which means
some of it was spilt on the bed-clothes ; so
that it was not until Mrs. King came home
from church that he unwillingly was taken
hold of by slumber, and dozed off quietly.
But Annie’s thinking-time was quite gone.
She had not time to learn anything but her
Scripture lesson, for her mother wanted her
to read out the book she had brought from
the Sunday-school library, as her own eyes
were too weak to read much in the evening ;
and when the book was finished, it was sup-



76 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

per-time ; and Annie went to bed that night
glad that she had been enabled to be kind
and patient with Johnny and of use to her
mother, but still saying to herself, that if
only her little brother had been rather less
tiresome, how pleasant it would have been
to have had her thinking-time under the
apple-tree.

When she woke up the next morning, the
first question which came into her mind was
that of the day before, “What has Jesus
given me to do for him?”

“T should like to find out something very
particular,” said Annie to herself; ‘“some-
thing not at all common, and that the other
girls won't think of. Let me see. There’s
poor old Mrs. Dale, whose house was burned
down last week ; I might go and work very
hard, and get some money to give to her.
How nice that would be! But then mother’s
going out all week, and I can’t leave Johnny.
How tiresome it is! If it wasn’t for mind-
ing him I could do so many things. I could
go and read to the old blind people in the
work-house, and I could earn money for the
missionary-box ;_ but he wants so much



ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 77

looking after, and I can’t bring him along
with me. I am afraid that I shan’t have
any answer for Miss Ellis next Sunday.
How I wish I could hear Jesus Christ tell-
ing me exactly what he wants me to do.”!

Annie had a little text-book that her
teacher had given her, with a verse in it for
every day in the year; and her text that
morning was, ‘“‘ Whatsoever ye do, do it
heartily as unto the Lord” (Col. iii. 23).
If she had not hurried quite so quickly
down-stairs, but had stayed to think it over
a little, and to observe how, in this and in
many other verses, Christ’s children are
taught to find, in their common every-day
employments, the work that he has given
them to do in the circumstances in which
he has placed them, she would have been
helped out of her difficulty ; but as it was,
she read the verse hastily after her morning
prayer, and then went down to get break-
fast ready. .

Her mother.looked tired when she followed
her to the kitchen. «“I’ve had but little
sleep,” she said; “Johnny’s that fractious,
now he’s teething, that he kept me awake



78 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

half the night. You must mind and amuse
him, Annie, while I’m out; for he’s feverish
and cross. If it wasn’t that I can’t afford
to lose a day’ s work, I’d stay at home with
him myself.” -

‘When Mrs. King was gone, Annie had
plenty to do. Fortunately, Johnny, tired
out after his wakeful night, was sleeping
quietly for the present. So she washed up
the breakfast things, cleaned the rooms,
made her own and her mother’s beds, and
was just paring the potatoes, and preparing
for dinner, when he awoke. And from that
minute until night she had a busy time of it.
The poor little fellow was ailing and cross.
If Annie left him with his playthings on
the floor for a few moments, he would cry
to be taken up, and would fret for, things
which she could not give him, although she
played with him, and sang cheerily, and did
her utmost to amuse him. Very thankful
was she when Susie Lee came in during the
afternoon, good-naturedly offermg to take
Johnny into the garden for an hour, while
Annie did her work in-doors. And she had
plenty of it, for Mrs, King had taught her



ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 79

to be useful; and she had barely tidied
away the things, and put the clothes to
soak, and mended a tear in the carpet, which
was in danger of tripping up every one who
walked across the room, when Susie was
called home, and her little brother was-again
on her hands.

When Annie went to bed that night, she
was so tired that she fell asleep the moment
her head touched the pillow; and the next
day, and the next, were very like tne Mon-
day, so that when Saturday morning came,
and Miss Ellis, as she passed the cottage
door, said pleasantly, “Well, Annie, have
you remembered my question? I hope
you'll bring me an answer to-morrow,” she
was quite glad that she did not wait fora
reply then, and said to herself, “ If teacher
only knew what a work it is to mind Johnny,
she’d see how hard it is for me to do any-
thing more.”

Perhaps the young reader of these pages
is saying, “I am sure, if I had been Annie,
I should have found out long before the
work that was given me to do!” It may
be so; but then you must remember that



80 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

Annie, although really in earnest in the
desire to do her duty, did not as yet see
very distinctly that which the Holy Spirit’s
teaching was afterwards to show her more
fully. Miss Ellis’s instructions had been
already made the means of stirring her up
to a deep sense of the importance of prepar-
ing for eternity, and she was in earnest in
her desire to find Jesus for her Saviour, to
lay her sins upon him, and to renounce every
idea of being accounted worthy for any right-
eousness of her own; but she did not at
present distinctly see that it is the privilege
of the Christian to do everything, however
small, to the glory of God, that in the
common duties of life they which have
received the new life of faith in the Son of
God, should henceforward no longer live
unto themselves, but unto him that died for
them and rose again; and it was with the
object of bringing this clearly home to the
minds of her girls, that Miss Ellis had made
it the subject of her parting remarks on the
previous Sunday. ¥

Mrs. King came home in the middle of
the day, and took charge of Johnny, while



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION, 81

Annie finished a little of the Saturday
mending.

“ Make haste with the dinner, child,” she
said kindly; “I’ve a parcel and message to
send up to the Leigh Farm for Mrs. New-
land at the Hall, and the walk will do you
good ; youre looking palish, and no wonder,
for you have had all the bustling to yourself
this week. I didn’t like to refuse the Hall
work just now, when they’re full of visitors,
and we want the money; but next week I
Shall be at home, and can do most of the
house work while you mind Johnny.”

“Mother,” said Annie, “mightn’t I stop
and see Uncle Stephen? You. know you
told him you'd spare me when you could to
read a bit to him now he’s blind, and I could
come home from Leigh by the common.”

“Do,” replied her mother ; “just make it
as pleasant as you can. And don’t hurry,
Annie, for you'll have time to look over your
Sunday lessons after tea, as you tell me
they're mostly perfect now.”

Annie started cheerfully for Leigh Farm,
a pretty place nearly three miles off. Two

of her school-fellows, Lucy Forbes and Fanny
(304) 6



82 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.



GOING TO THE FARM.

Grey, joined her for part of the way ; and
very pleasant was the bright afternoon, and
the shady path among the trees and through
the orchards, and very pleasant the ripe
blackberries which they gathered and ate as
they talked together.

“Have you got your answer ready for
Miss Ellis?” said Annie, before they parted.

“What answer?” replied Fanny. “Oh,



ANNIE -KING’S QUESTION. 83

you mean about our work. What a good
thing that you reminded me, Annie; I had
quite forgotten all about it. I must try
and think of something to say before to-
morrow.”

“Oh, I thought of it yesterday,” interposed
Lucy carelessly. “I shall say that our
work is to obey our parents—that’s true,
you know, and I dare say it’ll do.”

- Annie looked surprised. “I don’t think
_ that’s the sort of answer Miss Ellis means,”
she said quietly. “Of course everybody
must obey their parents, and it’s one of
God’s particular commandments; but I
think our teacher wanted us to put our
hearts into finding out, each for ourselves,
the exact work Jesus has given us. I’ve
not found my answer yet, but I’m going to
think until I do. I’ve been trying all the
week, but Johnny’s been poorly, and I’ve
had to attend on him from morning till
night. Do try before to-morrow,” she con-
tinued, as they parted ; “ Miss Ellis looks so
Sorry when any one seems as if they did not
care to think.” :

With these words they parted, and in



84 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

about half an hour Annie was at the Leigh
Farm. Mrs. Shaw’s pleasant welcome was
not rendered less acceptable by the refresh-
ing basket of fruit which she insisted on her
taking home with her for herself and Johnny ;
and it was with a light footstep that she ran
up the steps into old Stephen Carr’s garden,
after having delivered Mrs. Newland’s mes-
sages at the farm.

He was her grand-uncle, and had formerly
been a nursery-gardener in the nearest town
of Loughbourn. He had now given up his
business to his son, and had returned to his
native village of Leigh to spend his closing
days, and to enjoy a well-earned season of
rest and quiet, after a life of constant and
active labour.*

Very kind and paternal was his greeting
to his little niece, who, throwing off her hat,
seated herself at his feet on the soft grassy
slope which overlooked the valley beneath ;
and he listened with pleasure while she told
him all the Crossington news, and the little
domestic details, in which he took a kind
interest.

“And now, Uncle Stephen,” concluded

e



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 85

Annie, “you see mother’s kept her promise
of sending me to read to you, so I’ve plenty
of time for the chapter and our talk after it.”

“ Let’s have it, let’s have it now,” he re-
plied quickly ; “it’s pleasant music to my
old ears to hear your young voice, my child,
but it’s better still when it’s reading the
blessed gospel of salvation. Here’s the
Testament. I was trying to make out a
few verses when you came; but my eyes
are sadly dim, and even with this large
print I could not read except my memory
served me to remember parts here and there
that I can’t see.”

“Shall I read where it’s open?” asked
Annie.

“Yes, my child,” he answered, and rever-
ently asked a blessing on the Word. “It
is a wonderful story that of Saul of Tarsus,
and the more wonderful when we remember
that that same miracle which was wrought
on him is wrought equally now upon every
one who is brought to know the Lord in
truth.” J

Annie slowly read the ninth chapter of
Acts, and then laid down the book on the



86 ANNIE KING'S QUESTION.







ANNIE AND UNCLE STEPHEN,

grass, and remained silent for several
minutes.
“A wonderful history,” repeated old



ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 87

Stephen ; “that’s the true sign of a soul
which has seen the Lord, that its first cry is,
‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”

“But does the answer always come ?”
asked Annie thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been
asking that question all the week, uncle,
but I’ve not found the thing yet that Jesus
has given me to do.”

The old man laid his trembling hand
kindly on her head. ‘“ Are you sure you’ve
been looking for the answer the right way,
my child? Sometimes God writes the answer
for us quite plain, but we don’t set. the right
way to work to read it.” *

“T don’t know, Uncle Stephen,” she re-
plied, and told him the whole history of
Miss Ellis’s question, and of her week of
search for the work which Jesus had left
for her to do, and how she had been so taken
up with Johnny, that she hadn’t been able
to find it out.

Old Stephen smiled kindly as she con-
cluded. “You've got the answer pretty
plain written for you, my child,” he said ;
“but the matter is that you've not seen
plain to read it. You know, Annie,” he



88 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

added seriously, ‘if we’re in earnest in ask-
ing, ‘ Lord, what wilt rHou have me to do?’
we must be quite willing to accept and act
on his answer, whatever it may be. I mean
to say that we mustn’t choose out something
for ourselves, and settle that Jesus has given
us this and that work which we choose, but
that we must look honestly about, and take
up our appointed duty, whether we like it
or not—whether we think it trifling or not
—just for the love of him who gave himself
for us.”,

“Then, uncle, what do you think he has
given me to do for him?” rejoined Annie
eagerly.

“Listen while I tell you a story of my
young days,” was the reply, “and you shall
find out for yourself.

“When I began work I was gardener’s
boy to Squire Newland—the old gentleman
that’s dead, I mean. I was kept to work
in his grounds. Well, there were several
workmen, for it’s a large place; but the
head-gardener, who was over me, was a good
man, and a good workman, and taught me
more in a year or two than I ever learned



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 89

from any one else. There was one particular
part of the grounds, called the Lake-piece,
that was mostly my charge; and I had
plenty to do there, what with mowing, and
nursing the flowering shrubs, and looking
after the plants in the young ladies’ plots of
ground ; while Mr. Robins used to take me
into the hot-houses and graperies every day,
and teach me himself the nicer parts of the
business.

“Well, it happened one May that he was
suddenly called away for a few days’ busi-
ness on the squire’s account. He was so
hurried that he hadn’t time to leave any
directions beyond saying, as he rode off,
‘Mind, Stephen, I trust you not to go to
sleep while I’m out;’ and then he was gone.
Now, if ever a lad cared for the master over
him, I did for Mr. Robins. He had helped
me forward when my parents were very poor,
and hadn’t only cared to teach me my trade,
but looked after me, body and soul, and kept
me to my Bible by example and teaching as
well. So, when he was gone, I thought
that he should see whether I minded his
word or not, and I cast about in my mind



90 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

to look for something very particular to do
for him, that should show him how much I
was willing to serve him.« I puzzled away
until I thought of the hot-houses, and I
knew that he intended planting out the
geraniums very shortly. It was along piece
of work every year, for I can assure you
the houses were a sight in those days. But
I thought, if I worked very hard, I’d have
time to get them all out before he came’
home; and so I did. I hardly allowed
myself time to eat my meals during the
three days he was away; and as the Lake-
piece was at the other side of the grounds
from the hot-houses, I hadn’t a minute to
spare. for looking after it. The other gar-
deners were busy in another part of the estate,
and when they saw me at work, thought
that I had orders from Mr. Robins, and
didn’t interfere.

“The work was done by the Friday night,
‘and I was stiff and tired enough when I went
to sleep, I can tell you. Well, the next morn-
ing it felt chilly when I awoke, and I began to
fear lest there should have been a late frost
in the night. I made haste to the gardens,



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 91

and my heart sank when Nicholls, one of
the under-gardeners, met me in the avenue,
saying, ‘I wonder Robins should have told
you to pot out the plants this week; there
was a slight frost in the night.’ And sure
enough he was right; half the plants were
nipped, and damage done that I could never
repair.

“JT had no heart for anything that day.

Mr. Robins arrived early in the afternoon,
and, for the first time, I wished him away.
However, I went to meet him at the gate,
for I thought I’d get over the telling him at
once. :
“¢Q Stephen,’ he said, ‘here you are to
speak for yourself. Dve come up through
the Lake-piece, man, and it does you no
credit ; the young ladies’ gardens are all in
a mess, and the walks want weeding. I
could have been certain you'd have looked
after your work.’

“Well, Annie, I was down enough, you
may be sure, and the more because I’d
wished to please my master, and had worked
so hard for him. But, however, I asked
him to come with me, and I managed to get



92 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.



* TELLING IT OUT.

out all the story, and showed him the plants,
and told the mistake I had made, and begged
him to forgive it. I felt easier when it was
over, and when I looked in his face I thought
he seemed vexed, but not angry., Vexed,
indeed, he might be, for the houses were his
pride; but he didn’t scold at me as most
would, but just turned round and _ said,
‘Stephen; I’m very sorry; J’m sure you
worked for the best; but I’d have been
better pleased if you’d done your duty well,
and not gone to do what wasn’t your affair.’



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION 98

We had hard work all that afternoon trying
to repair the mischief, and many a sneer I
had to put up with from the under-gardeners
about people who neglected their own work
to meddle with what wasn’t their business; but
I felt they were too true for me to be angry.

“The next day was Sunday, and, as it
happened, the path to church was right
through the Lake-piece. I was ashamed to
see how untidy it looked, for rain had fallen,
and the weeds had sprung up, and my
neglect was clear to every one. After
church, Mr. Robins called me to walk home
with him. I shall never forget the talking

he gave me; it stuck by me through life.

There was a verse he showed me in the
Bible ; he said it was one of the saddest he
knew—‘ They made me the keeper of the vine-
yards, but mine own vineyard have I not
kept ;’ and he said this was to be a lesson to
me to take the duty God sends, and do it
with a whole heart, from love to him who
died for us, and who has given us each a
work for him if only we are willing to do it,
‘J thank you for your wishing to please me,
Stephen,’ he said, ‘it was kindly meant ; but



94 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

it’s our best way to take the duties nearest
to hand, because G'od always puts our work
in the order in which we are to take tt up,
and, uf we seek vt, gives us the clear sight to
see that order right. Before we look after
the souls of others, we must mind that our
own souls are given to the Lord; before we
look to out-door duties, it is our proper
place to look at home, and see what is
the appointed work there. And remember,
~ Stephen, it is the Christian’s privilege to
take every common duty and employment
to Him who has given us our charge to
keep here, and to do it to his glory. This
has been a sad lesson to you, but you must
let it remind you from this time forward
that the likelihood is that if we go striking
out work for ourselves, and neglecting our
proper duty, we shall meet with disappoint-
ment, while we cannot expect a blessing. If
I had found the Lake-piece in order, it would
have pleased me better than anything else ;
and if you had asked me before I went, I
could have told you from the weather-glass
that the geraniums wouldn’t stand exposure
for another fortnight.’ ©



ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 95

“So now, Annie, I’ve told you this story
to show you that when we want to find out
what Jesus wishes us to do for him, we are
not to go casting’ about for something out-of-
the-way that we might choose, but are to
take up the work next to hand, and to do it
as unto the Lord, as sure that it is the
charge he gives us as if we heard him say
so.”

Annie had been listening intently.
“Uncle Stephen,” she said, “I think I
understand you. God has placed me in my
home ; it is my home duties that Jesus has
left me to do.”

“Well, Nanny, and what kept you from
‘finding out the particular thing that was to
be the work when you answered Miss Ellis’s
question ?”

“Tt was Johnny, Uncle Stephen; perhaps
minding Johnny is what Jesus has given me
to do for him.”

“Tt is not perhaps, my child, it is sure ; it
is as plain as.if he had put him into your
arms, and told you to look to him for his
sake ; and don’t be fancying it is too little.
I once read of a rich lady in France who



96 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

was attacked by enemies, and lost all her
money, and was turned into a common
servant ; but through it all she never
seemed cast down, no, not when the drud-
gery that the other servants refused to do
was put upon her. Some one asked her
how it was that, in the midst of it all, she
sang at her work, and seemed more joyful
than any one else. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I
think I hear Jesus saying, “Sweep the
house for my sake; do this work for me;”
and when I remember what he did for me,
can I but do all rejoicingly ?’”

“Tm so glad I came to you, Uncle
Stephen,” said Annie thoughtfully. “I
shall try and say always, ‘ Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do?’ and now I’ve found
the answer.” \~

It was nearly eight o’clock when Annie
King returned home. Her mother asked
her whether she had enjoyed her time.
Oh, so much, mother!” was the reply as
she went up-stairs to take off her hat.
Johnny lay fast asleep in his little cot, and,
before she went down to her mother, she
knelt silently by his side. When she arose,



ANNIE KING'S QUESTION, 97

she had accepted the work Jesus had given
her to do for him. The little boy was lying
quite still, and a faint flush on his cheek was
half concealed. by the brown curly hair which
fell over it. He did not know how lovingly
his sister looked at him, while she felt that
he was more closely bound to her than he
had ever been before. Her eyes were full
of tears as she turned away; and, strangely
enough, there sounded in her ears a verse
which she had never thought of, and the
place of which she could not at first re-
member; and it seemed to her as if she
heard the Saviour’s voice, saying, “Take
this child, and nurse him for me, and I will
give thee thy wages.”

When Miss Ellis, on the next morning,
asked Annie King whether she had found
the work Jesus had given her to do, she re-
plied in a low voice,—

“T think, ma’am, it is to stay at home,
and mind my little brother.”

And Miss Ellis thought so too.

Now, dear young reader, let me ask
whether you have tried yet to find out

what your Lord would have you to do?
(304) q


EIU (eed
nun eteninonn
Hone
ri


The Baldwin Library



msde

MATT Y’S
HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

agree

- a
T.NELSON AND SONS.
c LONDON, EDINBURGH ANB NEW YORK.
a a rccnreeesss once nsiaeelets ante b Fi ACR






MATTY’S
HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

AND

THE MESSAGE IT BROUGHT.

A Tale for the Poung.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“COPSLEY ANNALS ;” ‘VILLAGE MISSIONARIES,” ce.



LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

1872.




El ontents.





Marty’s Hunery Misstonary-Box—
Chapter L.,
Chapter II., ...

Chapter III., ...

ANNIE Kina’s QUESTION, ...

Tunes As TuEy Arg,

32

62

69

- 100



MATTY’S

HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.



CHAPTER I.



WV RS. BRYAN had just taken the
potatoes off the fire, and was pre-
paring to lay the cloth for dinner ;
and Mr. Bryan, who said he did
not like to be told what else was
going to make its appearance on
the table, “because there was a sort of a
pleasure in a surprise,” was entering the
house, after his morning’s work as a stone-
mason, while he inwardly endeavoured to
guess from the savoury odour which per-
vaded the atmosphere what. his good house-
wife Susan had prepared for hee: ; and the
8 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

grandmother of the family, who had come
to spend the day, was doing her best to
quiet the youngest child—of more than a
year old—who seemed to think that it was
time it should be attended to, when patter-
ing steps were heard along the street, and
the door was pushed open, and Matty—the
baby’s brother—entered the room, very
flushed, very much out of breath, and with
both his hands behind him.

“Father, I've got a riddle for you to
guess,” he exclaimed, after pausing for a
moment to take breath; “you'll never find
it out!”

“Then what’s the use of guessing, lad, if
I’m not to find it out?” replied his father,
putting on his spectacles at the same time,
by way of helping out his mental vision.

“Come in, Mat, and wipe your shoes,”
said his mother ; “it’s too cold for riddles,
it is; and the potatoes and something else
are better than all the guessing.”

“Oh, wait, mother ; it’s my own riddle:
at least, I’m to keep it; at least—I mean to
say, it’s to be called mine—that is, however,
not the riddle, but itself.”
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 9



MATTY’S RIDDLE.

Matty’s parents looked up with some sur-
prise at their boy’s not very connected speech, °
while his old grandmother nursed his little
brother in an astonished, perplexed manner,
and, as if to communicate to the restless
infant the reason of her bewilderment, re-
peated Matty’s words after him for his special
benefit, with little original remarks of,
“Bless the boy! the learning now that he
gets! In my days there wasn’t no new
riddles, baby ; no, there wasn’t—a darling.
10 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

The wick of the candle like Athens—that
was always a plenty—wasn’t it, and bless
his little heart \y”

But the boy grew impatient.

“Father, what is it that always has its
mouth open, and—”

“That must be the baby,” interposed his
mother.

“ And is always hungry—”

“That must be you, Matty,” said his
grandmother. .

“No, it isn’t ;—and speaks, though we
can’t hear it with our ears—and—and the
food we give it goes to feed numbers of
other people ; and—”

“Stop! that’s enough, lad; and it be a
riddle sure enough,” replied his father ; “it
be a puzzler—indeed it be.’”

“J thought you'd say so, father,” cried
Matty; “1 said I'd make you open your
eyes quite wide like you do when you're
puzzled—you’ll never find out.”

“The food that goes to feed father goes
to feed us,” said Mrs. Bryan, with quite a
felicitous adaptation of the circumstance of
her placing a steaming dish of stew before
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 11

her husband, and thinking it most probable
that she had solved a portion of the riddle
with great readiness ; “it makes him strong,
and he works to give us food.”

Matty shook his head, but, like a prudent’
boy, would not give up his riddle without
coming to terms.

“Will you give me a penny to feed it
with if I tell you, father?” he inquired
cautiously ; “only one penny ?”

Fathers are often foolish with their
pennies when the children are concerned ;
you see, they haven't all the contriving upon
their minds to make them go as far as pos-
sible; and Matty’s father, after fumbling
for a while in his pocket, produced one, and
laid it on the table~

“And mother, and granny,” continued
the boy, laying his taxes with great system
and coolness, “they’ve to give a halfpenny
each at least, as they can’t find out.”

But Mrs. Bryan took fright at this period
of the negotiation. “Now mind that you're
not to be after bringing anything live about
the house,” she suddenly observed ; the very
idea causing her to stand still with the loaf
12 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

in one hand and the salt-cellar in the other.
“T’ll not have pets any more, lad, that cost
ever so much to keep, and are no good after
all. Them white mice that came, only two
of them, and ate bread-crumbs that was
enough to feed any infant as wasn’t unreason-
able, and grew and multiplied like the chil-
dren of Israel in Egypt, till there ‘was no
biding them ; and them turtles—”

“ Doves, mother.”

“Well, turtles is short for turtle-doves,
isn’t it? Them turtles that billed and cooed
nonsense as was hardly respectable to listen
to, and that was always scaring me for fear
the cat should get at them—which it did at
the last ; and the lame dog which had to be
kept because Mat had found it out of doors,
and which had a family to provide for out
in the stables, and wanted to be feeding them
off our provisions. I’ve had enough of live
things about the house, to say nothifg of
the baby, so I’m not going to welcome in
anything fresh with halfpence, lad.”

Matty listened with rather rueful aspect,
while his mother summed up in one speech
the number of his departedgfavourites, in
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 13

the selection of which he could not but feel
that he had been unfortunate; but, with
a conscious innocence of any such fresh
introduction, he returned bravely to the
charge.

“Tt’s nothing live, mother, though it has
a mouth.”

“And a hungry one,” interposed his father,
who seemed to be half induced, as the result
of his wife’s eloquence, to go over to- the
opposition side,—‘a hungry one, which is
more to the purpose.’

Matty was half inclined to give up his
riddle upon the strength of his father’s penny,
which, by a figure of speech, might be said
to be the bird in the hand worth more than
the two halfpennies, which, by the same
figure of speech, might be said to be still
birds in the bush. But he made one more
effort.

“Tt’s nothing live—it’s nothing that'll do
any harm to anything—it’s—it’s a sort of
savings’ bank—I’m sure it is,” and Matty’s
eyes sparkled as the idea occurred to him;
“for Mr. Graham said that all as was given
would return to us with more upon it—”
14 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

_ “Come, come to dinner, Mat,” interposed
his mother; “I never did, in all my born
days, hear a boy go on so about a thing
that’s got into your head ; tell out the riddle,
and then eat what’s set before you, and have
done.”

“Then youll give me the halfpenny,
mother ?”

“ He’s a clamorous lad, baby, isn’t he?”
murmured his grandmother; “he'll not have
done till he gets his old granny to help him
with her coppers:” the result of which con-
fidences. to the baby was the placing by the
side of the original and solitary penny on
the table, another penny to keep it com-
pany.

Then Matty, who had kept his hands
behind him all this time, withdrew them
hastily, and displaying to the little family
assembly a bright, new missionary-box, took
up the two pennies which lay on the table,
and letting them fall through the money-
hole, where they joined company with an-
other already in the same circumstances of
imprisonment, shook them triumphantly to-
gether with an air which said as plainly as
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. Te



PUTTING IN THE PENNIES.

words that the united performance inside
was musié particularly agreeable in his ears.

“A money-box !” exclaimed his parents ;
“wliy, there isn’t much to make such guess-
work about in that.”

“Ah, father,” replied Matty delightedly,
“but it isn’t just like any common money-
box that’s bought in shops—it’s a mission-
ary-money-box ; and I begged and begged
for it, and Mr. Graham, he said I was such
a little fellow for one ; and I told him how
I had read that a little mouse once set a
16 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

great big roaring lion free that had got
into a net; and that I’d try and work at
setting some of the poor heathen free that
were all entangled up like the lion, though
I was ever such a little mouse; and that I
had a penny of my own to begin with ;—and
so he let me have one. And look, father,
my riddle’s a good one—or at least it was
his—here’s its mouth wide open, and it’s
hungry always, ever so hungry, until there’s
a penny comes peeping out at the top because
there’s no room for more; and that’s what
mine’s to do, and—”

“Ts the boy clean crazed ?” inquired Mrs.
Bryan, as she completed the preparations
for dinner ; “‘ what’s he after now? A money-
box is a money-box, according to me; and
that’s one, though it’s queer-looking enough;
—but what’s all this tacked on to it about
Mr. Graham, and the heathen, and lions, and
such like? It’s got its mouth open, but I’d
like to know what putting pence into it has
to do with feeding ever so many folk besides
his whose it is.”

“'That’s it, mother, exactly,” answered
Matty with glee, his delight and interest it

(304)
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 17

his new acquisition rendering him quite elo-
quent on the subject; “it’s not for us our-
selves that the money’s put in; it’s for black
people, to buy them Bibles, and to send them
preachers to tell them about God, and how
they’re to get to heaven; and Mr. Graham
said that was the. same as giving them the
Bread of life.

Whereupon Matty’s father took off his
spectacles and looked at Matty with fixed
astonishment ; and Matty’s mother, taking
up the missionary-box, at once proceeded to
see whether the pennies consigned to its
custody might not be restored to the outer
world; and Matty’s grandmother confided
to the baby that all the new scholaring had
resulted in the turning of his brother’s head...

“ Now mind, lad, you take this box straight
back to school with you this afternoon,” said
Mr. Bryan angrily ; “and if Mr. Graham or
any of the folks there asks any questions,
you just say that I'll not have you be after
with providing for black people thousands of
miles off, when you ought to be minding
your scholaring, and we saving up to give

you schooling. I’ve heard talk of people
(304) 2
18 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

taking to these here notions before of send-
ing out word to the blacks in outlandish
places that they wasn’t to eat each other up,
and that sort of thing; and what I say is,
it’s no business of ours; their religion’s theirs,
and ours is ours, and I won’t have new-fangled
notions of the sort put into my children’s
heads.”

“T always say, ‘Charity begins at home,’”
continued Mrs. Bryan, as with a two-pronged
fork she made ineffectual endeavours torescue
the imprisoned pence; “and I’d like to know
what we have to do with providing for native
sandwiches—savages, | mean—which is all
one as good as another; and I must say, I
take it very strange of Mr. Graham, or Mr.
any-one-else, to be asking poor folks like us
to be paying for what we know nothing
about; and we, now Christmas time has
come round, scarce able to pay all the bills ;
and the tax-man called yesterday ;—why,
Matthew, your last pair of boots cost six-and-
sixpence, if they cost a penny—six-and-six-
pence they did, and they'll be wanting new
soling, I'll be bound, before you know where
you are. Missionary-box indeed! It’ll be
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 19

time enough for that when we’ve come to be
rich—it’s all well enough for rich folks, I
daresay.” And Mrs. Bryan, finding that she
could by no means succeed in regaining the
pence, placed the offending box high up on
the mantle-shelf, and helping out savoury
portions of the stew, bid the boy put all
the new nonsense out of his head, and sit
down like a reasonable lad to his dinner.

But Matty, whose new pleasure had re-
ceived so sudden a check, and whose little
erection of hopes, of which the missionary-
box was the foundation, had been tumbled
to the ground, could not obey the summons.
Putting his two round hands before his face,
he leant his elbows on the table and sobbed
bitterly. -

“QO father, do—do let me keep it—and
I was so glad—and I'll not ask you for any
money—but—but only earn some of my own
to put in—and—and mother always is say-
ing how she has to think to make a penny
go as far as possible—and this makes it
go so—so far—off to Africa—and-—and I
thought she’d like it so much;” and here
- poor little Matty could go no further. He
20 * MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,



MATTY’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

was a little boy—only nine years old—and
this disappointment was a great one to him.

“Tt’s no use taking on, lad, just like a
baby, and you a great boy now that should
know better,” replied his father; “ what your
mother says is true, ‘ Charity begins at home,’
and rich folks may do better than be putting
on our children to ask for money for’ black
folk, as are no better than heathen ;—the
box shall go back this day to Mr. Graham,
as you say he gave it; and I’d like to know
what way he’d put it that it’s a savings’ bank
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 21

for us, who don’t even get our own back
again.”

“Oh, I wish he’d come in and show you,”
said Matty, sobbing less bitterly; “if only
he would; it’s in the Bible, I know, but I
can’t think where, about our lending to the
Lord, and having it more than back again ;
—if only you’d let me keep the box, father,
it wouldn’t do any harm.”

“'There’s no use whining and crying,” re-
plied his mother; “eat your dinner, Mat, and
be quiet,’and after school you bring back
the box where it came from. If going to
school’s to set you up against your parents,
it'd be far better for you to be biding at
home altogether.?

“There’s no school this afternoon,” replied
the boy, with something of relief in his voice;
“we broke up for Christmas this morning,
and I won’t be seeing Mr. Graham till Sun-
day. There wouldn’t be nobody for me to
bring it back to to-day.”

“Then Ill see that you bring it back on
Sunday,” said his father ; “and I’ve a great
mind to send and ask him for the three-
pence back that won’t come out. I wonder
22 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

what that’s to do beyond being loss to
us ?”

“Fourpence buys a Testament,” sighed
Matty half to himself, “and a Testament
shows the way to heaven perhaps to five
people, and they'll get riches for ever; that’s
just how Mr. Graham put it.”

Mr. Graham had not, however, put the
matter quite so curtly and arithmetically
before the children; but Matty made the
statement in an abridged and succinct form,
freeing it from all superfluous ornament.
His parents did not appear to hear, and
the dinner was silently concluded ;—Matty
every now and then glancing tearfully at
the missionary-box on the shelf, with a
sort of desire to confide to it his troubles,
and to make it understand that it was
not his fault that it had met with so harsh
a reception. =

After the conclusion of the mid-day meal,
his father returned to his work, and _ his
mother went into the back-kitchen with the
baby, and his grandmother put on her bonnet
and warm cloak and went out, and then
Matty was left alone with the fire.
MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 23

I say advisedly “with the fire,” because,
when we have anything on our minds—and
most of us have from time to time—there is
something very consolatory in looking into
the burning embers, and a sort of companion-
ship in them which is soothing to one’s feel-
ings. Matty stood and! looked into the fire
for some time, until a beautiful cavern with’
a ship in the middle fell in with a crash,
and then he clambered on to a chair, and,
taking hold of the missionary-box, established
himself upon a low stool, and placing his
elbows on his knees, and leaning his head on
his hands, contemplated it affectionately and
sorrowfully.

Whereupon ensued a silent conversation
between Matty’s self and Matty’s conscience,
which lasted for some time, while the short
winter afternoon began to close in, and the
red fire burned lower and lower, and the
heavy.clouds that had gathered in the morn-
ing began to let fall their burden of fleecy
snow till the world without became quite
white.

“T’m so sorry about it,” began Matty with
a sigh ; “I wanted so to have kept the box,
24 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.









BY THE FIRE,

-and got it quite full to give back to Mr.
Graham.”
“Yes,” said Matty’s conscience; “ but was
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 25

it only that you might send the Bible to the
poor heathen that you asked for the box,
Matty?”

“Well, I did care for the heathen, I’m
sure,” replied Matty; “I felt very sorry
when I heard of the slaves being beaten, and
the mothers giving their babies to crocodiles.”

“Yes, you did, when Mr. Graham told
you the stories about it; and you felt just
then as if youd have done anything for
them ; but afterwards, what made you so
anxious about your box?” asked Matty’s
conscience.

“T don’t mean to say,” continued Matty,
rather vexed with the faithfulness of his —
inward monitor— I don’t mean to say that

‘I didn’t think it would be very nice to fill
my box before any of the other boys, especially
Jaines Smith, who calls me ‘little shrimp,’
and makes fun of me all play-time ; but still
I’m sure, all the same, it’s mostly for the
heathen I cared for it.”

But here Matty’s conscience became quite
bold. “You know quite well, Matty,” it
began, “that you thought very little about
the heathen at all; that you wanted to
26 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

make Mr. Graham see that you would fill
your box first ; and that it looked so bright
and new that you thought you would like to
have it for your own, as a kind of toy ;—and
you know that the chief reason why you've
been so unhappy at your parents not letting
you keep it is because you think you'll get
laughed at for being in such a hurry to have
a box, and then bringing it back directly.
But the box shall speak to you itself.”

And here Matty’s conscience opened the
door of his hearing, as he bent down over
his new treasure, and for the first time the
voice of the missionary-box came to his ears.
He had never thought about its having a
voice for him; though when Mr. Graham
had said it had, in what Matty had repeated
to his parents, he had thought it a very good
part of the riddle, and had put it away in
his memory. He had been so delighted and
interested with the picture on the front, of
the native church, with its black congrega-
_ tion and black preacher, that it had not
occurred to him that the words printed on
the top might be the expression (as indeed
they were) of what the missionary-box had
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 27

to say ; and as his eye fell on them—and
because it was getting dark, and he had to
bend towards the fire, and read with difficulty y
he did so with much more interest and atten-
tion than if it had been broad daylight—
they brought a message to Matty’s heart to
which he had never before given heed, and
which, though he was a little boy only, his
faithful friend conscience took up earnestly,
and made the subject of a fresh application :
“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he
became poor, that ye through his poverty might
become rich.”»

“T wonder why that’s written on the
missionary-box,” began Matty to himself.
“Tet me think: Jesus Christ became poor
—that is, he gave up heaven, and came in
the form of a little child—for our sakes, that
he might die for us; and so, when we get to
heaven, that we might have the riches in
glory that Mr. Graham spoke about. But
why do they put this on the missionary-box ?
I suppose to remind us that whatever we
give to Jesus, it’s all nothing compared with
what he did for us; and that we ought to
28 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

be glad to be able to help to get the news to
other folks who don’t know of him.”

“Yes,” said conscience, “ that’s exactly
why it’s put there, Matty; so now, re-
member that pennies put in to try and make
more show than other boys, or for any other
reason except for Christ’s sake, Won’t be the
kind of pennies that the missionary-box asks
for.” And conscience would have said a
little more upon the subject, had not Mrs.
Bryan opened the door of the kitchen then
and there, and called Matty in to nurse the
baby while she “cleaned up a bit.”

“There’s something queer over him,” she
said ; “he was fretful enough to make one’s
heart ache all the morning, and now he’s
been lying as dull as possible. Try and
‘liven him a bit, Mat; there’s a good boy.”

Matty was very fond of his baby brother,
that had seemed to come to comfort him
when his little sister and play-fellow, Nelly,
had been taken away, more than a year
before ; and immediately proceeded to assume
charge over him, doing his best to engage
and amuse him. But little Willie had
caught sight of the missionary-box, and
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 29

held out his hand for it, attracted by its
bright appearance. So Matty gave it to
him, and for a time the little one seemed

i

Tt’ mt Wy



1, (igggetaae



AMUSING WILLIE.

to brighten up with what he evidently re-
garded as a rattle invented for his own par-
ticular amusement. He was shaking it
vigorously when, after some time, the chil-
dren’s father came in from his work.

“The snow’s falling fast,” he said, “and
the evenings close in so early that it’s dat
before you know where you are. Oh dear,
30 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-LOX.

it’s tired I am to-night; but there’ll be
something to add to our savings’ bank this
week when this heavy work will be over.
What’s the matter with Willie, wife ?”

“ He ailing—it’s a chill, I think,” she
replied ; “granny said she’d send some stuff
from the chemist’s for him—he don’t seem
to breathe easy.”

Her husband took Willie in his arms,
missionary-box and all. He hardly noticed
his plaything, as he caught the smile which
the little one gave as he nestled into his
father’s arms, who, when he had first been
placed there after little Nelly had been
taken, seemed to have given him Nelly’s
share of love besides his own.

“ It’s to put by for you, little Willie, and
for Matty, against a rainy day, that father
works,” he continued, as the child lay on
his arm ; “so you'll have to be a good boy.
and work for him when he gets old.” Of
course Willie understood as much of this as
babies of a year old ever do understand of the
discourses addressed, whether personally to
themselves, or, as is often the case, to them,
being intended for a third person present ;
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 3)

on which occasions a baby is well known to
be invaluable. But. he lay quite still; and
when finally laid in his little crib, after the
administration of the medicament sent home
for him by his grandmother, seemed to doze
off quietly. .

During the evening Matty cast wistful
looks at the hungry missionary-box, lying
where Willie had left it on his crib, but
judiciously refrained from pleading for per-
mission to retain it, fearing a still more
decided refusal.

“'To-day’s Tuesday,” he said to himself,
“and Friday’s Christmas-day ; and father
maybe will come to if I ask him on Christ-
mas-day, and then it will be a missionary-
box and a Christmas-box as well. At all
events, there’s till Sunday for him to come
round; and if Willie takes so to playing
with it, he'll perhaps not like to give it
away from him; and on Sunday I shall
have another penny to put in, which will
make it rattle more. Ill ask my teacher
to tell us more about the text on the top of
it.” :


a

TS Rais Rh ESA a Sy
GN WEES ES ea ae de
Al ey -

CHAPTER II.



SFr was the middle of the night, and
ee Matty had been fast asleep for many
eg “Ss hours, when he was roused by hear-
2 ing an unwonted stir in the house.

t He occupied a tiny room which
opened off from the landing leading to that
where his parents slept, and the window of
which looked over a field into the more
straggling part of the town. The moon-
light, reflected by the snow, shone in upon
him as, starting up, he listened to footsteps
on the stairs, and to the hurried voices of his
parents, with which mingled another voice
strange to his ears. Then he grew frightened,
and stealing on tip-toe to his mother’s room,
crept in quietly to where she and his father
bent over little Willie’s crib—always carried
up at night from down-stairs, and placed





MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 33

beside her bed. She was crying as Matty
had only once seen her cry before, and that
was when little Nelly died; and his father
was crying too. The strange gentleman had
his-hand on Willie’s tiny wrist; and Willie
was moaning, and breathing with difficulty.

“Willie, Willie,” said Matty, in a troubled,
frightened voice ; ‘“ Willie, its me! Look
at Matty !”

His brother’s voice roused the sick child,
and a fitful little smile flitted across his
countenance. Mrs. Bryan found no fault
with the boy for having come there, but
threw a shawl over him; and then, after a
minute, it became clear to Matty that his
baby brother was very, very ill, and that
the strange doctor had held out no hope to
his parents of his being spared to them.
He knelt down by the side of the little
crib, and Willie knew him, and put out his
burning hand to play in the tangled curls
of Matty’s brown hair, which it had been
his delight to twist round his fingers in
many a game which the two had had to-
gether; and then the light fell upon his

features, and Matty saw the change on his
(304) 38
e

34 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

face like the change which had come to
little Nelly’s, and he covered his eyes with
the clothes, and sobbed bitterly, and tried to
stop his ears that he might not catch the
sound of Willie’s hurried, laboured breath-
ing, which was even now becoming fainter
and fainter.

“Couldn’t anything more be done?” whis-
pered his father hurriedly to the doctor.

A shake of the head was the only answer,
and they all were still, Matty’s sobs only
breaking the silence, for his parents had
become calmer and quieter ; and then little
Willie opened his eyes, and feebly stretched
out his hand towards something among the
clothes at the foot of his crib, with a little
child’s impulse, even in sickness, for what
looked bright and shining there. Matty
saw that it was his new missionary-box,
that had not been moved from the place
where it had been laid aside the evening
before ; and he put it into his baby brother’s
hand,—into the little hand which had
strength only to hold it for a moment, and
to look at it with a smile of pleasure, while
he pointed with his finger to the bright new
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 35













\ SSS AAA VT AAA ANS
* SS a TRE ‘
\ ih Bey PER

AT WILLIE’S BEDSIDE.

exterior upon which the light gleamed from
the candle; and then he let it fall wearily
on the coverlid, as he turned on the pillow,
and closed his eyelids once more. His
brother tried to rouse him again. Little
Willie was so fond of him, that in these
attempts he hardly ever failed to amuse and
please him ; but now it was in vain.. When
he raised his head again, he saw that all
present were quite still, and that the doctor
had silently left the room, and that his
parents were looking sadly: and tearfully
386 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

into the cradle where little Willie had been
—for he was not there now. There was
only the frail form and delicate casket from
which the jewel had been taken away.-
Willie’s spirit had been carried to His pres-
ence who was himself once a little child on
earth, and who now gathers the lambs in
his arms, and leads them to living fountains
of waters in the land where they shall dwell
for evermore ; and Matty laid his head close
by the sleeping form of the baby brother
who was now an angel in heaven, and cried
till he seemed as if he could cry no longer ,
and then his father took him up, and carried
him to his own little room, where from very
weariness of sorrow, he fell fast asleep.

* * * * *

The Christmas season was coming in with
joy and gladness; but in one house there
were closed blinds, and hushed voices, and a
little silent chamber where one and another
stole in softly from time to time, that they .
might look on the placid face of a sleeping
child—of a little sleeping child who had,
through so short a passage, entered into rest
before the toil and care of a troublesome
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 37

. world had left a trace upon his brow, or cast
a shadow over the course of his brief’ exis-
tence.

Matty was broken-hearted at the loss of
Willie, and quite unable to control his
grief, while, fearful of adding to that of his
parents, he hid himself away that he might
give vent to it more freely, and was found
sobbing in unexpected places by his mother,
who vainly told him to “give over,” since
no crying would bring his brother back.
Mr. Graham. came the next day, and Mrs.°
Bryan received his visit thankfully, and
_ seemed to find a comfort in telling him the
history of little Willie’s brief illness—‘ how
he had been ailing, and with his little breath-
ing oppressed-like—and how then he had
become fractious—and he was such a good
child in general—and how she hadn't thought
nothing of it at first—and then granny had
sent some physic which didn’t seem to re-
lieve his chest ever so little—and then, that
night when John had carried him up-stairs,
she had said, ‘John, I don’t like the child’s.
looks ’—and John had come with her to the
crib, and listened, and ‘at last went for the:
88 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

doctor, who said it was ’cute inflammation ;
and there wasn’t nothing to be done, illness
was so quick with children—and then—and
then— ;? but here the poor mother’s voice



TELLING MR. GRAHAM,

failed, and she was glad to catch the sound
of a knock at the door of the back-kitchen,
which gave her an excuse for leaving her
visitor for a moment while she turned away.
It proved to be a messenger requiring her
attention for some while, and Mr. Graham
told her not to hurry, as he would talk to
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 39°

Matty, who had. crept shyly and sorrowfully
into the room, whither he had been attracted
by the clergyman’s kindly voice.

Mr. Graham took him on his knee, and
did not speak to him just at first, but let
the sobs come, which would have their way.
Then he talked gently and kindly of little
Willie, and began to soothe him with com-
forting words and thoughts, such as a child
might understand, ~ ~

“He'd mind me always,” sobbed Matty.
“When I came home from school, he’d try
and walk across the room to meet me, and
clap his hands—always he would.”

“ And you were a kind little brother to
him, Matty,” said Mr. Graham. © “I’ve
often seen you playing with him when'I’ve
been passing by; and your mother says
you were never rough or rude to him. [’m
so glad you have that to remember.”

“‘ Nobody wasn’t never so to him ; he was
always so good till he was taken ill,” an-
swered the boy. “He was even better
than little Nelly—she were cross some-
times.”

“But, Matty, dear boy, though it’s very
40 MATTY'S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

sad, you must think of little Willie now,
think how happy he must be. He’s an
angel now, without any pain or sickness,
and better off far than when he was here on
earth.”

“He'd have been so pleased,” continued
Matty sorrowfully. “Id got him a Christ-
mas present—a little yellow bird that made
singing when you pulled a string—here,
PU show it you;”—and he slid off Mr.
Graham’s knee, and produced his treasure
from a drawer in the dresser. “He'd have
clapped his hands so to see it; and it was
my own threepence, it was, that bought it.”

His friend saw that it was a relief to
Matty to tell out simply all the trouble
that was on his mind, and looked at the
“little yellow bird” with much interest,
while the boy, in the midst of his sorrow,
examined it with him, to see by what
mechanism the so-called singing was pro-
Juced. But suddenly the flood of grief at
the thought that Willie’s little hand would
never hold it, came over him again, and
pushing it from him, he gave way to the
sobs which might not be restrained.
eg

MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 41

Again Mr. Graham tried to soothe him
with the words, “Think how happy he is
now, Matty.”

“There'll be more beautiful birds than
that there?” sobbed the boy, looking up
inquiringly through his tears to one whom
he supposed, as a matter of course, must
know all about it. ‘“ He'll like seeing
them.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Graham; “and beautiful
angels with harps, who sing—”

“He always liked me to sing to him,”
interrupted Matty, who in every picture of
the joys of heaven now presented to him
selected those which answered to his re-
membrance of baby Willie’s pleasures on
earth. “Td sing ‘Happy land’ to him
sometimes for an hour.”

“ Angels with crowns of gold,” continued
his friend, “and fountains of water, and
flowers that never fade—”

“He always liked flowers,” interposed
Matty, “only he pulled them to pieces so ;
he won’t there, though,” and a deep sigh
finished the sentence.

“ And thousands of happy children, who
42 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

ft ih

JIN





















“HE ALWAYS LIKED ME TO SING To HIM.”

will welcome him among them; and then,
best of all, Matty——” x
~ “That's what I think so about,” sobbed
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 43

Matty with renewed bitterness; “he'll be
shy among such a number, he always was.
If only I could have been with him just at
first, just till it wasn’t so strange, I know
he’d be all right, but—but—”

The tear was glistening in Mr. Graham’s
eye. There was.something touching in the
strong brotherly love, deepened in the boy’s
heart by Willie’s dependence upon him, and
he drew his arm more closely round the
sorrowful child with the words, ‘“'There’s
One to care for him better than you could,
little Matty. Who gathers the lambs in
his arms, and carries them in his bosom ?”

“ Jesus,” was the low answer.

“ And you must remember, dear boy, that
Willie isn’t a little shy baby now, like he
was on earth ; he knows far more than the
wisest man that we could find; and he’s
come to learn how much Jesus loves him,
and that’s best of all to know.”

“Will Jesus tell him how sorry I am?”
inquired the boy earnestly.

“ Jesus will tell him everything that will
be good for him to know, Matty; and then
Willie will learn what he couldn’t under-
44 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

stand on earth—how it is that he’s been
brought safe to that happy land. For
whose sake is it?”

“ Jesus Christ’s,” was the answer.

“Yes, Matty ; ‘Willie will be told what
he was too little for you to teach him here
—that the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he sees
now in all his glory, couldn’t be happy when
he knew that sinful men were shut out from
his beautiful kingdom in heaven ; and so, as
it was the punishment of their sins that they
should die, he came long ago, and was born
a little child, and grew up to die instead of
us, and to take our punishment upon the
cross. If it hadn’t been for his great love
in doing this we shouldn’t be able to think
of little Willie as an angel in heaven now.”

“Tt’s nice to think he knows what it is to

have been a little baby like Willie was,”
sighed Matty tearfully; “he won't have
forgotten ?”

“ You must think of that this Christmas
time, dear boy ; don’t let it pass away with-
out trying to thank the Lord Jesus for hay-
ing come to be Willie’s Saviour and yours;
for having for your sakes, though he was so
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 45

rich in his glory, become poor, that you
through his poverty might become rich.”

“Why, these are the very words exactly,”
said Matty, raising his head with something
of eagerness—“ that’s the very text that’s
on my missionary-box, and that I wanted to
talk to my teacher about. It’s been put
away now,” he continued, looking round the
room, “and I’m afraid to ask mother for it,
because she said, she and father both, that I
mustn’t keep it.”

“Why mustn’t you, Matty? Did they
think you wouldn’t like to go on with it
after the first?”

“No, not that,” was the half shy reply ;
“but they said they didn’t see why we poor
folks was to mind heathens far away ; and
that charity—that was what they said—
charity begins at home.”

“And you, dear Matty, why did you
wish to keep it?” and Mr. Graham was
glad, for the boy’s sake, to see his interest
diverted for a few minutes from the subject
of his grief.

““T wanted to help the heathen, and—
and” (for Matty was too honest to keep
46 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

back the whole)—“ and then I thought it
looked very pretty to have for my own, and
—I wanted to have it filled before the other
boys—”

“And what of the text on the top,
Matty ?”

“That was just it—I mean, sir, I hadn’t
thought of reading it until that afternoon
by the fire, and it seemed to say—I don’t
know exactly how to say what I mean—but
it seemed as if I hadn’t ought to have taken
it—as if I hadn’t no right to it then.”

' “ Because that text says for the mission-
ary-box what it would say for itself—that
all that is put in should be for love to him
who gave up so much for us—not to try
and appear better than others, or for the
sake of soon having a full box. Then comes
the question, Matty, Do you love the Lord
Jesus Christ ?”

Matty looked down without speaking for
a minute, and Mr. Graham repeated the
question. At last came the answer.

“Tve thought I did a little yesterday
and to-day.”

“And what has brought the love, Matty?”
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOXx. 47

His reply was an interrupted one. “I
had made that same text out by the fire, and
then when—when after that night—I woke
up and—and Willie was gone, I thought
whether he was gone to heaven—and—and
I knew hé was’ (and his voice became
firmer); “I knew he was, and thought
why, because he’d never done anything
good to ‘deserve it ; and then the words on
the missionary-box came to my mind, and I
thought how Christ had become poor—a
little child like him, and in a manger, that
our Willie might be so rich—and for me
too; and then I felt as if I must love him
because it was all done so free.”

“It’s himself that teaches you that, dear
Matty,” said his friend kindly—“to love
him ‘because he first loved us;’ and the
missionary-box won't have spoken i in vain if
it reminds you of this, Ard you must try
and tell all this to Jesus, dear boy ;—do you
think you can ?”

“T never could till—it was this morning
I went in when no one knew—I thought
perhaps they might have made a inistake,
‘and he’d open his eyes if Z called him; and
48 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,.

I turned down the cloth, and then I knew
it was no use trying, he was so white and
cold—and—and—I hid my face and told
Jesus I wanted to—to—love him and go to
heaven like—like little Willie.”

Mr. Graham’s own fatherly heart was
overflowing, and he spoke words of gentle
comfort to the little boy who had opened to
him all his confidence. ‘If father even
doesn’t let you keep the missionary-box,
Matty,” he said after a few minutes of
further conversation, and rising to depart,
“it won’t have been of no use to you. You'll
remember what it said when you were in
trouble.”

Matty sighed an assent, adding, however,
‘But I think, sir, perhaps father will let me
now; he’s so sorry; and if I ask him, I think
he'll not be angry.”:

Here Mrs. Bryan came in with many
apologies for having been detained. Mr.
Graham assured her they were quite un-
necessary. “Matty and I have been talk-
ing,” he said; “and I was very glad to
know him better than I can in the school
among such a number.” f
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX, 49

Mrs. Bryan looked pleased at his notice
of her boy, and said he was a good lad, and
minded his book—and she hoped in time
he’d make quite a scholar. And then the
clergyman spoke words of sympathy, which
found their way, as wordsof sympathy always
must, to the sorrowful mother’s heart, and
bade her join with him in prayer that little
Willie’s Saviour might be hers and her
family’s ; and went away then, after pro-
mising that he, and no one else, would meet
them on the Sunday at the churchyard,
when all that was mortal of her little one
would be committed to the ground.

Her husband came in later. He had
seemed to feel the blow even more than she
had felt it herself; for, unconfessedly, Willie
had, during the short fourteen months of his
life, been to him as the very apple of his eye.
He had come only a month after little Nellie
had been taken, and was so like her, with his
soft hair, and large brown eyes, and pretty
ways, that he had seemed to occupy her place
and his own in the father’s heart ; and for him
he had often toiled extra hours, that the small
sum entered in his name at the savings’

(304) 4


5

50 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

bank might be increased without Matty’s
losing anything thereby. And now when
he returned to his quiet home, and missed
the welcome which his entrance had always
called forth from the little one who had by
this time learned to clamber on to his knee,
he threw himself down and refused comfort.

They were a silent party, though Matty
tried to cheer his parents as well as he could.
But his father seemed too much wrapped up
in his grief to notice his efforts except by
saying once, “ He’s a good lad, is Matty ; it’s
well he’s left to us ;”—-which was, however,
some consolation to the little boy, who half
feared that his father was too sad to care for
him any longer.

“It’s Christmas-eve, father,” he said, when
preparing to go up to bed in his parents’
room—not to his own, for that was Willie’s
now. “They'll be ringing the bells soon ;
and I saw them putting holly up in the
church.”

“T’d like to know what Christmas is to us
now,” replied Mr. Bryan; “J have no care
for it, for one—every day’s the same to me.”

Matty came and sat down close by his


MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,. 51



father’s knee, and looked dreamily and sadly
into the fire.

“Tt seemed so different to that when Mr.
Graham spoke to mother and me this morn-
ing,” he said; “it made me feel as if it was
just right it showld be Christmas time now.”

Mrs. Bryan looked up in surprise from
the sad black work upon which her fingers

were engaged. “I don’t see that, Matty,”
she interposed; “that’s one of your odd
fancies. I’d rather Christmas was months
off, and we so dull all together.”

“JT mean like this, mother,—how our
Willie’s so happy in heaven, in the ‘riches of
52 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

glory,’ and with a crown and a harp, and all
so beautiful there; and it wouldn’t have
been so but for Christmas, and Jesus Christ’s
coming like a little child himself; and he
became poor that we might become rich, and
died for us that we might go to heaven.”
“Tf our Willie’s not in glory, I don’t
know who is,” murmured his father drearily.
“But he is, father—he is, because of
Christmas night. Do try and feel better
when you think of him there in heaven, for
Christ’s sake. It seems to have it all in
the verse that was upon—” (and here Matty
paused, as it occurred to him dimly that it
would be better not to introduce what had
been a subject of difference) “in that verse
that Mr. Graham said-how the Lord Jesus
Christ became poor—a little child so long
ago, ‘that we through his poverty might
‘become rich.’” And then Matty went up
to bed, and cried himself to sleep, and yet
felt a little joy in the midst of the sorrow, to
think that though he couldn’t have a merry
Christmas, as he had hoped three days ago,
still Jesus Christ had been a little child, and
knew how he felt, and would comfort him.
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 53

His parents did not speak for some time
after he had gone up. Then his mother
broke the silence. “ Matty’s all the better
for schooling. Mr. Graham took a deal of
notice of him to-day,” she said.

“He's a good boy enough,” replied her
husband ; “but he has queer notions. © [
wonder whether that was his. own fancy,
what he said about Christmas-day.”

* * * * *

The night was very still and calm, and
the moon shone so brightly on the pure
white snow as to make the outer world most
fair and serene, when the old church clock
told that the midnight hour approached.
And then, very softly, the door of a little
silent chamber was opened, and with noise-
less tread, as if fearful of wakening him,
Willie’s father approached the bed where,
still and calm as the night, little Willie’ lay
sleeping. He raised the blind, and the
moonbeams stole in, as if they too loved to
linger while they might around the spot
where he lay in such deep quiet slumber ;
and, as if he could not leave the spot, Mr.
Bryan gazed fixedly on the fair face which
54 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

had for him always worn a smile, and on
the clear brow upon which still clustered the
rings of soft brown hair, until the big tears,
which, in the presence of others, had refused
to betray his grief, fell fast over his child’s
little cold hands. Not for Willie himself—
for although he had never taken the trouble
to examine the grounds of his belief, he
never for a moment doubted that he was
happy now—not for Willie he sorrowed, but
for himself, from whom Willie had, gone ;
for the home in which his clear, sweet laugh
would never sound again; for the hearth
which never more would be lit up by his
winning prattle ;—for these, and remem-
brances such as these, the father’s tears fell
like rain.

And then the stillness of the night was
broken by the sound of voices not far off.
He would fain have been undisturbed, and
yet the harmonies were so clear and sweet
that they seemed, after a few moments, to
chime in with his sorrow, and, laden with
comfort, to force their own way into the
heart which he thought barred against all
comfort.
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 55



















































































hi



THE CAROL-SINGERS,

_ The carol-singers were proclaiming, with
slow, solemn cadence, the “good spell” of
Christmas time, the old story—old, yet ever
56 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

“new—of the joy which is for “all people ;”
‘and, through the calm night, their voices,
_mingling with the softly-swelling sounds of
‘their few instruments, fell with such sweet
music on the ear, that the listener, borne
away in spirit by the thrilling chords, might
almost have imagined that once again angels
had descended to bring to earth the tidings
' which in the night at Bethlehem had been

too glad for mere speech, but had caused
them for greatness of joy to burst forth into
singing.

The words and the harmonies were not
new to Willie’s father. He had often sung
in the church choir, and had then, more
than once, heard them rehearsed previously.
But this slight acquaintance with them only
- increased. their power on his mind, as, almost
involuntarily, he lent his ear to the solemn
strains without, and of which he could now
distinctly catch the words as they rose and
fell on the still night air :—

“There came a little child to earth
‘Long ago;
And the angels of God proclaimed his birth,
High and low, f
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 57

“Out in the night so calm and still

Their song was heard;
For they knew that the child on Bethlehem’s hill
Was Christ the Lord.
* * * * * *

“Far away in a goodly land,
Fair and bright,

_ Children with crowns of glory stand,
Robed in white,—

“‘TIn white more pure than the spotless snow;
While their tongues unite
In the psalm which the angels sang long ago
On Christmas night.

“They sing how the Lord of that world so fair
A child was born ;
And, that they might his crown of glory share,
f Wore a crown of thorn.

** And in mortal weakness, in want and pain,
Came forth to die,
That the children of earth might in glory reign
With him on high.

“He has put on his kingly apparel. now
In that goodly land;
And he leads to where fountains of waters flow,
That chosen band.

** And for evermore in their robes so fair
And undefiled,
Those ransomed children his praise declare
Who was once a child.” . -
* * * * * ‘ *

“ Once'a child,”—a child like little Willie,
who lay sleeping there so quietly and peace-
fully, and whose song now blended with
that of. the children in heaven. His father
then, when he thought of what was the ful-
58 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

ness of his joy, would hardly have recalled
him ; for the first time he seemed to realize
how good for him was the exchange of the
striving and care of “this troublesome
world,” for the glory of the heavenly one,
and the company of the redeemed. And
then went on ringing in his ears, after the
soft, solemn music had ceased, the singers’
words :—
“Tn mortal weakness, in want and pain,
He came to die,

That the children of earth might in glory reign
With him on high.”

Very short is the transition from Bethle-
hem to Calvary. Willie’s father prided
himself on being a good Churchman, and
was tolerably regular in his attendance at
his place of worship, and had over and over
again repeated the words, “ By the mystery
of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity
and circumcision; by thine agony and bloody
sweat; by thy cross and passion; by thy pre-
cious death and burial; by thy glorious resur-
rection and ascension, good Lord, deliver us ;”
—but never as now, now by his sleeping
child, had he in any way realized the great-
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 59

ness of “the unspeakable gift ” of Christmas
night, or the wondrous love which had pur-
chased for Willie the entrance into that land
from whence the psalm that died away
almost seemed his parting message. 4 “ In
mortal weakness,”—the weakness of a little
child, “in want and pain,’—and that for
those who had never cared for him; and
then—that he might be so happy—in white
robes, and with a crown of glory, and, by
living fountains of waters—a strange feeling
came over John Bryan at that moment, an
unaccustomed one for him—a desiré to speak
his thankfulness to One who had so gra-
ciously come in the solemn Christmas season,
and had opened for his child the gates of
everlasting life. Matty’s words were not,
after all, so far from being true,—“ It seems
right it should be Christmas time now.”

But he might not longer stay, and he rose
to draw once more the blind of the still
chamber of death, and to look out again
over the moonlit field of purest snow. And
then its glittering whiteness made him think
of the children in heaven, how,

‘Tn white more pure than the spotless snow,”
60 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,

they follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth; and he looked up into the starry
sky, as though he would fain have caught
sight of some of the outermost glories of the
land whither little Willie had departed.

As he once more turned his glance into
the room, it fell upon a little box which
the friendly hands that had performed the
last offices for his child had removed from
where it had lain concealed by the coverlid,
and had placed on a small table at the foot
of the bed.

The new missionary-box which Matty had
brought home in triumph only three days
before, and which little Willie had held in
his hand, and had played with, and smiled
upon. He took it up half tenderly... It was
associated in his mind with that last solemn
midnight hour, and he felt as if Willie’s
little hand had consecrated it, and even were
it regarded as only a common plaything, had
made it henceforth sacred and never to be
parted with.

“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, how that though he was rich, yet Jor
your sakes he became poor, that ye through
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 61

his poverty might become rich.” The light
fell upon the words, and there, by the side
of the little one who through His poverty
had become rich, the voice entered the
father’s heart ; while without, the midnight
chimes rang forth their echo to the angels’
song, proclaiming far and near that for all
people the Child who came in great humility
at Bethlehem was their Saviour and their
Redeemer, even Christ the Lord.




CHAPTER III.



“fT ATTY is a tall boy now of fourteen,
ie and his father and mother have
%< already begun to talk of feeling
Â¥ not so young as they were. But
when little Johnny* and Mary
come home from school and climb
about in every direction, or hide under the
table that they may hear mother wonder
why they are so late, or secrete themselves:
behind the door that they may give father a
surprise when he comes back from his work,
they feel young again, without any manner
of mistake. And the Bryans’ home is a
happier one than when first we entered it.
The message which the missionary-box
brought to them one Christmas season more
than five years ago has effected the change
which, whenever fully and entirely received,
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX,. 63







JOHNNY AND MARY.

it will effect ; and within its walls there is
the blessing of the Lord, which maketh rich
and bringeth no sorrow with it. -

That same missionary-box stands on the
mantle-shelf, looking well worn, like an old
friend. Many and many a time, since its
installation there, has it been filled and
emptied, and for a long time its position as
one of the family has been established as
completely as has been that of the old clock,
or of the portraits of Mr. Bryan’s parents
>
64> MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

‘on either side of the window, or of the arm-
chair by the fire, or, in fact, of any other
household belonging of old standing, from
which it would as soon enter into the head
of any member of the establishment to part
as to part from one of the family.

But, somehow or other, it has never been
called Matty’s missionary-box—never since
that night when by little Willie’s: hand it
seemed to have been left a legacy to his
home ere he bade it farewell for the “riches
in glory.” And Matty was well-pleased
that it should be called Willie’s; well-
pleased that from that time portions of the
savings which his father used to talk of in-
vesting for his boys to be a nest-egg for a
rainy day, should find their way into its
hidden recesses ; well-pleased that at the
close of the Sabbath evenings he should so
often say how he wondered that he had ever
been able to lie down and sleep when a
stranger to the knowledge of Him “who
for our sakes became poor, that we through
his poverty might become rich ;” and how
little it seemed to give a small portion of
our worldly substance to bring such news
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 65







BRINGING THE BOX,

wherever it could be sent. Yes, “the
hungry missionary-box ” had its first mission
to the Bryans’ home; and its changed

(304) 5
66 MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

aspect, its kindly atmosphere, the willing
ministry of its inmates among those, like
themselves poor and lowly, around, all tell
that it has not been unfulfilled. Johnny
and Mary have quite a little store of
pennies, which they hope to put into the
missionary-box by-and-by. Their father
does not allow them to do so yet, because
he says that nobody has a right to put any-
thing in for God who hasn’t known what
Christ has done for him, and doesn’t do it
for the love of One who gave up the glory
of heaven that we might be saved.. Little
Johnny is learning to know about Jesus
now, for Matty is teaching him,—Matty,
whose most earnest hope and aim is that of
some day going out to be a teacher of the
same good news to black children in a far-
off land; and he can sing the carol which
every Christmas-eve sounds in the cottage
before the yearly opening of the missionary-
box, which little ceremonial, for reasons of
his own, Mr. Bryan always performs on that
particular night of the year. Mary was old
enough to guess the reason last Christmas-
eve, and brought it out with a little help
MATTY’S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX. 67



OPENING THE BOX.

from her brother. For they had been sing-
ing how,

‘* Far away in a goodly land,
Fair and bright,
Children with crowns of glory stand,
Robed in white ;”

and she whispered to her mother how she
thought father liked to open Willie’s mis-
sionary-box then, because it was then’ that
Jesus became a little child like he had been;
and what went in there was to tell the good
news to other people, and to show how
=
68 MATTY S HUNGRY MISSIONARY-BOX.

much they loved him for having been born
in a manger, and for having died, that little
Willie, and everybody who loved their
Saviour, might “through his poverty become
rich.”




ANNIE KINGS QUESTION.



NV OTHER,” said Annie King, as she
Mize ran home from school on a fine
Sunday afternoon, — “mother,
Miss Ellis has come home again.
She was in our class to-day, and it
seemed so nice to have her back.”
Annie King was in the first class in the
Crossington Sunday school; and Crossing-
ton was a country village seven miles from
the nearest town, and as quiet and secluded
as village need to be. She was a bright girl
of about thirteen, very fond of reading, and
fonder still of Miss Ellis’s Sunday lessons,
One reason why Annie liked them so much
was, that they never concluded without
leaving to each one who heard them some-


a
70. =: ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

44
4
Z
Z
4
4,

4,
4,
4



ANNIE AND HER MOTHER.

thing that they might distinctly carry away
in their minds; and on this Sunday after-
noon the whole class met after school, to
talk over the question Miss Ellis had left
them to decide.

We will repeat it for our readers before
giving them any of the girls’ remarks upon
the subject. The Scripture lesson for the
day had been Luke xxiv., and their teacher
ANNIE K®NG’S QUESTION. 71

had entered very fully into the history of
the Lord’s ascension. In the course of the
explanation the question had been given,
“ How was it that, after losing the presence
of their Saviour with them on earth, the
disciples yet returned to Jerusalem ‘with
great joy?’” One by one many answers
were produced.

“‘ Because Jesus had promised to be with
them to the end of the world,” replied Jane
Greaves.

“ Because he was to intercede for them at
the right hand of God,” said Fanny Grey.

“ Because he had promised to send them
the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,” answered
Ellen Brown.

“Very good reasons,” assented Miss Ellis.
“Yes, dear girls, these were the thoughts
which made them joyful, and I want you all
to remember that the very same causes for
joy which the disciples possessed, should be
causes of joy to ourselves also.”

“Please, maam,” timidly interrupted
Susie Lee, the youngest of the class, “I
think I’ve found another reason.”

“ Well, Susie ?”
72 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

“T think it must have made them happy
to think that they each had something to do
for Jesus.”

Now it was this answer of Susie’s which
suggested the question which I have men-
tioned ; for, after having entered very fully
into all the reasons given by the girls, Miss
Ellis said that she wished them to consider
during the week what work had been given
them by their ascended Saviour; and each
one was to tell her on the next Sunday
what Jesus Christ had appointed her to do
for him. \

“T can’t think what I shall find to say,”
began Fanny Grey, one of the eldest of the
group. “I can’t make out whether I have
anything particular to do or not.”

‘Trying to help others ; that’s something,”
suggested Lucy Forbes.

“Oh; but everybody’s got to do that,”
answered Jane Greaves. ‘I think it ought
to be something that’s given to us particular
to do—some one thing, I mean, that’s no
one’s duty so much as ours.”

“‘T wonder whether every one has some-
thing appointed that can be found out?”
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 73

said Annie King thoughtfully. “I suppose
so, however, as Miss Ellis said it. I wonder
_ what we shall answer next Sunday !”

After a few minutes they all dispersed,
and Annie went into the house. She lived
with her widowed mother, whose means
were very small, and who helped to support
herself and her two children by going out to
work. Johnny was quite a little fellow of
about three years old, very delicate in health,
and, for that reason, inclined to be fretful,
or, as Mrs. King called it, “ fractious.”

After tea, the bells began to sound out
for evening service, and Mrs. King having
helped Annie to clear the table, left Johnny
in her charge, and, with her large print
Bible and Prayer-Book in hand, went down
the path leading to the church. It was
Annie’s custom on the Sunday evening to
put Johnny to bed as soon as her mother
was gone, and then to learn her lessons for
the next Sunday by his side until he was
safely asleep, when she would take her
books down to a snug little corner in the
garden, just under the window of the room
where he slept, and where she could hear
74 ANNIE KINGS QUESTION.



every sound should he awake. She had
settled it in her mind that this would be the
best opportunity for beginning to find an
answer to Miss Ellis’s question, and there-
fore was particularly anxious that Johnny
should go to sleep as quickly as possible.
Very gently and kindly she undressed him,
amusing him pleasantly all the time, and
then having laid him safely in the little cot
by the side of her mother’s bed, began softly
to sing some of her school hymns with the
hope of sending him to sleep. But whether
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 75

it was that certain intrusive sunbeams would
peep in from under the blind, or whether it
was that Master Johnny was beginning to
show that spirit of opposition to the process
of “going off,” which does show itself
amongst children very early—so it happened
that he proved exceedingly wakeful. Annie
could not get him to lie still or to shut his
eyes, which looked provokingly wide-awake.
So she gently took him in her arms, and
carried him up and down the room, singing
all the time, until she was quite tired ; but
this failed too. He -was fretful, and asked
for some water, which, as soon as his sister
brought, he pushed away, by which means
some of it was spilt on the bed-clothes ; so
that it was not until Mrs. King came home
from church that he unwillingly was taken
hold of by slumber, and dozed off quietly.
But Annie’s thinking-time was quite gone.
She had not time to learn anything but her
Scripture lesson, for her mother wanted her
to read out the book she had brought from
the Sunday-school library, as her own eyes
were too weak to read much in the evening ;
and when the book was finished, it was sup-
76 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

per-time ; and Annie went to bed that night
glad that she had been enabled to be kind
and patient with Johnny and of use to her
mother, but still saying to herself, that if
only her little brother had been rather less
tiresome, how pleasant it would have been
to have had her thinking-time under the
apple-tree.

When she woke up the next morning, the
first question which came into her mind was
that of the day before, “What has Jesus
given me to do for him?”

“T should like to find out something very
particular,” said Annie to herself; ‘“some-
thing not at all common, and that the other
girls won't think of. Let me see. There’s
poor old Mrs. Dale, whose house was burned
down last week ; I might go and work very
hard, and get some money to give to her.
How nice that would be! But then mother’s
going out all week, and I can’t leave Johnny.
How tiresome it is! If it wasn’t for mind-
ing him I could do so many things. I could
go and read to the old blind people in the
work-house, and I could earn money for the
missionary-box ;_ but he wants so much
ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 77

looking after, and I can’t bring him along
with me. I am afraid that I shan’t have
any answer for Miss Ellis next Sunday.
How I wish I could hear Jesus Christ tell-
ing me exactly what he wants me to do.”!

Annie had a little text-book that her
teacher had given her, with a verse in it for
every day in the year; and her text that
morning was, ‘“‘ Whatsoever ye do, do it
heartily as unto the Lord” (Col. iii. 23).
If she had not hurried quite so quickly
down-stairs, but had stayed to think it over
a little, and to observe how, in this and in
many other verses, Christ’s children are
taught to find, in their common every-day
employments, the work that he has given
them to do in the circumstances in which
he has placed them, she would have been
helped out of her difficulty ; but as it was,
she read the verse hastily after her morning
prayer, and then went down to get break-
fast ready. .

Her mother.looked tired when she followed
her to the kitchen. «“I’ve had but little
sleep,” she said; “Johnny’s that fractious,
now he’s teething, that he kept me awake
78 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

half the night. You must mind and amuse
him, Annie, while I’m out; for he’s feverish
and cross. If it wasn’t that I can’t afford
to lose a day’ s work, I’d stay at home with
him myself.” -

‘When Mrs. King was gone, Annie had
plenty to do. Fortunately, Johnny, tired
out after his wakeful night, was sleeping
quietly for the present. So she washed up
the breakfast things, cleaned the rooms,
made her own and her mother’s beds, and
was just paring the potatoes, and preparing
for dinner, when he awoke. And from that
minute until night she had a busy time of it.
The poor little fellow was ailing and cross.
If Annie left him with his playthings on
the floor for a few moments, he would cry
to be taken up, and would fret for, things
which she could not give him, although she
played with him, and sang cheerily, and did
her utmost to amuse him. Very thankful
was she when Susie Lee came in during the
afternoon, good-naturedly offermg to take
Johnny into the garden for an hour, while
Annie did her work in-doors. And she had
plenty of it, for Mrs, King had taught her
ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 79

to be useful; and she had barely tidied
away the things, and put the clothes to
soak, and mended a tear in the carpet, which
was in danger of tripping up every one who
walked across the room, when Susie was
called home, and her little brother was-again
on her hands.

When Annie went to bed that night, she
was so tired that she fell asleep the moment
her head touched the pillow; and the next
day, and the next, were very like tne Mon-
day, so that when Saturday morning came,
and Miss Ellis, as she passed the cottage
door, said pleasantly, “Well, Annie, have
you remembered my question? I hope
you'll bring me an answer to-morrow,” she
was quite glad that she did not wait fora
reply then, and said to herself, “ If teacher
only knew what a work it is to mind Johnny,
she’d see how hard it is for me to do any-
thing more.”

Perhaps the young reader of these pages
is saying, “I am sure, if I had been Annie,
I should have found out long before the
work that was given me to do!” It may
be so; but then you must remember that
80 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

Annie, although really in earnest in the
desire to do her duty, did not as yet see
very distinctly that which the Holy Spirit’s
teaching was afterwards to show her more
fully. Miss Ellis’s instructions had been
already made the means of stirring her up
to a deep sense of the importance of prepar-
ing for eternity, and she was in earnest in
her desire to find Jesus for her Saviour, to
lay her sins upon him, and to renounce every
idea of being accounted worthy for any right-
eousness of her own; but she did not at
present distinctly see that it is the privilege
of the Christian to do everything, however
small, to the glory of God, that in the
common duties of life they which have
received the new life of faith in the Son of
God, should henceforward no longer live
unto themselves, but unto him that died for
them and rose again; and it was with the
object of bringing this clearly home to the
minds of her girls, that Miss Ellis had made
it the subject of her parting remarks on the
previous Sunday. ¥

Mrs. King came home in the middle of
the day, and took charge of Johnny, while
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION, 81

Annie finished a little of the Saturday
mending.

“ Make haste with the dinner, child,” she
said kindly; “I’ve a parcel and message to
send up to the Leigh Farm for Mrs. New-
land at the Hall, and the walk will do you
good ; youre looking palish, and no wonder,
for you have had all the bustling to yourself
this week. I didn’t like to refuse the Hall
work just now, when they’re full of visitors,
and we want the money; but next week I
Shall be at home, and can do most of the
house work while you mind Johnny.”

“Mother,” said Annie, “mightn’t I stop
and see Uncle Stephen? You. know you
told him you'd spare me when you could to
read a bit to him now he’s blind, and I could
come home from Leigh by the common.”

“Do,” replied her mother ; “just make it
as pleasant as you can. And don’t hurry,
Annie, for you'll have time to look over your
Sunday lessons after tea, as you tell me
they're mostly perfect now.”

Annie started cheerfully for Leigh Farm,
a pretty place nearly three miles off. Two

of her school-fellows, Lucy Forbes and Fanny
(304) 6
82 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.



GOING TO THE FARM.

Grey, joined her for part of the way ; and
very pleasant was the bright afternoon, and
the shady path among the trees and through
the orchards, and very pleasant the ripe
blackberries which they gathered and ate as
they talked together.

“Have you got your answer ready for
Miss Ellis?” said Annie, before they parted.

“What answer?” replied Fanny. “Oh,
ANNIE -KING’S QUESTION. 83

you mean about our work. What a good
thing that you reminded me, Annie; I had
quite forgotten all about it. I must try
and think of something to say before to-
morrow.”

“Oh, I thought of it yesterday,” interposed
Lucy carelessly. “I shall say that our
work is to obey our parents—that’s true,
you know, and I dare say it’ll do.”

- Annie looked surprised. “I don’t think
_ that’s the sort of answer Miss Ellis means,”
she said quietly. “Of course everybody
must obey their parents, and it’s one of
God’s particular commandments; but I
think our teacher wanted us to put our
hearts into finding out, each for ourselves,
the exact work Jesus has given us. I’ve
not found my answer yet, but I’m going to
think until I do. I’ve been trying all the
week, but Johnny’s been poorly, and I’ve
had to attend on him from morning till
night. Do try before to-morrow,” she con-
tinued, as they parted ; “ Miss Ellis looks so
Sorry when any one seems as if they did not
care to think.” :

With these words they parted, and in
84 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

about half an hour Annie was at the Leigh
Farm. Mrs. Shaw’s pleasant welcome was
not rendered less acceptable by the refresh-
ing basket of fruit which she insisted on her
taking home with her for herself and Johnny ;
and it was with a light footstep that she ran
up the steps into old Stephen Carr’s garden,
after having delivered Mrs. Newland’s mes-
sages at the farm.

He was her grand-uncle, and had formerly
been a nursery-gardener in the nearest town
of Loughbourn. He had now given up his
business to his son, and had returned to his
native village of Leigh to spend his closing
days, and to enjoy a well-earned season of
rest and quiet, after a life of constant and
active labour.*

Very kind and paternal was his greeting
to his little niece, who, throwing off her hat,
seated herself at his feet on the soft grassy
slope which overlooked the valley beneath ;
and he listened with pleasure while she told
him all the Crossington news, and the little
domestic details, in which he took a kind
interest.

“And now, Uncle Stephen,” concluded

e
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 85

Annie, “you see mother’s kept her promise
of sending me to read to you, so I’ve plenty
of time for the chapter and our talk after it.”

“ Let’s have it, let’s have it now,” he re-
plied quickly ; “it’s pleasant music to my
old ears to hear your young voice, my child,
but it’s better still when it’s reading the
blessed gospel of salvation. Here’s the
Testament. I was trying to make out a
few verses when you came; but my eyes
are sadly dim, and even with this large
print I could not read except my memory
served me to remember parts here and there
that I can’t see.”

“Shall I read where it’s open?” asked
Annie.

“Yes, my child,” he answered, and rever-
ently asked a blessing on the Word. “It
is a wonderful story that of Saul of Tarsus,
and the more wonderful when we remember
that that same miracle which was wrought
on him is wrought equally now upon every
one who is brought to know the Lord in
truth.” J

Annie slowly read the ninth chapter of
Acts, and then laid down the book on the
86 ANNIE KING'S QUESTION.







ANNIE AND UNCLE STEPHEN,

grass, and remained silent for several
minutes.
“A wonderful history,” repeated old
ANNIE KING'S QUESTION. 87

Stephen ; “that’s the true sign of a soul
which has seen the Lord, that its first cry is,
‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”

“But does the answer always come ?”
asked Annie thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been
asking that question all the week, uncle,
but I’ve not found the thing yet that Jesus
has given me to do.”

The old man laid his trembling hand
kindly on her head. ‘“ Are you sure you’ve
been looking for the answer the right way,
my child? Sometimes God writes the answer
for us quite plain, but we don’t set. the right
way to work to read it.” *

“T don’t know, Uncle Stephen,” she re-
plied, and told him the whole history of
Miss Ellis’s question, and of her week of
search for the work which Jesus had left
for her to do, and how she had been so taken
up with Johnny, that she hadn’t been able
to find it out.

Old Stephen smiled kindly as she con-
cluded. “You've got the answer pretty
plain written for you, my child,” he said ;
“but the matter is that you've not seen
plain to read it. You know, Annie,” he
88 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

added seriously, ‘if we’re in earnest in ask-
ing, ‘ Lord, what wilt rHou have me to do?’
we must be quite willing to accept and act
on his answer, whatever it may be. I mean
to say that we mustn’t choose out something
for ourselves, and settle that Jesus has given
us this and that work which we choose, but
that we must look honestly about, and take
up our appointed duty, whether we like it
or not—whether we think it trifling or not
—just for the love of him who gave himself
for us.”,

“Then, uncle, what do you think he has
given me to do for him?” rejoined Annie
eagerly.

“Listen while I tell you a story of my
young days,” was the reply, “and you shall
find out for yourself.

“When I began work I was gardener’s
boy to Squire Newland—the old gentleman
that’s dead, I mean. I was kept to work
in his grounds. Well, there were several
workmen, for it’s a large place; but the
head-gardener, who was over me, was a good
man, and a good workman, and taught me
more in a year or two than I ever learned
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 89

from any one else. There was one particular
part of the grounds, called the Lake-piece,
that was mostly my charge; and I had
plenty to do there, what with mowing, and
nursing the flowering shrubs, and looking
after the plants in the young ladies’ plots of
ground ; while Mr. Robins used to take me
into the hot-houses and graperies every day,
and teach me himself the nicer parts of the
business.

“Well, it happened one May that he was
suddenly called away for a few days’ busi-
ness on the squire’s account. He was so
hurried that he hadn’t time to leave any
directions beyond saying, as he rode off,
‘Mind, Stephen, I trust you not to go to
sleep while I’m out;’ and then he was gone.
Now, if ever a lad cared for the master over
him, I did for Mr. Robins. He had helped
me forward when my parents were very poor,
and hadn’t only cared to teach me my trade,
but looked after me, body and soul, and kept
me to my Bible by example and teaching as
well. So, when he was gone, I thought
that he should see whether I minded his
word or not, and I cast about in my mind
90 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.

to look for something very particular to do
for him, that should show him how much I
was willing to serve him.« I puzzled away
until I thought of the hot-houses, and I
knew that he intended planting out the
geraniums very shortly. It was along piece
of work every year, for I can assure you
the houses were a sight in those days. But
I thought, if I worked very hard, I’d have
time to get them all out before he came’
home; and so I did. I hardly allowed
myself time to eat my meals during the
three days he was away; and as the Lake-
piece was at the other side of the grounds
from the hot-houses, I hadn’t a minute to
spare. for looking after it. The other gar-
deners were busy in another part of the estate,
and when they saw me at work, thought
that I had orders from Mr. Robins, and
didn’t interfere.

“The work was done by the Friday night,
‘and I was stiff and tired enough when I went
to sleep, I can tell you. Well, the next morn-
ing it felt chilly when I awoke, and I began to
fear lest there should have been a late frost
in the night. I made haste to the gardens,
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 91

and my heart sank when Nicholls, one of
the under-gardeners, met me in the avenue,
saying, ‘I wonder Robins should have told
you to pot out the plants this week; there
was a slight frost in the night.’ And sure
enough he was right; half the plants were
nipped, and damage done that I could never
repair.

“JT had no heart for anything that day.

Mr. Robins arrived early in the afternoon,
and, for the first time, I wished him away.
However, I went to meet him at the gate,
for I thought I’d get over the telling him at
once. :
“¢Q Stephen,’ he said, ‘here you are to
speak for yourself. Dve come up through
the Lake-piece, man, and it does you no
credit ; the young ladies’ gardens are all in
a mess, and the walks want weeding. I
could have been certain you'd have looked
after your work.’

“Well, Annie, I was down enough, you
may be sure, and the more because I’d
wished to please my master, and had worked
so hard for him. But, however, I asked
him to come with me, and I managed to get
92 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.



* TELLING IT OUT.

out all the story, and showed him the plants,
and told the mistake I had made, and begged
him to forgive it. I felt easier when it was
over, and when I looked in his face I thought
he seemed vexed, but not angry., Vexed,
indeed, he might be, for the houses were his
pride; but he didn’t scold at me as most
would, but just turned round and _ said,
‘Stephen; I’m very sorry; J’m sure you
worked for the best; but I’d have been
better pleased if you’d done your duty well,
and not gone to do what wasn’t your affair.’
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION 98

We had hard work all that afternoon trying
to repair the mischief, and many a sneer I
had to put up with from the under-gardeners
about people who neglected their own work
to meddle with what wasn’t their business; but
I felt they were too true for me to be angry.

“The next day was Sunday, and, as it
happened, the path to church was right
through the Lake-piece. I was ashamed to
see how untidy it looked, for rain had fallen,
and the weeds had sprung up, and my
neglect was clear to every one. After
church, Mr. Robins called me to walk home
with him. I shall never forget the talking

he gave me; it stuck by me through life.

There was a verse he showed me in the
Bible ; he said it was one of the saddest he
knew—‘ They made me the keeper of the vine-
yards, but mine own vineyard have I not
kept ;’ and he said this was to be a lesson to
me to take the duty God sends, and do it
with a whole heart, from love to him who
died for us, and who has given us each a
work for him if only we are willing to do it,
‘J thank you for your wishing to please me,
Stephen,’ he said, ‘it was kindly meant ; but
94 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

it’s our best way to take the duties nearest
to hand, because G'od always puts our work
in the order in which we are to take tt up,
and, uf we seek vt, gives us the clear sight to
see that order right. Before we look after
the souls of others, we must mind that our
own souls are given to the Lord; before we
look to out-door duties, it is our proper
place to look at home, and see what is
the appointed work there. And remember,
~ Stephen, it is the Christian’s privilege to
take every common duty and employment
to Him who has given us our charge to
keep here, and to do it to his glory. This
has been a sad lesson to you, but you must
let it remind you from this time forward
that the likelihood is that if we go striking
out work for ourselves, and neglecting our
proper duty, we shall meet with disappoint-
ment, while we cannot expect a blessing. If
I had found the Lake-piece in order, it would
have pleased me better than anything else ;
and if you had asked me before I went, I
could have told you from the weather-glass
that the geraniums wouldn’t stand exposure
for another fortnight.’ ©
ANNIE KING’S QUESTION. 95

“So now, Annie, I’ve told you this story
to show you that when we want to find out
what Jesus wishes us to do for him, we are
not to go casting’ about for something out-of-
the-way that we might choose, but are to
take up the work next to hand, and to do it
as unto the Lord, as sure that it is the
charge he gives us as if we heard him say
so.”

Annie had been listening intently.
“Uncle Stephen,” she said, “I think I
understand you. God has placed me in my
home ; it is my home duties that Jesus has
left me to do.”

“Well, Nanny, and what kept you from
‘finding out the particular thing that was to
be the work when you answered Miss Ellis’s
question ?”

“Tt was Johnny, Uncle Stephen; perhaps
minding Johnny is what Jesus has given me
to do for him.”

“Tt is not perhaps, my child, it is sure ; it
is as plain as.if he had put him into your
arms, and told you to look to him for his
sake ; and don’t be fancying it is too little.
I once read of a rich lady in France who
96 ANNIE KING’S QUESTION,

was attacked by enemies, and lost all her
money, and was turned into a common
servant ; but through it all she never
seemed cast down, no, not when the drud-
gery that the other servants refused to do
was put upon her. Some one asked her
how it was that, in the midst of it all, she
sang at her work, and seemed more joyful
than any one else. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I
think I hear Jesus saying, “Sweep the
house for my sake; do this work for me;”
and when I remember what he did for me,
can I but do all rejoicingly ?’”

“Tm so glad I came to you, Uncle
Stephen,” said Annie thoughtfully. “I
shall try and say always, ‘ Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do?’ and now I’ve found
the answer.” \~

It was nearly eight o’clock when Annie
King returned home. Her mother asked
her whether she had enjoyed her time.
Oh, so much, mother!” was the reply as
she went up-stairs to take off her hat.
Johnny lay fast asleep in his little cot, and,
before she went down to her mother, she
knelt silently by his side. When she arose,
ANNIE KING'S QUESTION, 97

she had accepted the work Jesus had given
her to do for him. The little boy was lying
quite still, and a faint flush on his cheek was
half concealed. by the brown curly hair which
fell over it. He did not know how lovingly
his sister looked at him, while she felt that
he was more closely bound to her than he
had ever been before. Her eyes were full
of tears as she turned away; and, strangely
enough, there sounded in her ears a verse
which she had never thought of, and the
place of which she could not at first re-
member; and it seemed to her as if she
heard the Saviour’s voice, saying, “Take
this child, and nurse him for me, and I will
give thee thy wages.”

When Miss Ellis, on the next morning,
asked Annie King whether she had found
the work Jesus had given her to do, she re-
plied in a low voice,—

“T think, ma’am, it is to stay at home,
and mind my little brother.”

And Miss Ellis thought so too.

Now, dear young reader, let me ask
whether you have tried yet to find out

what your Lord would have you to do?
(304) q
98 ’ ANNIE KING’S QUESTION.



THE ANSWER.

If not, and you really desire to glorify him
who has done so much for you, you must
follow Stephen’s rule. Consider your call-
ing as a child at home, a scholar, a sister
or brother, and taking up the first duties
that belong to it, seek to do them to the
glory of your Redeemer.

It may seem that “minding the baby,”

cleaning the house, cooking the dinner, are
very plain, common duties; but they become
very different when you do them “as unto
the Lord.” Continually rejoice, rather, that
ANNIE KING’S QU ESTION. 99

you serve so gracious a Master, who permits
us to perform all our common occupations as
unto him.- Only let your continual prayer
be, “ Lord, what wilt thow have me to do?”
and you may be sure that the promise to
you will be fulfilled: “JZ will instruct thee
and teach thee in the way which thow shalt
go: I will guide thee with mine eye.” Oh, it
is good to wake up in the morning, and
when we look on to the day as yet unfilled,
to remember that “whether we eat, or drink,
or whatsoever we do,” we may “do all to the
glory of God!”




THINGS. AS THEY ARE.





Sf. T was the old, old story. Father dead.

#2 Mother dead. Two orphans alone in
the world. A thronged metropolis
increasing marvellously day by day.
And asmall garret-chamber in its
midst, its contents day by day diminishing ;
cold, comfortless, bare.

They were not absolutely starved, those
two orphans; but that was all. Their
father had left them a little money, and at
the time of his death they had possessed
many more articles of furniture. » But
Hunger is a pitiless auctioneer; and Mar-
ten had learned the way to the pawnbroker’s,
the path trodden by men and women with
fainting hearts and fainting bodies; and
THINGS AS THEY ARE, 101

Mary had become quite accustomed to her
often recurring task of filling up as she
best could the gaps made by the departure
of the old familiar friends which she now
despaired. of seeing again.

The winter months had dragged on slowly.
Marten went out every morning with his
barrow: out on sunny, fine days, when all
the world was gay and bright; out in sleet,
and hail, and snow, when the wind seemed
determined to mock and taunt him for hay-
ing such thin clothes; giving him a blow
one moment; searching through and through
his poor, meagre coat, as if to ask whether
that was all he had to wear; whistling
scornfully in his ears, and then leaving him
for an instant to meet him suddenly round
the next corner, and in the same rude way.

Marten sometimes wondered to himself
why he kept on living. He didn’t know
what good he was in the world, he said,
except that he could help to keep Mary.
Somehow it seemed hard that he should
have to go day after day on those weary,
weary rounds, no matter what the weather
might be, while ever so many folk had all
102 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

they wanted, and to spare. Why wasn’t he
like those rosy children who peeped over
the blinds at him on wet afternoons; well-
dressed, well-fed, and with the glowing re-
flection of a fire behind them? Why hadn’t
he a warm, comfortable home too, and plenty
of clothes and money? Oh, children of
happy, smiling homes, let your hearts be
very full of pity and compassion for the
poor :—
“While we seek mirth and pleasure, and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say,
Oh, hard times! come again no more !” 3

So said Marten and Mary often with full
hearts. Their best times were when they
met at the end of the day, and talked over
all that they had seen and all that they had
been doing since they parted. Mary worked
with a dressmaker who had grand show-
rooms up-stairs, and a brass plate on the
door, and a whole shop-front of such win-
dows as were a temptation to every stone-
throwing boy that passed by. .' Everything
very costly and imposing up-stairs and in
public. Below, in the work-rooms, pale,
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 103

over-worked girls, with faint hearts and
weary fingers, whose weekly wages barely
sufficed to support them day by day, and
who seemed to be regarded by their em-
ployer as so many working-machines, use-
ful as long as they worked well, and that
was all.

Some of these working-machines had
hearts, a portion of their mechanism which
had never entered into the calculation of
Madame Celeste when she hired them;
hearts which sank despondingly in propor-
tion as young, bright, wealthy sisters gave
hurried, elaborate orders in the rooms above ;
hearts which were torn by separation from
the homes and the friends they loved, and
which bled silently while the fingers of the
machine flew over gossamer flounces, and
fairy trimmings, and bridal adornments for
more favoured wearers.

And some of the machines wore out.
Provoking it was for Madame Celeste, who
had become accustomed to them, and had a
wedding order and a mourning order just
at the busy time, and couldn’t understand
why girls should be fancying themselves ill
104 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

with coughs, and delicate chests, and pains
in their sides. It was very provoking,
especially when the machine failed al-
together ; or, in other words, when young
apprentices went home to their sweet, fresh
country air, only in time to droop with the
flowers, and like them to die. Too bad,
indeed, Madame Celeste !

Our Mary drooped often, but she did not
fail in punctuality or diligence. Only she
longed, longed thirstingly for the end of the
day, when she might exchange the confined
atmosphere of the closest of the work-rooms
for the less impure air of the streets, and
the cramped posture of the needle-woman |
for an interval of freedom. ~She was
regarded as the lowest of the workers in
the establishment ; her youth, and poverty,
and what the others called “want of
style,” bringing down no small amount
of cool contempt from those who con-
sidered themselves “young ladies.” In-
deed, had Madame known what Mary’s
home was now, she would have at once
ceased to employ any one belonging to so
poor a dwelling. But it did not occur to
THINGS AS THEY ARE, 105

her to inquire what became of the machines
out of working hours ; so Mary and Marten
went on day by day as best they could, and
were thankful when their joint earnings
made up sufficient to keep them for a week
without the necessity of pawning more of
their little stock of furniture.

It was Saturday night, and the embers
were burning low in the grate, and Marten
was fast asleep on his low tressel-bed in one
corner of the room, Mary was as tired,
but she always sat up on Saturday nights
to put her own clothes and Marten’s in the
best repair she could, before creeping into a
little curtained-off portion of the chamber,
which she called her room.

Because Sunday was coming,—Sunday,
Mary’s best day, when she would try and
forget all the cares and the hard times here,
and would look upwards and onwards to
what is coming for the Lord’s children in
“the land very far off,’—Saturday night
mendings often brought happy thoughts to
Mary; but it didn’t seem like it on this
night. On the contrary, the calm, sweet
smile, which had been on her lips while
106 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

Marten.read her a few verses before going
to bed, had vanished. As her needle flew
in-and out more and more swiftly, the tears
seemed as if they would take advantage of
the opportunity to fall on the coarse black
frock in her lap, until Mary’s eyes were
very blind and dim, and the work suddenly
ceased that she might cover her face with
her hands as if to drive back the choking
sobs.

It was not often that Mary murmured,
but there was murmuring in her heart then.
“Why do I go on like this. week after
week ?” was the language of her thoughts.
“Tm sick of working, I’m tired of being
looked down upon by finer dressed girls,
because my clothes are wearing out. My
heart, my heart’s wearing out. It seems as
if we were never to be cared for in the
world; and we might get on—only we’re
honest.~ Why doesn’t Marten’s barrow
fetch as much as others? Only because he
won't sell bad fruit for good, and stale for
_ fresh. And I—there’s many a girl wearing
gay clothes and never wanting—no, I'll
keep honest, I'd rather die than be like
THINGS AS THEY ARE, 107

them ; but oh, father, mother, why did you
die? Why doesn’t any one care for us
now ?

“T know it’s wrong—I mustn’t think so
—I’m trying to serve Jesus—I’m his child.
But it doesn’t seem as if he knew about me.
People who don’t love him seem to get on
best. Oh, how is it? Is it all true what
the Bible says about his caring for the poor
and needy? Does he care for me as he
says—for me—”

And then a sudden change came over the
face of the young girl—a change as if some
one had whispered words of hope into her.
ear. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust
in him,” she said, almost aloud. “I am
poor and needy, but the Lord thinketh on
me; yes, on me I won’t doubt him, oh,
I can’t doubt him who gave his life for
the sheep. I know he loves me though
I am so weak and murmuring. The world
seems too hard a puzzle for me, but it
must be right, as he orders it ;” and
Mary dashed away the tears, and sang
softly, for there was no fear of waking
Marten,—
108 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

‘* Breast the wave, Christian,
When it is strongest ;

Watch for day, Christian, ,

When the night’s longest.

‘Onward and upward still
Be thine endeavour ;
Jesus has loved thee—

He loves thee for ever.”

Mary didn’t want more than that—“He
loves thee for ever.” It was quite enough
to answer all the sore doubts. The tears
came again now, but not as before. It
seemed as if the same fountain had sent
forth sweet waters and bitter, for these
were something like the tears with which
one of old washed the Lord’s feet—tears
of love and humility as she clung to the
Saviour and heard him say, “Go in peace.”

And then, after a little while in which
she had sat with a small clasped book on
her knee, all seemed changed to Mary.
Everything around her seemed to fade
away in a cloudy mist, and when the mist
had dispersed, she was walking in the
thronged streets which she had. been tread-
ing a few hours before, and looking round
wonderingly at what seemed the same and
yet utterly different.
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 109

Utterly different, though others did not
appear to find it so. But Mary held to her
eyes a glass which had been given her; she
knew not how, with the injunction to look
around her only through its medium ; and
as she looked, she thought she heard a voice
saying in her ear, “ God seeth not as man
seeth. The things which are seen are tem-
poral. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life are not of the
Father, but of the world; and the world
passeth away, and the lust thereof. Look,
Mary, at things as they are, not as they
seem.”

Changed indeed were the old familiar
places. There were stately mansions on
one side, which Mary had often passed by
with a throb of envy; and now they
appeared mean and poor, falling often into
ruins, and destitute of any beauty or gran-
deur.

On the other hand were the usually
sparkling shops, whose windows were wont
to be gay with all manner of costly silks,
and rich tapestried stuffs. But as Mary
saw them now, these looked like crumbling
110 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

tinder, moth-eaten and worthless; and in-
stead of the showy labels usually attached
to them, were inscribed these words :—
“ Your gold is corrupted; your garments
are moth-eaten. The fashion of this world
passeth away.”

Wonderingly she: pursued her way, and
in the glittering store-houses where jewels*
of silver and jewels of gold had continually
attracted her marvelling gaze, she saw a few
rusted, worthless articles with the inscription,
“Tay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves break through and steal.”

But suddenly a more fearful sight than all
broke upon Mary’s view as she tightened the
grasp with which she held the glass to her
eyes. It was that of a lofty building whose
‘glaring lights and thronged entry had con-
tinually attracted her notice as she passed
daily to and fro. Now sounds as of hellish
cries resounded from it. She felt impelled
to look in, and there, where hundreds were
flocking, were written the words, “THE way
to Het.” And on casks from whose con-
tents even the women and children were
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 111

eagerly drinking, were written, ‘Poison for
body and soul!” “Ruin.” “Death.” “De-
struction.” And behind, there was a yawn-
ing place from which red flames were every
now and then issuing; and the very flames
seemed to form themselves into the words,
“Woe unto them that......follow strong drink!
neither formcators,...... nor drunkards, nor
revilers shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
And as if she had looked through the very
gates of hell, Mary fled back affrighted and
was out once again in the open street.»

She was just beginning to find out many
strange things concerning the thronging
crowds who passed by, when further on she
saw a bright pure light shining out on the
darkest corner of the way—a light so serene
that she hastened her steps till she reached
the spot. And there, giving forth as it were
rainbow rays of brightness, were displayed,
in the window of a small, unpretending build-
ing, precious books which, seemed to be set
with gold and jewels. Over them was written
as with the pencil of a sunbeam, “ The word.
of the Lorp endureth for ever.” . “ Why, it’s
the little Bible shop by the church!” ex-
112 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

claimed Mary, “but it’s all changed.” And
then she looked yet more wonderingly at the
golden letters which shone forth from every
open page. And there was one sparkling
motto :—“ The statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the
Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear
of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the
judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous
altogether. More to be desired are they than
gold, yea, than much fine gold.” And another
shone out more gloriously still, even as if
each letter had been formed with diamonds
and emeralds,—“ God so loved the world that
he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in ham should not perish, but have
everlasting life;” and this seemed to light up
all the rest, besides that they each had their
own peculiar brightness : and it brought out
yet more gloriously the words which sparkled
forth from the open page of another of the
holy books; and they were these,—“ My God
shall supply all your need according to hs
riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” And the
glittering rays were then reflected by some-
thing very glittering too in Mary’s eyes, as
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 113

she thought of the Great King who had
treasures at his right hand for her, and whose
servant she was, and who would love her for
ever.

And once again she turned back into the
streets. And then she saw how different
all the people looked. The greater number
were in rags and garments so filthy that she
wondered they could keep them together.
Many were quite naked. Others were blindly
groping their way. Suddenly she started as
she recognized amongst these meanly-clad
persons, lords and ladies, wealthy frequenters
of the palaces and the store-houses of the
city. They seemed unconscious of their
tattered condition, and occupied in coming
and going without any apparent object,
though there were laughter and song among
them, which sounded discordantly on her
ears. She wondered what this should signify,
when there passed by one of fair and far
different mien. Her garments were spotless
as the snow, and rich with draperies of gold.
There was a coronet on her brow, and an
ornament of such lustre clasping the mantle

on her breast, that, seen in certain lights, it
(304) 8
114 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

showed all the colours of the rainbow. And
in her hand was a precious parchment in-
scribed with letters similar to those of the
holy books; and outside of it was written,
“ Title-deeds of the kingdom.” ‘Then Mary
marvelled as she recognized in the face, trans-
formed though it was, that of the lame ap-
prentice who sat beside her day after day in
the work-room—the only witness for Jesus
who had ever joined with her in upholding
his name amongst the giddy number, to whoin
it was of little worth. - And there she walked
on now, so brave and calm; and the same
voice which had spoken to Mary, now whis-
pered in her ear, “The King’s daughter is
all glorious within; her raiment is of wrought
gold. She hath washed her robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb; and
she hath the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of
great price. When the day of the Lord
cometh, she shall shine forth as the sun in
the kingdom of her Father.”
And then Mary saw more of these shining

ones passing on among the crowd, mocked
at and persecuted by many, but calm and
THINGS AS THEY ARE, 115

serene; as becaine their royal birth and a
coming kingdom. The old widow—bed-
ridden for many years—who lived in the
same street, was among them, and shone as
a King’s daughter now. And the poor, de-
formed carpenter, with whom Marten often’
spent a spare minute watching his trade, had
a glorious robe too; and looked up with head
erect, and sang out gladly. Mary thought
his song beautiful,—
‘* Happy day! happy day !

When Jesus washed my sins away!

He taught my heart to watch and pray,

And he supports me every day.

Happy day! happy day!

When Jesus washed my sins away !”
The people round couldn’t understand his
language, and laughed at him; and then
Mary saw that they thought themselves as
well-dressed and grand as he, and knew not
that they were poor, and miserable, and blind,
and naked, with their very righteousness as
filthy rags, and they themselves guilty before
God; for “the fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints.”

She was wondering at the little number

of those that wore the fine linen and the
116 THINGS AS THEY ARE,

white robes, when, as she pursued her way,
she saw that though so many of the mansions
which she had always called great and grand
were now as the meanest hovels, there were
buildings which, even through her glass,
looked fair and well. There was a light on
the Orphan Home, and on the hospital where
her mother had died; and it seemed as if
ministering spirits were crowding there to
comfort the heirs of salvation within. And
while the walls of many a wealthy house,
whose owner had become rich through usury
and wrong, seemed to have been built up
with broken hearts and ruined souls, on
many of the stones which ~sparkled out
_ here were inscriptions such as _ these :—
“The offering of a free heart;” “Of thine
own have I given thee;” “If Christ have
so loved us, we ought also to love one
another.” And light shone out, too, from
some of the churches—a dim, uncertain
gleam from many, but a flood of radiance
from others. And among these last was
Mary’s own dear church; and she knew
why this was so, for she had seen her
minister among the white-robed number, and
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 117

she knew that he had the word of the most
high God on his lips.

And suddenly Mary found herself, she
knew not how, in the churchyard. And she
looked for the grave where her mother lay ;
but it was bright with flowers, and everlast-
ing had formed itself into wreaths around it.
And then she once more heard the voice
bidding her not to seek the living among the
dead. And lifting up her glass, she caught
a distant glimpse of a multitude which no
man could number—a glorious company with
palms in their hands; and she thought she
could distinguish her mother’s form among
the throng, and could almost catch the strains
of the song of triumph, when—

When ‘she started up suddenly to find
herself waking in the cold garret, her Bible
and the old black frock in her lap, and the
dim candle burning out, and Marten rousing
up for a moment with the words, “ Why,
Mary, you're talking in your sleep; what's
the matter ?”

Mary could not think of any answer but
the true,one,—“I must have gone off to
sleep while I was getting my Sunday lesson,
118 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

Marten. It’s all about that verse, ‘We walk
by faith, and not by sight.’” But Marten
‘was asleep again, and then his sister knelt
-down for a few minutes, and it seemed to
her that everything must be right now, for
was she not a King’s daughter? “The little
-garret must have the light upon it always,”
she said; and then she washed her robes
‘quite white in the blood of the Lamb. And
-on the next day she went forth with a firmer,
braver step than ever, when she thought of
‘the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled
‘reserved in heaven for her, and of the riches
in Christ Jesus, and of the crown of glory
‘fading not away.

‘Whenever murmuring thoughts came
again to Mary’s heart, she remembered the
glass of faith which seemed to have been
lent to her on that dark Saturday night.
And she would put such thoughts away by
singing,

‘* Happy day! happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away.”

And we, in trouble and gladness, will do well
to seek more. continually to walk by faith,
and not by sight, even though we but see
THINGS AS THEY ARE. 119°

through the glass darkly. Oh, could we but:
for one short hour behold all things here,
not as they seem, but as they are, we who:
_are the children of the kingdom would lift
up our heads with joy unspeakable, counting
all earthly gain but loss, all earthly loss as- -
not to be made mention of, knowing that.
our redemption draweth nigh :—
**Soon, soon the whole,
Like a parched scroll,
Shall before our amazed sight uproll ;
~And without a screen
At one burst be seen,
The Presence wherein we have ever been.”
One there was in olden time who was-
sorely perplexed when he saw the prosperity
of the wicked, and beheld how the ungodly
prospered in the world and increased in
riches. And when he thought to know this,
it was too painful for him; until he went
into.the sanctuary of God. Then understood
he their end. And often nowadays do the
weary ones of this world’s highway feel the:
same sore bewilderment, and almost unwit-
tingly exclaim, “It is vain to serve God ;.
and what profit is it that we have kept his.
ordinance?” And in times like these it is

c
120 THINGS AS THEY ARE.

that we must lift up our eyes unto him from
whom cometh our help, and seek to look
through the clear glass of faith, and to behold
all things here in the true light of Eternitys
And as it was with the Psalmist of old, so it
will ever be now, that the true in heart, thus
looking round upon the fading show of this
world’s glory, will be enabled exultingly to
look onward to a glory which shall never
fade, with his trustful song,—“Thou shalt
guide me with thy counsel, and afterward
receive me toglory. Whom have I in heaven
but thee ? and there is none upon earth that
I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart
faileth; but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever.”


DENA


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