Pleasant
Pleasant
LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE.
"Let your light SO shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven."
IT was a sultry July night. The moon looked calmly down upon the throbbing heart of busy N , and the lofty trees folded up their leaves as if they were weary of stretching out their tiny hands for the drops of rain that did not come.
Upon the veranda in front of a large brown house, a gentleman was pacing back and forth, holding his little daughter by the hand. Suddenly the little one darted from his side, and, running to her mother, clambered into her lap, as she exclaimed,
"O mamma! How can you keep so still when it's so very warm? And you look so cool and comfortable with your pretty white wrapper on! Nothing ever troubles you, I do believe."
"Yes, Helen," said the gentleman, pausing in his restless walk, "I have been thinking of the very same thing as I've watched you sitting in your easy-chair apparently at rest. You must tell Ruble and me the secret of your peace," he added, as he came and stood with arms folded across the back of the easy-chair, looking down into the two faces that were the dearest of all the world to him.
"'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee,'" said Ruble's mamma dreamily.
"I read such a pretty thought-- in a book today about the growing of grass and the budding of flowers:' That it is only because our eyes are not fine enough, that we do not see a lily open or a clover bloom; and only because our ears are not delicate enough, that we do not hear the sap circulate in a rose-leaf, or the heart throb in the insect that alights upon it.' And that set me to thinking how much there was in the world that we have the power to enjoy. Even tonight we can hear the cool splashing of the water in the fountain, raise our eyes to the grand old hills about us, watch the dancing fire-flies as they flash in and out; while there is many a sick and weary one thirsting for a glimpse of all these things that we pass by so carelessly."
"But, mamma," persisted Ruble,
"don't you ever feel so tired and cross?"
"Ruble, can you tell me the text I gave you on your last birthday to be the motto of your coming year?"
"Oh, yes, mamma, I remember!
'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.' I thought I never could learn it, until you told me there was a story about it. Now you'll tell me the story; won't you, please?"
"When I was a little girl," said Rubie's mamma, "I used to be very fretful. One day, when I acted worse than usual, Aunt Rachel told me to put on my bonnet, and go with her to see a sick girl who hadn't been able to sit up or walk for sixteen years. I didn't really want to go; for I thought she must feel so cross to have such a hard time as that. But when Aunt Rachel and I entered the room, she held out her hands to me, and smiled so sweetly that I forgot all about my fear of her; and I went right up to her, and was soon telling her all about my school and playthings, while she cut out of some pretty paper such wonderful men and boys and horses!
"Then I asked her something about herself; and she told me that her spine was so crooked that it was the shape of the letter S. Then she showed me her hands and feet, that had never grown any since she was ten years old. I saw her pretty rolling-chair, that she could lie down in, and roll herself from one room to another. But she never complained at all; and when I asked Aunt Rachel, after we came away, what made her so happy, she said it was because she was a Christian. Then she told me how well people delighted to go and see her, because she was so patient, and interested in them. She was always letting her light shine. It taught me a lesson that I never can forget, for I found out that if we would find true happiness, we must make the most of all our pleasant things in life, and trust God in all our times of trouble.
Bernice M. Franklin.
