“We are willing, we are ready;
We would learn, if you would teach,
We have hearts that yearn to duty;
We have minds alive to beauty,
Souls that any height can reach.”
Mary Howitt.
Most grateful was the quiet repose of Mrs. Rivers’s pretty home after the long wearisome ride in the cars, most pleasant was it to be kindly welcomed by old friends in their new homes. The village seemed full of purpose and aspiration, springing up in an oak opening on the shore of Lake Michigan, and clustering round the two literary institutions that have called it into existence. The familiar faces gathered around Mrs. Rivers’s tea-table recalled many dear and cherished associations, and brought back pleasant pictures of the past.
28Norman’s pleasures were in the present. He was soon off to the lake with George Rivers, wandering a while on its pebbly shore, and then sitting on the pier fishing. They dropped their lines in the water, and sat waiting for a bite. Long and patiently they sat, the sun burning their faces, but their patience was not rewarded with success, for they got no fish. Norman found more companions in the little Randolphs and Henrys, who were fishing at the same time. They lived a few doors from George Rivers, and they came to see Norman, and invited him to dinner and to tea. He had many pleasant talks, and many games with his new friends, who were very kind to him.
Sunday morning came; the weather doubtful, uncertain, showery. Mrs. Lester heard with great pleasure a lecture from her former pastor, and a sermon from an old friend. The Sunday school was invited to visit the Biblical Institute 29that afternoon, to see some idols that had just arrived from China, and to hear Profesor L. lecture upon them. The children were on tip-toe with expectation; but the superintendent, after consultation with the teachers, decided that it would not be prudent to go; the clouds were threatening, and the grass was wet with the recent rain. With his pleasant face and his kindly voice, he told the children of this decision, and then asked all who were in favor of going to the Biblical Institute the next afternoon, at four o’clock, to raise their hands. Every hand was raised, but there was a new difficulty. A professor in the Institute said that it would be better to defer the visit till the next Sabbath, as it would interfere with the students’ recitations on Monday afternoon.
“Not the next Sabbath,” said another gentleman; “there will be a general class-meeting here then, which we all wish to attend.”
30“All, then,” said the superintendent, “who are in favor of visiting the Institute this day fortnight, will signify it by holding up their hands.”
Not an uplifted hand was seen; the expression of opinion was very decided. The children did not believe in a pleasure so long delayed. The professor, with great good-humor, then said that they were disposed to gratify the children, and that they would so arrange their recitations as to give them a cordial welcome.
“My text is at the Institute,” said Professor L., as he rose to speak to the children, “and my audience here;” but he contrived to talk to them without a text so agreeably, that the children voted that he should be invited to address them the next afternoon, which he partly consented to do.
It was a very pleasant looking Sunday school, teachers and children all in their 31places, notwithstanding the wet walks and the dark clouds. The children looked bright and happy, interested in their lessons, attentive to their teachers, and they sang sweet hymns with great spirit and earnestness.
Monday was bright and beautiful, and many little hearts beat high with the thoughts of the afternoon’s pleasure. How glad they were that it had not been put off for a fortnight. It was a pretty sight to see the procession of children winding through the grove of grand old trees on the high bank of the lake, whose blue waters sparkled in the sunlight. The white sails of schooners were seen in the distant horizon, and the lake looked so peaceful that it was difficult to imagine it roughened by the tempest, uttering its loud roar as its great waves dashed against the bank, tearing it away, and prostrating the lofty trees that adorned it.
The children walked into the Institute, 32and entering the room on the right, saw the walls covered with pictures of hideous Chinese idols. One of the great idols they had come to see was a gigantic figure, dressed in flowing robes of white muslin, with a ghastly face, rolling eyes, grinning mouth, and a crown on his head. He was attended by his servant, who had a horrible black face, and long flowing black garments. Such figures as these are carried through the streets in China to receive the worship of the people; and thus religion, which should elevate, only debases them; and fear is the ruling motive instead of love.
Norman thought of that scene in the idol temple in Rangoon: the room lined with images of Boodh, in a sitting posture, with folded hands, bearing lamps to give light to a Christian prayer-meeting; Havelock, with his Bible in his hand, surrounded by a hundred Christian soldiers, praying to the God of heaven, and 33singing praises to the Lord Christ in this famous idol temple. Well, the day will come when all the idols will be cast to the moles and the bats, and when from every hill-top and valley, from the broad prairie and the green savannah, the incense of praise shall ascend to the one living and true God.
After the children had passed around the rooms, and looked at the idols, they went up stairs and seated themselves in the chapel to hear Professor L. The fresh breeze blew in the window, and the lake spread its broad bosom beneath the eye; stripes of green and blue gave variety to its surface; little sail-boats sailed rapidly by; and a large steamer went proudly on its way. It was pleasant to look out upon this noble view, and listen at the same time to Professor L.’s narration of what he had seen during his three years in China.
He gave an interesting account of Miss 34Aldersey, a noble English woman, who, while in her pretty English home, in the midst of kind friends, and social joys, and religious privileges, felt her heart so moved by the spiritual destitution of the Chinese, that she left home and friends, and all pleasant, familiar things, and went over the seas to China. Freely she had received; freely she gave fortune, time, and toil to the great work to which she had consecrated her life. She opened a school, and gathered in the poor neglected children. Female children are despised in China, and many of these poor little things, who had no one to love them, found a home beneath Miss Aldersey’s roof. Day after day she sat teaching these ignorant little girls, and telling them of Jesus and the home he has gone to prepare for his people. They listened to the new and wonderful story, and their hearts were opened to receive these heavenly truths.
One of them, after the custom of the 35country, had been bethrothed when she was four years old, to a boy several years older, and the time approached when she was called upon to be married. Part of the marriage ceremony consists of bowing down before ancestral tablets, containing images of their ancestors, and burning incense to them. This the young Christian Chinese girl refused to do. She loved Jesus, she worshiped God, and she would not bow down before any idol.
In vain her parents expostulated and entreated. In vain they offered her reward, and threatened punishment. She was firm in her refusal to break the law of God. They beat her and tortured her, but her steadfast heart, stayed upon God, knew no fear. Faithful to her Christian profession, this brave girl continued in the path of Christian duty, unmoved by tribulation and wrath and all the devices of wicked men.
36The children then sang the noble missionary hymn,
“From Greenland’s icy mountains,
From India’s coral strand,”
and were dismissed for a little recreation in the grove, where there was a swing, and cool shade, and grassy turf. Just before sunset the children were called together, and again in regular order walked homeward, with faces glowing with enjoyment, and minds and hearts filled with happy thoughts and memories.
Wednesday morning Norman went with his mother to the lake, just after breakfast. The waves were gently kissing the shore, and hours passed swiftly away as they listened to the soothing sound and gathered curious pebbles. They found some small fossils, with the remains of shells and animals in them, and Norman was greatly delighted with one that his mother picked up, that looked as if it had on it a single pearl 37set in gold. They felt sorry to leave the pleasant beach; but the morning had already gone, and it was time to go to Mr. Henry’s to dinner. On their return they found a kind invitation from Mrs. Harris to take tea at the Institute. There were about forty students at the tea-table, and after tea they had prayers. Instead of the reading of the Scripture, verses were repeated, thus enabling all who wished to participate in the devotional exercises; and noble and comforting promises, and precious truths, were uttered in varying tones. That company of young men were girding on their armor, that they might fight as good soldiers under the Captain of their salvation. They were preparing themselves for their life-work; some of them to sow the “precious seed” over the broad prairies of Illinois, by the rocky bluffs and wood-crowned hills of Wisconsin, and the blue waters of Minnesota; while others were 38looking to the lands of the East—to Bulgaria, and India, and China. It was pleasant to exchange a few brief words with these young men who, by the eye of faith, could see more abundant harvests than those which reward the Western husbandmen. They had asked the Lord of the harvest to send them as reapers into these fields of promise, looking forward to that blessed time when they shall “return with joy bringing their sheaves with them.”
Mrs. Lester afterward looked upon the portrait of the Christian woman to whose liberality this institution owes its existence. That portrait ought to hang on its walls. There is a queenly look about the fine figure, and the way the head is set on the shoulders, and blended goodness and intelligence in the countenance. In the evening of the same day Mrs. Lester was in the room where Mrs. Garrett died, and she thought of the blissful 39visions that may have floated about that dying pillow glimpses of refreshing and perennial streams to make the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. Her life was not spent in vain on the earth. Regular and consistent in her daily walks of duty and piety, she has, by the judicious bestowment of ample means, prolonged her usefulness on the earth, linked herself to holy activities through coming time, and set in motion trains of influence, the mighty results of which may only be known in the morning of the resurrection. She made to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when she failed they might receive her into everlasting habitations.