CHAPTER VI.
The time had come for Miss Layton to leave S——, as she had only taken the school for the summer term, and there was a male teacher engaged for the winter. Poor Ella was greatly distressed at the thought of losing her friend. "O Miss Layton," said she, "what shall I do when you are gone? I will have nobody to help me to be good, and nobody to love me."
"Yes, Ella, your aunt loves you very much indeed; she told me so herself."
"Did she?" exclaimed Ella, looking up in astonishment, "I thought she didn't like me at all. She never kisses me, nor tells me she loves me, like mamma used to do, and she's always scolding me and telling me what a troublesome child I am. Are you sure she loves me, Miss Layton?"
"Yes, Ellie, quite sure, and you must try to believe it and to love her in return. She means it all for your good when she scolds you, and you must try to bear it patiently."
"O Miss Layton," sobbed Ella, "how can I ever be good when you are gone?"
"And why should you not, Ellie, just as well as when I am here?"
"Because you're patient and kind, and you seem pleased, and praise me when I do right."
"Ah Ella, don't you remember the other day you told me you thought you had been trying to please God all these weeks that you have been so good, and I told you then that I was afraid you were only trying to please me? And now, my dear child, do you not see that I was right? A desire to please your friends, Ella, is a good motive, but it is not the best. You must learn to do right because it is right, and pleasing in the sight of God. It is easy to deceive our friends and ourselves, but we cannot deceive God. He looks at the motives—at the feelings and desires of the heart, while we can see only the outward conduct. Dear Ella, I wish I could see you a child of God, striving to please him in all your ways."
"I do mean to try to be good when you're gone, Miss Layton; but I know I can't."
"Not if you try in your own strength, Ella; but you must ask help of God. Ask him to give you a new heart, my child—a heart that will hate sin, because it is so displeasing to him—a heart loving holiness, and earnestly desiring to please and glorify God. And if you ask these things with your whole heart, and in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, God will hear and grant your petitions, for he says, 'Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.' And he tells us that he is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him, than parents are to give good gifts unto their children.
"You try to please me, Ella, because you love me; but, O my child, how much more ought you to love your Saviour! I have shown you a little kindness, but what is that compared with what Jesus has done for you? Think how he left that beautiful heaven, and came down to our little world, and suffered, and bled, and died, that he might save you and me. O Ella, how can we help loving him with all our hearts, and striving to please him every moment of our lives! 'Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'"
In a few weeks, Mr. Crane, the new teacher, came, and school commenced again. Mr. Crane proved to be very much such a teacher as Mr. Burton, though perhaps not quite so severe. Unfortunately, Ella was not at all disposed to like him, nor indeed anybody who took Miss Layton's place; and he seemed to take a dislike to her from the first. Sallie Barnes, too, went to school again, and seeming to dislike Ella more than ever, was continually trying to get her into trouble. There would have been constant quarrelling between them, had not Mary Young acted as peace-maker, and done her best to keep them apart. Mary tried to take Miss Layton's place to Ella, and did all she could to encourage her to industry and attention; and she often talked to her of the love of Christ, trying to lead her to the Saviour, and telling her of the happiness she had found in his service. Still it was a very uncomfortable winter to Ella. She did not become quite as careless and indolent as she had formerly been, nor indulge her temper quite so much, yet she was bad enough to be often in disgrace, both at home and at school.
The winter seemed very long, but spring did come at last, and Ella was busy in her little garden, and again she planted flowers on her mother's grave, and went every day to water them and see how they grew. One evening, when on her way there, as usual, she met Mary Young; and they walked on together.
"Come, Mary," said Ella, when they had reached the churchyard gate, "come in with me, and see how pretty my mother's grave looks; the flowers are all growing so nicely, and the rose-bush has some buds on it already."
They went in; but when they reached the grave, what a scene of desolation met their view! Some one had been there before them, and pulled up all the flowers by the roots, trampled them in the dust, and even cut off the rose-bush close to the ground. Ella stood a moment struck speechless with astonishment and dismay, then bursting into tears, she exclaimed, passionately:
"It was that wicked Sallie Barnes! I know it was! What a mean, bad, wicked girl she is! I hate her, so I do; and I hope somebody will go and tear up all her flowers, and spoil all her garden, for I know she did this!"
"O Ellie, Ellie! how can you say so?" said Mary. "I am very sorry for you, very sorry indeed; but I did not think you would have been so wicked, as to say that you hate anybody."
"Well, I don't care, I ain't half so bad as she is. I wouldn't have touched her flowers, and I'd rather she had spoilt all my garden, or killed my pet kitten, or done anything than this."
"But you don't know that it was Sallie who did it."
"Yes, I do. Nobody else would want to spoil anything of mine. Just see! every one of my pretty flowers pulled up, and my poor rose-bush cut down too. Oh! I can never forgive her!"
"O Ellie, dear Ellie, don't say that!" said Mary, putting her arms round her. "Have you forgotten that Jesus said, 'If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses?' Dear Ellie, think how much more you have done to provoke God, than Sallie has ever done to vex and displease you, and how he has never ceased to bless you; and remember the Bible says, 'Whosoever hateth his brother, is a murderer,' and in another place, 'If he love not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?' O Ellie, it frightens me to hear you talk so. Just think how wicked it is to say you hate anybody and will never forgive them. What if God should say he would never forgive you?"
"O Mary, I am sorry I said such a wicked thing, but I was angry and didn't think how very bad it was. Won't you ask God to forgive me and help me to like Sallie?"
"I will, Ellie, but you must ask him yourself."
"O Mary, I feel as if I was too wicked to pray; sometimes I am almost afraid to say my prayers. I wish I was as good as you."
"Don't say that, Ellie, I'm not at all good; if you could see all the sinful thoughts and feelings that come into my heart, you would not call me good. I should often be quite in despair, but then I remember that 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,' and I beg God to wash away my sins in his blood, and clothe me in the robe of his righteousness. O Ellie dear, there is no love so sweet, so satisfying, as the love of Jesus. You are always wanting some one to love you, why will you refuse the love of him, who laid down his life for you? 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.'"
"I am sure I would like to be a Christian, Mary, if I only knew how."
"There is nothing to hinder you, Ellie, if you really wish it. Jesus stands ready and waiting to save you, and you have nothing to do but come to him; come now, just as you are, without waiting to grow any better. 'O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.'"
"How do you mean, Mary? how can I go to Jesus?"
"By praying to him, Ellie; praying with your heart. If you will do so, there is no danger that you will perish, for he never yet cast out any who came to him in the right way."
Ella sighed deeply; and sat for some time looking very thoughtful. Presently she got up from the tomb-stone, where they had been sitting, and began picking up the broken flowers, and putting them into her basket.
"I shall just throw these away, and plant some more," said she. "I guess it's not too late for them to grow. I hope Sallie will not pull them up again; but if she does, I hope I shall not get so angry again as to say that I hate her."
Ella knelt down, as usual, that night to say her prayers before getting into bed, but when she came to the petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," she stopped, for the text that Mary had quoted came freshly into her mind, and she felt in her heart that she had not forgiven Sallie. "Then I can't say that," said she to herself, "for it would just be asking God not to forgive me. What shall I do? I can't say my prayers, and I'm afraid to go to bed without saying them. Mother told me never to do that, and besides I'm afraid I might die before morning."
She sat down to think about it. She tried to feel that she forgave Sallie, but she could not; the more she thought about it, the more she seemed to dislike her. Many little things had occurred, during the last few months, to cause this dislike. Sallie had been continually annoying her in every possible way, and she felt not the least doubt that it was she who had destroyed her flowers—the flowers which affection for her mother had prompted her to plant—and she felt as if the act was an insult to the memory of that dearly loved mother, and therefore much harder to forgive than any unkindness done only to herself.
"I wish the Bible didn't say, 'Love your enemies,' for it's so hard to do it. Sallie is my enemy, and it seems to me I can't like her; she's so disagreeable, and always doing something to vex me; but then it's very true, what Mary said—I do a great deal more to displease God, than Sallie does to vex me. How strange that he is so good to me! But what shall I do about my prayers? I'll ask God to make me willing to forgive Sallie; I can do that."
She did so, and then got into bed. Still her conscience was not at rest. She tossed about for some time, but at length, overcome with weariness, forgot her troubles in the sound sleep of childhood.
But the same struggle was to be gone through again the next morning, and so it was every night and every morning for days and weeks, her anxiety and distress constantly increasing, so that it would sometimes be long, after she had laid her head upon the pillow, before she could close her eyes in sleep. But she said nothing of all this to any one, for Mary Young had left town for a few weeks on a visit to a friend, and there was no one else whom she dared approach on the subject. At length one night, after tossing on her bed for hours, unable to bear her distress any longer, she threw herself upon her knees and earnestly begged to be enabled to forgive Sallie. This time she prayed with her whole heart, and she immediately felt that her prayer was answered, and that she could forgive her enemy. Then she prayed for herself, that her own sins might be forgiven; that her hard and stony heart might be taken away, and a heart of flesh given to her—a heart hating sin, loving God and desiring above all things to serve and please him.
She rose from her knees feeling relieved and calm, and lying down on her bed, slept soundly till morning. Ella waked with the same feeling of calmness and peace with which she had fallen asleep, and she found a pleasure in offering up her petitions, that morning, which she had never known before. She found it easy now to forgive Sallie and to pray for her, and very pleasant to pray for herself, and she was also conscious of such a desire to be kept from sin, and enabled to please God by her conduct that day, as she had never felt before; but it did not occur to her then, nor for some weeks afterwards, that her heart had been changed. She only knew that she felt a longing desire to become a child of God.
"I have some good news to tell you, Ellie," said Mary Young, as she came into Miss Clinton's sitting-room one morning, where Ella was seated busily engaged with some sewing. Mary's face was beaming with delight, and she looked as if she could scarcely wait for Ella to ask her what her news might be. But she was not kept waiting long.
"What is it, Mary? do tell me!" exclaimed Ella. "I'm sure it's something good, because you look so pleased."
"Yes, indeed, it is good news. Miss Layton is coming back."
"Oh! is she?" cried Ella, dropping her work to clap her hands, "Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad!"
"But that isn't all," said Mary. "It's a select school she's to have, and so she is to stay all the time—summer and winter."
"Oh, how nice! and I hope she'll live with us again."
"What's that you're talking about, Ella?" asked aunt Prudence, who had just come into the room.
"Oh, such good news, aunt Prudence. Miss Layton is coming back, and she is going to teach a select school, and so she will stay all the time, and I was just wishing that she would come and live with us again."
"Well, child, I think you're quite likely to have your wish. I had a letter from her this morning asking if I would take her to board again, and I shall write back that I'll be very glad to have her, for she's very pleasant company, and I don't have half the trouble with you when she is in the house."
The next week Miss Layton returned to S——, and became once more an inmate of Miss Clinton's family, and soon afterwards she opened her school. It was not long before Miss Layton noticed a change in Ella. She never had any of those violent fits of passion now; she was more patient and humble, and though she seemed to care less for praise than formerly, she was more anxious than ever to do right; she read her Bible more—not now as a task or a duty, but because she loved to read it—and she was more thoughtful and quiet, and listened attentively, and apparently with pleasure, when any conversation on the subject of religion was introduced in her hearing.
One evening as they sat together on the porch, Miss Layton said to her, "Ellie, what is the matter with you? you have grown so thoughtful and quiet lately. What are you thinking about?"
"I was just looking up at the stars, Miss Layton, and thinking of what you said to me once about the great love of Jesus Christ in coming down to our little world to suffer and die for us, and I was wishing—Oh, so much!—that he would give me a new heart, and teach me to love him as I ought."
"If you really wished it with all your heart, Ellie, it was a prayer; and a prayer that God will hear and grant, for he says, 'Ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.' But don't you love the Saviour, Ellie?"
"Oh yes, Miss Layton, I hope I do. I love to read about him, to think about him, and to pray to him; and Oh, I want to be one of his children! Oh, I wish I could be a Christian!"
"Dear Ellie, I hope you are one. You love the Saviour, and want to love him more; you love to pray to him, to think of him, and to read and hear about him; you love the society of his people, and I have noticed for some time that you seem to be trying to do right that you may please God. By your fruits we are to know you, and judging by them, I hope that with you, Ellie, 'old things have passed away and all things have become new.'"
"O Miss Layton, do you think it can be that I am a Christian? my heart is so hard and full of sin. But Oh, I am sure I do love Jesus, and I wish more than anything else that God would make me good!"
And now perhaps you, my reader, are thinking that all Ella's troubles are over; that everything will now go on smoothly, and she will have no more struggles with pride, indolence, or ill-temper. Alas! you are sadly mistaken.
The Christian's struggles are not over as soon as he turns his face Zionward; nay they are but scarcely commenced. He has but buckled on his armour for the fight, but girded up his loins that he may run the race; for the Christian life is compared, in the Scriptures, to a race—to a warfare, and we are exhorted to so run that we may obtain, to fight the good fight of faith, to lay hold on eternal life; and we are told that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Yes, the Christian's life must be one of continued warfare against sin and Satan; for as long as he remains in this fallen world, so long will his corrupt nature, the body of sin and death, cleave to him. Yet he need not despair, for is he not told, "My grace is sufficient for thee"—"As thy day so shall thy strength be"—"The Lord is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape"—"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us?" We are not left to fight alone. Jesus Christ is the Captain of our salvation.
Many a hard fought battle with her temper had Ella, and many bitter tears of repentance did she shed when no eye but God's could see her; but though at times she was almost in despair, she still struggled on, crying to God for help, and soon those about her could see that she daily became more patient and gentle, more meek and humble, more Christ-like, more full of love to Jesus. But aunt Prudence would not see that it was religion that had changed Ella so much. She said it was partly because Miss Layton was there to keep her in order, and partly because Ella was outgrowing her faults; that she was getting old enough to feel ashamed to indulge her temper. She forgot that her own temper was quite as bad, as when she was a little girl.