CHAPTER VIII.
GLEAMS OF SUNSHINE.
The night passed by, and although William had not slept during its early hours, he rose as soon as it was light, and after offering an earnest prayer that Heaven would shield him from temptation that day, he wrote a letter to his friend George. We will not detail what the epistle contained, but merely mention that, after stating many circumstances that had occurred, it ended by telling what a kind friend had been raised up for him in the old watchman. He did not conceal the fact of his being very unhappy; but while he told of his comfortless home, he also declared his resolution to try to be contented with his present lot and like his trade. Thomas Burton had told him that his heavenly Father had allotted to every one his proper place, and to murmur would be sinful. He concluded by saying that he would be diligent and faithful, trying in all things to please his master, until his term of apprenticeship should have expired. "Then, dear George, I will go back to M——. I never shall want to stay in a big city; for although there are many fine things here, finer than I ever saw in our little village, there is more wickedness, and it is harder to be good where there is so much bad example."
At this moment his mistress called him to come and make the fire, and hastily directing and sealing his letter, he thrust it into his pocket and proceeded to do her bidding.
Notwithstanding considerable languor hung about his bodily frame, and his bones and muscles still ached from the effects of the boating, he felt a more peaceful frame of mind than he had known for weeks before. The knowledge of having done wrong is always the first step toward amendment. He not only felt that he had been guilty of more sins than lying, but, viewing those minor faults in a different light than formerly, he determined to watch over his heart carefully, and avoid giving any cause of complaint in future. "Watch that you may pray, and pray that you may be safe," were words that floated in his mind all the morning as he sat hammering shoe soles; and he would not laugh at any joke of Jem Taylor's against his master, although for some time past he had enjoyed hearing him ridiculed.
Late in the afternoon Mrs. Walters came in, and, giving him a pair of leather boots, told him to take them to Mrs. Bradley, the wife of a market gardener who lived outside the city. It was fully three hours after his scanty dinner had been eaten, and supper would be over ere he returned. Growing boys are always hungry, and he was about to venture to ask Mrs. Walters for a lunch to serve in place of the evening meal, when he remembered the rolls given him by Mrs. Burton, and which were still in his trunk. He hid the little packet in his bosom, intending to eat its contents on his way home; and after having put his letter in the post-office, he set off to accomplish his errand.
One might have thought the walk, and the variety always met with in the streets of a large city, would have exhilarated him; but, whether owing to the condition of his bodily health, this was not now the case. He passed the picture-shops without noticing the treasures in the windows; the silver-ware and fanciful ornaments of the jewellers' establishments served only to remind him of the vanities of earth, and his own poverty; and as he looked upon the gaily-dressed crowd that was thronging Broadway, among which there was not one whose face was known to him, that painful sense of desolation which comes over one when he feels alone in a crowd, saddened him almost to tears. He recalled the happy days of his early childhood, and even those when, after his father's death, he had been compelled to labour to assist his mother. Ah, how light it all seemed in comparison with the hardship of his present lot! Notwithstanding the comfort he had enjoyed on the previous day, and his renewed determination to do his duty and trust in God, his heart grew sick at the prospect of the long years of wretchedness and bondage yet to be endured before his apprenticeship should end; and he wished to die. "I am the most unhappy being on the face of the earth," he said, as he wiped away the tears with his ragged sleeve; "but still I will try to do right. Ah, if Nicholas Herman knew how unhappy I am, I am sure he would try to get me away!" He had by this time reached the city limits, and the gardener's cottage, with its high enclosing palisades and espaliers hanging with tempting fruit, was visible. The hedge which bordered on the roadside was green, and its verdure attractive to one accustomed to country life. Bounding over the ditch which separated it from the common path, he was about to continue his walk along its margin, when his step was arrested by a sound of distress. He looked round and saw a little boy, barefoot and thinly clad, sitting on the ground and weeping bitterly. A little basket, half filled with chips, told what his occupation had been, while his pale face and meagre form were such as to awaken pity in the heart of the most careless. William was not so absorbed in his own distress that he had no sympathy to bestow on another. He stooped over the boy, and, as he kindly took him by the hand, a tear, which his own circumstances had called forth, fell upon the boy's cheek, and caused him to look up in surprise.
"What are you crying for?" asked William; "are you afraid, or has any one hurt you?"
The little fellow only answered by questioning: "You are crying yourself;" said he; "are you as hungry as I am?"
"Are you really crying for hunger! that is dreadful!" rejoined William. "I know what it is not to have enough to eat, but still I never have been so starved as to cry about it."
"Neither grandmother nor I have had anything to eat since morning, and I am very hungry."
"But what are you doing here?" inquired our hero.
"Just gathering some sticks, to make a fire for grandmother, who is sick, and cannot spin now," answered the boy, still weeping.
"Have you no parents to take care of you?" again asked William. "What is your name, and where do you live?"
The boy answered that his name was Ned Graham, and named a street at no great distance from the place where they were, and which was well known to William. He said that his parents were both dead; that while his father, who was a carpenter, lived, they had been very comfortable; but that now, as his grandmother was very old, and himself too young to do anything to help to make a livelihood, they were often hungry. "Grandmother spun and knit until she became sick, and the neighbours still sent us in something; but they are poor themselves, grandmother says; and this morning, when old Annie Michael, who supports herself and children by washing, sent us some of her breakfast, grandmother said she could not bear to take it."
William had no rejoinder to make, for self-reproach was busy at his heart. But a little while ago he had thought himself "the most unhappy being on the face of the earth," and now he could not help feeling that the condition of poor little Ned was far more wretched than his own. His food, indeed, was coarse and scanty enough; but then he had his regular meals, while this poor child and his infirm grandmother were obliged to subsist on the charity of the poor, which could not be very regularly or liberally administered.
"I am surely very ungrateful to my heavenly Father," said he, half aloud. "Hereafter, when I am disposed to complain of my food, I will think of this poor boy. But stop; I had forgotten the rolls Mrs. Burton gave me. I am not very hungry now;" and taking the packet from his bosom pocket, he gave it to the little starveling.
"I am not to have them all?" said Ned, as he broke one off, and began to eat it. "Do you not want some yourself?"
"No," replied William; "I will get some supper when I go home; so carry half of them to your grandmother, for you are both hungry, and have no supper to expect."
And now, although hungry himself, with what pleasure did he give his rolls to one whose want was far greater than his own! He felt, in this denying of self, how great was the luxury of doing good; for mercy—
"Droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven.
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
Having finished his errand to the market-gardener's wife, and received a new order for some children's shoes, he took little Ned by the hand, and, having left him at his home, and looked in on the sick grandmother, he went back to his master's house, which now wore a more comfortable aspect than it had ever done before. So true is it that God accords to none unmitigated misery; and there are few, if any, who, like our hero, are tempted to believe themselves the most wretched beings in the world, who need anything but to look around among their fellow-men, to find that they are not the only or the greatest sufferers. Neither should any allow themselves to think that poverty and misfortune form the chief misery of man. None but the guilty are completely wretched; and trials are but necessary discipline to bring the soul from earth to heaven. "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep thy law," are the words of David; and how many can be found ready to acknowledge that "it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth: for the. Lord will not cast off for ever; but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion, according to the multitude of his mercies."
And so from this time, although the treatment he received at his cheerless home was no better, the change which had come over his spirit since his late humiliation, had urged him to fly to the throne of grace for protection against the weakness of his own heart, and also made the hardships he endured seem less. He grew more mature by the severe discipline which, sanctified by the Spirit of grace, was purifying his soul; and he pursued the homely trade which at first he so disliked, and tried to conquer self by hurrying past the picture-shops, which were so great a source of attraction at first, and now regarded them as forbidden fruit. Not that they were less attractive, but his own heart told him, and so did his friend, Thomas Burton, that God appoints to every one such a sphere of action as is suited to his nature; and although to one has been committed but one talent, while another has five, and another ten, the principle on which each is improved is the same. The great work each one has to do is within his own breast, and he that would gain the crown promised at the end of life's course must run the race in the spirit and temper of the gospel, which are humility and meekness.
In consequence of this subdued spirit and a greater readiness to obey, his harsh guardians relaxed so far as to yield to the persuasions of the good watchman, and suffered him to go on Sunday afternoons to church and Sabbath school, as well as sometimes to spend the evening with himself.
And this, dear reader, proved like a fountain of sweet water in the wilderness; and, as an oasis in the desert, furnished rest and refreshing, which strengthened him to bear up against the hardships and trials of the week. And as, in hearing the Scriptures expounded and learning their soul-comforting lessons, the word, as the Psalmist says, became "hidden in his heart," it proved more precious to him than the "gold of Ophir." It taught him to guard against the deceitfulness of his own heart; to discern temptation, however speciously veiled; pointed out the way to escape when sorely beset; and showed him where, when "weary and heavy laden," to seek for rest. Duty was made plain; and, taught to understand his own errors, he also understood by what means to guard against them. He now walked according to the scriptural rule, and found his reward in the peace promised unto those "whose mind is stayed on God, and trust him."