THE ORPHAN SON AND PRAYING MOTHER.
Some years since a small volume was sent to me by a friend, containing an account of the labors of a pious missionary along the line of the Erie canal. I read it with great interest, and I trust, with profit. God honors his word; he honors his faithful servants; and when the Great Day shall reveal the secrets of this world, it will be seen to the glory of divine grace, that many a humble missionary was made the instrument of eternal consolation to the poor neglected orphan—in answer to a pious mother's prayers.
I beg leave to ask the insertion in the Magazine of a touching scene, which occurred during a missionary tour of the above friend of the outcast and neglected. I shall give the narrative chiefly in his own words.
"I called at a horse station one morning very early. The station keeper had just got up, and stood in the door. I told him my business, and that I desired to see his boys a few moments. He said his boys were in bed, and as I was an old man, he did not wish to have me abused. 'You had better go on and let my boys alone,' said he; 'they will most assuredly abuse you if they get up, for I have got a very wicked set of boys.' I told him the very reasons that he assigned why I should not see his boys, were the reasons why I wished to see them, for if they were very wicked boys, there was the greater necessity for their reformation; and as to the abuse, that was the least of my troubles, for my Master had been abused before me.
"'Well, sir,' said he, 'don't blame me, if you are abused.' He then awoke his boys, and as they came out, I talked to them. Instead of abusing, they listened attentively to me, and some of them were much affected. They took my tracts, and I presume, read them.
"On leaving them, I remarked, that I supposed the most of them were orphans, that I was the orphan's friend, and though I might never see them again, they might be assured they had my prayers daily, that they might be converted. There was one little fellow who, as I had observed, looked very sober, and who at the last remark cried right out. As I wished to take the same boat again, I stepped out of the station house, but found it had left, and I was walking along, looking for another boat, when I heard some one crying behind me, and turning round, saw that it was the little fellow who wept so much in the station house.
"He said, 'Sir, you told me you was the orphan's friend; will you stop? I want to ask you a question.'
"I asked him if it was because he had now discovered that he was a sinner, that he cried, and wished me to talk with him.
"'No, sir,' said he, 'I knew that three years ago.'
"I perceived, from his answer, he was an interesting boy, and said to him, 'Sit down here, my son. How old are you?'
"'Thirteen,' he replied.
"'Where did you come from?'
"He said, three years ago his father moved from Massachusetts to Wayne county; he was a very poor man, and when they got to their journey's end they had nothing left. His father obtained the privilege of building a small log house to live in, on another man's land, but just as he had got the house finished, he was taken sick and died. I asked him if his father was a Christian, but afterwards regretted that I asked him the question, for it was a long time before he could answer it.
"At length he said, 'No, sir, if he had been a Christian, we could have given him up willingly. We had no hope for him; but my mother was a Christian. My mother, a sister seven years old, and myself, were all the family after my father died. I had no hope that I was a Christian when my father died; but my mother used to come up the ladder every night and kneel down, and put her hand upon my head, and pray that I might be converted. Often, when I was asleep, she would come, and her tears running into my face, would wake me. I knew that I was a sinner, but I hope God forgave my sins one night, while my dear mother was praying for me, and I still hope I was converted then.
"'About a year after my father died, my sister was taken sick and died in about two months. My mother was naturally feeble, and her sorrow for the loss of my father and sister wore upon her until she was confined to her bed. She lay there seven months, and last fall she died.'
"By this time the little fellow was so choked with grief that he could hardly speak. 'Then,' said he, 'I was taken sick, and lay all winter, not expecting to get well.' I shall never forget the appearance of that boy, and the expression of his countenance, when he said, 'I am a poor orphan, sir; I have nothing in this world except the clothes I have on.'
"All the clothes he had on would not have sold for twenty-five cents.
"What an example is here to induce mothers to be faithful to their children. I wish to ask mothers if they have ever gone at the midnight hour and awoke their children by a mother's tears while pleading with God for the salvation of their souls?"
Many mothers—thousands of mothers—have done no such thing. They have neglected their own souls, and the souls of their dear children—and both have gone to the bar of God, unprepared for the solemn interview.
But some mothers have been more faithful, and what a rich and divine reward have they received! Many a son, now in glory, or on his way thither, owes his religious impressions to the prayers of a tender, faithful mother.
Nor should mothers be soon or easily discouraged! True, they may not live to see their prayers answered—but a covenant-keeping God will remember them, and in his own good time and chosen way give them an answer.
Though seed lie buried long in dust,
It shan't deceive our hope;
The precious grain can ne'er be lost,
For grace insures the crop.
The writer, perhaps, cannot better conclude this article than by another extract from the work alluded to, much to the same purpose as the one already cited.
"In conversing with the captain of a certain boat, I found him a very amiable and companionable man, although he acknowledged, that he had no reason to hope that he was a Christian. Said he, 'I ought to have been a Christian, long ago,' without giving his reasons for such an assertion. When the hour for prayer arrived, (I staid on his boat all night,) I asked him for a Bible. He seemed to be affected, and I did not know but he was destitute of a Bible. I told him I had one in my trunk, on the deck, and that if he had none, I would go up and get it. 'I have one,' said he, and unlocking his trunk, he took out a very nice Bible, and as he reached it out to me, the tears dropped on its cover. 'There, sir,' said he, 'is the last gift of a dying mother. My dear mother gave me that Bible about two hours before she died; and her dying admonition I shall never forget. O, sir, I had one of the best of mothers. She would never go to bed without coming to my bed-side, and if I was asleep, she would awaken me, and pray for me before she retired. Twelve years have elapsed since she died, and five years of that time I have been on the ocean, five years on this canal; and the other two years traveling. I do not know that I have laid my head on my pillow and gone to sleep, during that time, without thinking of the prayers of my mother: yet I am not a Christian; but the prayers of my mother are ended. I have put off the subject too long, but from this time I will attend to it. I will begin now and do all that I can to be a Christian.'
"I hope those dear mothers, who may have an opportunity of reading these sketches, will inquire of their own hearts, 'Will my own dear children, those little pledges of God's love, remember my prayers twelve years after my head is laid in the narrow house appointed for all the living?' Oh, could we place that estimate on the soul which we should do, in the light of eternity, how much anxiety would be manifested on the part of parents for their children, and for the whole families of the earth. The midnight slumber would more often be disturbed by cries to God, and tears for this fallen, apostate, rebellious world."
Mothers! what do you think of such facts? And what are they designed to teach you? Every one of them, as you meet them in the pilgrimage of life, is a voice of encouragement from above. Has God been kind towards other mothers? he can be kind towards you. Has he blessed their efforts? he can bless yours. Has he heard their prayers? he can hear and answer yours.
Say not that you have prayed, labored, watched, and all in vain! How long have you thus toiled? thus wrestled? Years? Well, and may be you will have to toil and strive years to come. What then! Your Heavenly Father knows precisely when it is best to answer you, and how! Suppose you pray and labor ten, twenty, thirty years—and then you succeed—won't the salvation of your children be a sufficient reward? How do worldly parents do? Take an example from them. They spend life in laying up this world's goods for their children—treasures which perish in the using. Surely, then, you may, with great propriety, devote a few years to secure an imperishable crown of glory for your sons and daughters. For what is the present world—its gold of California or its gems of Golconda—what are its honors—its stars, coronets, crowns—to an inheritance in the kingdom of God!
The time has not yet come when parents appreciate this subject as they will do. Oh, no! and until they realize their duty, their privileges, the purchase which they have on the throne of God by means of faith, and their covenant interest in the blood of Jesus, there is reason to fear that many children will perish, but who need not perish—who would not perish were their parents as faithful and energetic as parents will be in some more distant age of the world.
But why postpone what may be realized now? Why relinquish blessings of vast and incomparable magnitude to others which you may enjoy, and which it is no benevolence to forego for others, because when they come upon the stage, there will be blessings for them in abundance and to spare? Let the sentiment fall upon your hearts, and make its appropriate impression there—"While God invites, how blest the day!"
If the candle of your earthly comfort be blown out, remember it is but a little while to the break of day, when there will be no more need of candles.
Christian, wouldst thou have an easy death? then get a mortified heart; the surgeon's knife is scarcely felt when it cuts off a mortified member.