MABEL RAY’S LESSON.
BY ROSE SEELYE-MILLER.
Times had been hard, harder than common this past year, and it seemed to Mabel Ray as though there was little bright to look forward to, and less to encourage her in trying to do right, trying to be the Christian she wanted to be some years ago. She had married Harry Ray three years previous; he was a thriving young merchant, but the past year it had seemed to the young wife as if he had grown taciturn and almost fretful if she wanted money for any little thing which she deemed necessary. Only this morning he had refused her money for the fur cape that she really needed so much, especially if they were going to her folks for New Year’s day. She had always had what she wanted when at home, and if Harry begrudged her the necessities of life, why, she almost believed she had better go back to that home, for she was an only daughter and was idolized by her parents. She sat and thought, and thought, of her wrongs until the tears came, and then, after having a good cry, she went into the conservatory and began picking flowers for the church decoration in which site was to take part. There was to be a concert and recitations and such entertainments, and the funds were to go to help the needy ones in the parish. For there were many who needed, many men were out of work, and their families were destitute indeed. Mabel was always ready for work of this kind, it relieved the tedium of the days when Harry was at the store, and then, be it known to you, although Mabel would have blushed had she realized it herself, she liked the notices in the city personals about the charming and philanthropic Mrs. Ray who took such a prominent part in every good work.
Her time was her own; there were no little ones for her to care for; her household was managed by a competent housekeeper who looked well to the domestic arrangements; so, altogether, Mrs. Ray rather needed something to give her an idea of usefulness. She was selfish, I am sorry to say, but when you think that she was an only child, reared in luxury, with everything she desired procured for her, it is no wonder that she learned to think that what she wanted was the first thing to be considered.
Harry Ray really loved his wife, but he was bearing a heavy burden of financial care, and then, besides, he did not possess the means that Mabel’s father had. He would do anything, sacrifice anything for her, but she seemed thoughtless about his sacrifices, and did not realize that perhaps she too had a duty to perform.
She came home from decorating the church that afternoon in better spirits, but was almost vexed when Harry assured her it would be impossible for him to attend the Charity function with her that evening. “Wrap yourself up well, Mabel,” Harry said thoughtfully, “and let the coachman await you.” He looked almost wistfully at her bright young beauty and longed for a word of sympathy and help from her, but none came. He looked worn and worried, and a thoughtful wife would have noticed this long before, but Mabel had not been taught to notice others in that way.
So Harry went to his work in his office, and Mabel, dressed richly, went to the Charity function, where she expected to sing. The evening passed pleasantly to Mabel, for she loved a brilliant scene and the compliments she always received.
The next day she was one of a committee to dispense the various gifts among the poor. She rose early for her, and with several others she visited such haunts of misery as she had never dreamed of. Poverty had always been a rather pleasant thing in her mind where people were always holding some sort of meetings to relieve it, and where kind hearted women were taking chicken broth or cups of jelly to others who lay in bed; she never really thought that perhaps it would be pleasanter to make one’s own chicken broth or furnish one’s own jelly, or that perhaps the one who lay in bed might do something besides just simply lie there; she did not realize the tragedy of many of those lives where poverty binds and sickness holds with chains invincible beyond all human aiding.
There was more wretchedness depicted in the squalid homes she visited than she had ever dreamed of, there was not only poverty but there was dirt, and there was suffering, and she began to wonder if there were not other things needed by the poor besides chicken broth and jelly; she thought soap would not be misplaced, and that clothes would find lodgement, she was sure flowers would be welcomed by some, and she went home with her heart really aroused from its selfish stupor. Harry did not come home to tea, and it was so late before he did come that being very wearied she retired, and soon fell asleep. But here, even, she was not free, she seemed to be in the midst of a white-robed throng who went about ministering to the needs of others, and when she spoke to them they only said “Even Christ pleased not Himself,” and winged their way on their errands of mercy, and then she seemed transported to the sunny fields where flowers bloomed and birds sang their sweetest carols; there were certain ones gathering the flowers and when she spoke to them they said “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”
And then she was transported to the city and into the haunts of misery and she saw a wan-faced woman going into a poor hovel with a blossom in her hand that she had picked from where it had fallen from some fair lady’s bouquet. She placed it carefully in a pitcher with a broken spout and turned the fairest side of the flower toward a sick one lying upon a pallet of straw, and when she looked a halo seemed to surround the flower and a voice said “Even Christ pleased not Himself.” And suddenly she seemed to be in her husband’s office, and there sat Harry, his face was haggard, and there were tense lines about his mouth, and he seemed trying in vain to make the accounts tally in the ledger before him, and ruin and disaster embodied seemed looking in upon him as he worked, and finally he laid down his pen, saying “I can do no more—if it were not for Mabel.”
Then she was in her own beautiful home and everything seemed going on strangely; the flowers in the conservatory had withered and died because they lived to please themselves, and so it seemed with everything in the house; the housekeeper was keeping house to please herself, the cook was not going to serve the dinner because it did not please her to do so, and so it
went, and she reached her room and there she found herself in ease and luxury, taking no thought for others, and seeking only how she might please herself; and then there seemed to be the roaring of a fire and she saw the house and all therein consumed, but she saw the woman who had carried the broken flower to the sick child coming to help her, and then Harry took her in his arms, and she knew that these were safe because they had not lived to please themselves.
After awhile she woke and hearing a step upon the stairs she slipped on a warm dressing gown and went out softly to meet Harry. He was surprised and there was that anxious look upon his face that she had seen in her dream. She drew him into the parlor and seated him in an easy chair, and then smoothed the wrinkles from his brow and begged him to tell her of his troubles. So the husband and wife conferred together, and both bearing the burden it grew lighter, and after a time it passed away. Mabel seemed different thereafter, her dream was so realistic that her very heart seemed changed, and upon its tablets were written in indelible letters, “Even Christ pleased not Himself.” She did not care to figure in charity functions where she would be praised of men, but she sought out the needy and tried faithfully to aid them. Her aid was given so unostentatiously, and with such humility and earnest sympathy, that the poor soon learned to love her, and her flowers bloomed not in vain, for they bloomed for the sick and sinning, for the poor and needy, and I trow that in sowing good seeds upon earth she will reap a heavenly harvest that will surprise her. For she has learned the sweetness of the words “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”