“But, my friend,” replied the lady, “we must remember that these trials are sent by a gracious and merciful God, who does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”
THE OLD PAUPER.
“It’s all very well for those to talk who don’t know what trouble means,” said old Sam Butler, in a tone of peevish irritability. “Where is the mercy shown to me? I was once a strong, hearty young man—none better at cricket or at football; and now I can’t so much as creep across this hateful room! I had once my own well-stocked shop, with the customers thronging in and out like bees; and now, but for the workhouse, I shouldn’t have a roof over my head! I was once surrounded by a wife and children—a thriving, goodly family; and now my wife’s in her grave, and the children scattered over the world, and there’s not one of them that so much as cares to inquire whether the old man’s dead or alive! Oh! it’s very hard! it’s very very hard!”
“But there are some comforts and hopes of which neither old age nor sickness, neither man’s neglect nor poverty can ever deprive us.”
“Don’t talk to me!” cried the old pauper, angrily. “I know all that you’re going to say, but there’s neither comfort nor hope to me in these things. I never found any in my better days, and I’m not likely to find any now!”
The visitor looked shocked and distressed. She felt anxious to speak a message of peace to the wretched old man; but his bitterness of spirit and rebellion of will made her find it difficult to address him. Thinking that to reflect on the trials of others might divert his mind from his own, or give him an indirect lesson on resignation under them, she said, after a few moments’ hesitation, “I have recently been visiting one who has known much affliction—a poor man of the name of Charles Hayes—”
“Charles Hayes!” interrupted the pauper; “as if I did not know him!—my schoolfellow when I was a boy, and my neighbour for twenty long years! I always said he would come to the workhouse—what with his bad health and his silly scruples about turning an honest penny; thinking everything wrong which did not square with his odd notions, and helping others when he had scarcely enough for himself! I always said he would come to the workhouse. And yet, see what a world this is!” continued Butler with a burst of indignation; “no sooner is he quite laid on the shelf than the gentry take to petting and pampering him as if he were one of themselves! The squire gets him into an alms-house, the ladies send him blankets and broth, the parson takes a pleasure in visiting him, and he is watched day and night with as much care as if he were one of the lords of the land!”
“Watched by an orphan whom he had generously brought up.”
“Other people have brought up children,” cried the pauper, with something like a groan, “and have had no comfort in them. Charles Hayes had never a child of his own, but he finds one like a daughter by his sick-bed; he has always been poor, but now in his age I don’t believe that he wants for anything—a friend seems to meet him wherever he turns; and they say that in spite of his weakness and pain he calls himself contented and happy! Oh! this is a bad world!—a miserable world! Why should his lot be so different from mine? Why should he have peace, and I have nothing but trouble? Why should his friends stick by him, and all mine forsake me? Why, when I am wearing out my days in a workhouse, should he rest in a home of his own?”