“She will forget all when she presses us to her heart,” cried little Mary, her eyes sparkling with pleasure at the thought. “Oh, to think of being in her dear arms again! How we shall rush into them!”
“If mother could have afforded to pay for the coach, she might have been here by this time; but it seems as if she had never one sixpence to spare,” sighed Maria. “I cannot help thinking,” added the little girl, after a pause, turning listlessly over the pages of a book which she was rather looking at than reading—“I cannot help thinking that the Almighty cares less for us than He does for the rich and the great. If He is as tender and loving as we are told that He is, how is it that we want for so many things?”
“Oh, Maria, it is very sinful to think in that way! We must trust in the Lord with all our heart; and not, in our naughty pride, fancy that we know what is good for us better than He who is all wisdom as well as love.”
“I should like to know why there are such differences in the world,” said Maria.
“We must remember what the Saviour said to Peter: What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. In another world we shall see that all God does is right. Do you not recollect what the clergyman told us in his sermon last Sunday—that if there were no differences of station in this life, the rich would not be able to exercise charity, nor the poor to exercise patience?”
“The task of the rich is much easier than that of the poor,” observed Maria, with a discontented look.
“Perhaps not,” gently suggested Mary. “I do not think that the Bible makes it appear so: we are so often warned of the dangers of riches; and none of us can tell, if we had them, whether we should make a good use of them. I like those lines which mother taught us to repeat—
‘The greatest evil we can fear
Is—to possess our portion here.’”
“We are little likely to suffer from that evil,” observed Maria, with a bitter smile. “It does seem to me hard that mother—who is always so religious, and patient, and good—should have to work so hard and yet gain so little, while others have plenty without working at all. It seems as if God were hiding His face from us.”