As the struggle was going on in the mind of the one-armed school-master of Colme, a woman, with a basket filled with pottles of strawberries, stopped him with the question, "Buy any nice strawberries, sir, this morning?"
"I never buy or sell on the Lord's day, and I am sorry to see you doing either," replied Franks, gravely but kindly.
"Sir, I can't help it," said the woman, with a sigh. "If I don't sell, my children can't eat."
"Obey God's command, and trust his promise, my friend. His command is, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. His promise is, Trust in the Lord, and verily thou shalt be fed. God, who has all things in his power, will return unto his servants a hundred-fold in the end, whatever they lose upon earth by faithfully doing his will."
Franks walked on; but the whole current of his thoughts had been changed by the little incident; he felt that in reproving another he had condemned himself.
"Shame on me," he muttered, "that I, who know so well a Christian's duty, should be so slack in performing it! I can see the mote in my brother's eye, indeed; let me pull the beam out of my own! There is no necessity for my travelling to Colme to-day; no one would be really the better for my doing so; nay, my pupils might be injured by seeing the inconsistency of one to whom they look for an example. I must take heed that I offend not one of these little ones, by making them think lightly of the sin of breaking the fourth commandment. As for my passing a holier Sunday in Colme than in London, the day or the place is holy to us, whenever the presence of the Saviour is with us. Nothing but sin can divide us from him. I will stay, and take my meals quietly or unquietly, as the case my be, at the boarding-house which I've entered; and if I lack comfort for the body, there's many a church in this great city in which I can get pure and wholesome food for the soul. There are the church-bells ringing for early service,—the sweetest sound I've heard in London! And there goes the railway whistle again! The two calls seem, on this Sunday morn, like God's invitation and the world's. How could I doubt which to accept?"
XXX.
Found at Last.
Saturday had been to Sophy one of the darkest days of her life. Isaacs and his son had been absent during the greater part of it, and the blind girl had been left to her loneliness and pain, the former only broken by a visit from an angry landlord demanding rent which Isaacs had been unable to pay. Isaacs, on his return, had found Sophy in tears, and he was little able to cheer her, for again had the convert been unsuccessful in his anxious attempt to get work. He seated himself wearily, folded his arms, and, drooping his head, sat silent as one who feels that life is full of trials. But who "can suffer and be still,"—submissive and uncomplaining?