The adopted son

by A. L. O. E.

This favourite story was one which Nelly had heard more than once, and had thought over very often, till there was nothing in the possession of her father, his Bible and her mother's wedding-ring excepted, for which she felt half the reverence as for that little old book. Now, seated upon her father's knee, with her arm round his neck, and her head on his shoulder, and Walter listening opposite, Nelly quite forgot all care for the morrow, all fear of approaching want.

"I will tell you the story," said Viner, "partly as I heard it from my good father, who used to mention some of the circumstances of it as amongst the greatest mercies which he had ever experienced, but chiefly as it was often related to me by my grandmother, who was as fond, dear old lady, of telling the story about her son as Nelly is now of hearing it."

"Well, it must now be some seventy years since the day when my grandmother, a poor gardener's widow, who then lived in a cottage not far from this very place—(it has been pulled down long ago, but Nelly can show you where it stood)—bade farewell to her only son. The character of my grandmother was so respectable that, poor as she was, many looked up to her for counsel and example; she had been nurse in the family of a gentleman, and had more knowledge, and knowledge of the best kind, than usually falls to the lot of the poor."

"It was a great matter for her that a good situation had been procured for her only son in London, but still it was a sore trial to the widow to part with him; and when she thought of the temptations before him, her heart trembled and would have sunk within her, but for prayer, her unfailing resource."

"The morning before he left her, my grandmother sat packing the box of her son, for she would do everything for him herself. She had darned his stockings and mended his clothes so neatly, that they looked almost as good as new. I believe that many a tear had dropped over her work, but she tried to look cheerful to my father. Carefully, she placed his Bible in the box, and beside it three very small books in gold and blue, one of which you now see before you."

"'A single copy is enough for me,' said my father; 'they are, I see, exactly alike, what should I do with three?'"

"In those days, Walter, small religious publications were not so easily to be procured as they are at present. Now there is an abundance of works of all sizes and prices in which the pure Gospel is explained and taught, and even poor Christians may help, by the means of such, to spread the knowledge of God; but there was not the same number of them then. Where my grandmother had bought these books I do not know, they were considered old even in her day; they contained a good deal from Scripture, especially the Sermon on the Mount explained by a very holy Divine. I have heard that my grandmother had twelve copies at first, but now only these three remained, for, as she explained to my father, they were intended to be lent or given to others."

"'Always remember, my dear son,' she said, laying her thin hand upon his, 'that God's kingdom of glory may come any day, but God's kingdom of grace is coming every day; and as it is our bounden duty to pray for the first, so is it to work for the spread of the other. We must be like the Jews while building their second temple, the sword in one hand to fight against our sins, the working-tool in the other—and books like these are such—to help to raise a holy building to God. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.'"

"These words of the widow sank deep into the heart of my father, they made him see his position as a Christian in a new light. It was not enough, he found, to keep unspotted from the world, he should also, as God might give him opportunity, visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction—not only himself faithfully serve his heavenly King, but seek to bring others to that blessed Saviour."

"But my father found all his good resolutions sorely tried when he entered the situation which had been procured for him. His master was a haberdasher in London, one whom the world termed respectable, but his standard of right and wrong was very different from that which the youth had learned from his Bible and his mother. Sharpness and shrewdness were prized above honest dealing. 'All fair in the way of business' was the shopkeeper's favourite motto, and he was not disposed to question too closely the lawfulness of whatever increased his gains. His other shop-boy, whose name was Tim Sands, was also one from whom my father could learn little that was good. Not an ill-disposed lad; had he been in proper hands and under the care of a conscientious master, he might have gone on steadily enough. But Sands was weak-minded and easily led, and though too busy during the week to have much time for mischief, on Sunday, he mixed in all kinds of dissipation, with companions far worse than himself. In society such as this, my poor father felt little comfort or benefit, truly, he stood alone; and but for the power of privately pouring out his heart before God, and thinking of the coming of that happy time when the kingdom of the earth shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, his courage would have failed him entirely, and he might have become like those amongst whom he lived."