Nelly Connor's life had for the last two or three years been spent in one of the lowest districts of the city in which her father had fixed his abode after his emigration from the "old sod" to the New World. The horrors of that emigration she could still remember—the overcrowded steerage, where foul air bred the dreaded "ship-fever," and where the moans of the sick and dying weighed down the hearts of those whom the disease had spared. Her two little sisters had died during that dreadful voyage; and her mother, heart-broken and worn out with fatigue and watching, only lived to reach land and die in the nearest hospital. An elder brother, who was to have accompanied them, had by some accident lost his passage; and though he had, they supposed, followed them in the next ship that sailed, they never discovered any further trace of him. So, when Nelly's father had followed his wife to the grave in the poor coffin he had with difficulty provided for her, he and his daughter were all that remained of the family which had set out from their dear Irish home, hoping, in the strange land they sought, to lay the foundation of happier fortunes.
They led an uncomfortable, unsettled life for a year or two after that, exchanging one miserable lodging for another—rarely for the better. The father obtained an uncertain employment as a deck hand on a steamboat during the summer, subsisting as best he could on odd jobs during the winter, and too often drowning his sorrows and cares in the tempting but fatal cup. Poor Nelly, left without any care or teaching, soon forgot all she had ever learned; and running wild with the neglected children around her, became, as might have been expected, a little street Arab, full of shrewd, quick observation, and utter aversion to restraint of any kind.
Suddenly, to Nelly's consternation, her father brought home a second wife, a comrade's widow, with two or three young children. In the new household Nelly was at once expected to take the place of nurse and general drudge, a part for which her habits of unrestrained freedom and idleness had thoroughly disqualified her; and the results were what might have been expected. There was a good deal of heedlessness and neglect on Nelly's part, and nearly constant scolding on that of her new mother. And as the latter was neither patient nor judicious, and was, moreover, unreasonable in what she demanded from the child, there was many a conflict ending in sharp blows, the physical pain of which was nothing in comparison with the sense of injury and oppression left on the child's mind. But she had no redress; for her father being so much away from his home, had no opportunity of opposing, as he would probably have done, his wife's severe method of "managing" his motherless child.
Things were in this condition when Mrs. Connor, who had formerly belonged to Ashleigh, made up her mind to remove thither, in the expectation both of living more cheaply, and of being able, among her old acquaintances, to find more work to eke out her uncertain means of living. Her husband was now working on a steamboat which passed up and down the river on which Ashleigh was situated, so that he could not see his family as often as before. They were now settled in a small, rather dilapidated tenement, with a potato patch and pig-sty; and Mrs. Connor, who was an energetic woman, had already succeeded in making her family almost independent of the earnings which Michael Connor too often spent in the public-house. This being the case, she had no scruples in providing for her own children, without much consideration for Nelly; so that the poor child was a forlorn-looking object when Miss Preston had found her hovering wistfully about, attracted by the sight of the children streaming towards the church, and had induced her to come, for the first time in her life, into a Sunday school.
And now, with these three girls before her, differing so much in circumstances and culture, it was no wonder that Miss Preston should feel it a matter for earnest consideration what parting words she should say, which, even if unappreciated at the time, might afterwards come back to their minds, associated with the remembrance of a teacher they had loved, to help them in the conflict between good and evil which must have its place in their future lives. But she felt she could not possibly do better, in bidding farewell to her young pupils, than to direct them to Him who would never leave nor forsake them,—who was nearer, wiser, tenderer, than any earthly friend,—who, if they would trust themselves to Him, would guide them into all truth, and in His own way of peace.
She had brought them each, as a little parting remembrancer, a pretty gift-card, bearing on one side the illuminated motto, "Looking unto Jesus," a text the blessed influence of which she herself had long experimentally known. And in words so simple as for the most part to reach even little Nelly's comprehension, she spoke earnestly of the loving Saviour to whom they were to "look,"—of that wonderful life which, opening in the lowly manger of Bethlehem, and growing quietly to maturity in the green valleys of Nazareth, reached its full development in those unparalleled three years of "going about doing good," healing, teaching, warning, rebuking, comforting; not disdaining to stop and bless the little children, and at last dying to atone for our sins.
She explained to them, that although withdrawn from our earthly sight, He was as really near to them now as He had been to those Jewish children eighteen hundred years ago; that their lowest whisper could reach Him; that if they would but ask Him, He would be their truest Friend, ever at their side to help them to do right and resist temptation, to comfort them in sorrow and sweeten their joy. Her earnest tone and manner, even more than her words, impressed the children, and fixed even Nelly Connor's bright hazel eyes in a wondering gaze. It was very new and strange to her to hear about the mysterious, invisible Friend who was so loving and kind; the idea of a friend of any kind being novel to the lonely, motherless child, more accustomed to harsh, unsparing reproof than to any other language. Miss Preston, glad to see at least that her interest was excited, was fain to leave the germs of truth to take root and develope in her mind, under the silent influence of the divine Husbandman.
"Now, my dear children," she said in conclusion, "whenever you are tempted to be careless or unfaithful in duty, to think that it doesn't matter because no one will know, remember that your Saviour knows,—that whatever the duty before you may be, you have to do it 'as to the Lord, and not unto men.' Whenever you are tempted to get tired of trying to do right and resist temptation, or when you may feel sad for your sinfulness and unworthiness, think of the text I am leaving you, 'Looking unto Jesus.' And if you really and earnestly look to Him, you will always find help, and strength, and guidance, and comfort."
On the reverse side of the illuminated card she had brought for her class was printed, in clear, distinct characters, the hymn,
"I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us
From the accursed load.