“Oh, how glad you must have felt when you saw him home again, safe and sound, dear granny.”
“I did, indeed, my love, and with thankful heart acknowledged the goodness of our heavenly Father. Nothing but the strong sense of duty can sustain the heart under such anxiety as falls to the lot of the faithful missionary and his family. Love divine is the constraining and blessed principle that bears the fainting spirit up. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ Let that, my own dear boy, be your motto; and then if you lose your life in the service of your Lord, you will find it again in eternal joy.”
CHAPTER IV.
After a short pause, Mrs. Ward said, with a smile, “You will be wishing to hear the story of Boxa’s ancestor, a dog, as I have said, deserving of renown. It chanced, in one of his official journeys, your grandfather visited a part of the coast peculiarly fatal to European vessels, especially to those outward bound to Quebec in the spring; the shore in the neighbourhood being very low, and the ledges of rock extending far out to sea. On one of the islands which he visited, he took up his abode in a neat cabin belonging to a planter, where he found welcome shelter, and a cheerful fire made from the wreckwood scattered abundantly upon the shore. There was a family of children, a merry group of boys and girls, who kept jingling in their hands some sort of playthings.
“What have you got there, my boys?’ he asked. They showed him their treasures, which proved to be bunches of small desk and cabinet keys, that had been picked up from the wrecks—a melancholy kind of toy, he could not help thinking. By-and-bye the good wife spread the hospitable board, at which he was invited to take his seat. He looked with surprise at the plates which she placed upon the deal table. They were very beautiful old china ware, and several pieces of a modern elegant breakfast set of dragon china, which had been ranged upon the shelves of the cabin alongside of the most common earthen crockery. These also had been cast ashore by the waves in boxes. When he asked to wash his hands, a fine huckaback towel, neatly marked with initial letters, was handed him. On inquiry, he learned that it had come from a wreck in which there were several ladies.