While Minnie was giving her tract to the sailor, aunt Amy gave another to a fine-looking lad who was on the beach. She also sent one by the same boy to a sailor; and then she and Minnie set out for the hotel.
“Now,” said aunt Amy, “we shall have at least one pleasant thought connected with our trip.”
“Only one pleasant thought, aunt? Why, all my thoughts of it will be pleasant ones.”
“So will mine, my dear. But I shall be most pleased to think we have not spent the day entirely for ourselves. Our tracts to those men may do them great good. They may be as sunbeams to light them on the way to heaven. Isn’t that the most pleasing thought of the day, Minnie?”
“Yes, aunt; but do you think tracts are always sunbeams to those who receive them?”
“No, Minnie, by no means. Many persons get no good from them at all. But thousands have been greatly benefited by them. We must hope and pray that ours will prove to be as good seed sown on good soil. If not, we have done our duty.”
By this time they had reached the tavern. Here they dined with Minnie’s mother. After dinner, they took a long ride round the country, and reached home at an early hour. When Minnie lay down to sleep that night, she had many happy thoughts about what she had seen and done. But, as her aunt Amy had said, the thought which gave her the richest pleasure was, that the tracts she and her aunt had given away might be doing good. And she fancied how the sailor looked, at his own fire-side, reading her tract; and how it touched his heart, and made him weep, and pray, and seek the road to heaven. It was a beautiful fancy, and it made Minnie’s heart swell with a rich joy. She fell asleep thinking she would be a sunbeam to some one every day of her life. Happy Minnie! She was learning to taste the pleasure of being kind and good to others.
The next day aunt Amy bought some things to make up for Kate Button. Minnie and her mother helped her, by sewing nearly all day upon Kate’s new frock. And they enjoyed themselves too. They kept thinking of the pleasure it would afford poor Kate to be neatly dressed, and to be a member of the Sabbath school. Many times during that day Minnie sprang up from her chair, held up her work, and cried aloud, with a glad heart,—
“O aunt Amy! won’t Kate be happy when we dress her up in this nice frock? It makes me joyful to think of it.”
“That will depend upon the state of her heart, Minnie. Clothing may make her comfortable; but it takes something else to make either children or grown people happy besides clothes. If Kate seeks to be good, loving her Savior, she will be happy indeed. But if not, she will be wretched, even if we should dress her in silk, and adorn her with jewels.”