Now, the other day I saw a lady very gayly dressed, leading along her little girl by the hand. It was a bitter cold day, and by-and-by this lady met a lady friend of hers, and they both stopped just as they reached a corner where the wind blew the coldest, to admire each other’s new bonnets and cloaks. Now, though the lady had wrapped herself up warmly in furs, her little girl’s legs, for two inches above her pretty gaiter-boots, were quite bare, and the cold wind nipped her little calves till they were quite purple, and she began to cry, as well she might; but her mamma only shook her impatiently, and went on for half an hour longer, talking about the fashions—foolish fashions, which tell foolish mammas to let their little children go bare-legged in winter, and tell them that a muslin ruffle will keep their little calves warm enough.
Now I did not know the name of that little girl; so, when I looked day after day at the list of deaths, I could not tell whether God had taken her up to heaven or not, but I hoped so, because I did not want her to suffer, and because I thought that a mother who would be so foolish as to do that, would make a great many other very sad mistakes in bringing up her little girl.
Yes, I felt very badly about it; and I felt badly about my little friend George, the other day. George goes to school; he has a great many lessons to get out of school. He is a very conscientious little boy, and can not be tempted away from his lessons after he sits down to learn them; so, when it was proposed the other night, after tea, to take him to some place of amusement, he said, “I would rather not go, because I am not sure that I have my French lesson perfectly for to-morrow.” So he staid at home and studied it, and the next morning trudged off to school, quite happy in the thought that he knew it perfectly.
Now, the boys in George’s school have a bad way of “telling” each other in the class. George is too honest to do this; he neither will tell them, nor let them tell him.
Poor little George! he missed in his lesson that morning, although he had tried so hard to learn it. The teacher reprimanded him (that means scolded him), and gave him a bad mark, while the naughty boys who had scarcely looked at their lessons got good marks, because they peeped in the book and told each other the answers.
Poor little George!
He came home, with his large brown eyes full of tears, looking sick and discouraged. He could not eat a bit of dinner, though there was roast turkey and plum-pudding. His little heart was almost broke.
So I took him in my lap, and I told him that a great many men and women, too, all over the world, were suffering just such injustice; that when they tried hardest to do right, they got no credit for it from their fellow-creatures, and often had “bad marks” for it just as he did, and that it really seemed to them sometimes as if the lazy and deceitful prospered most.
But then I told little George that it was only in seeming that they prospered, because God, who, as you know sees every thing, and is never careless or short-sighted as George’s teacher was, never lets those who do right suffer for it. He may take His own time to right them, (which is always the best time), but He does it; and I told George that those naughty boys would grow up ignorant though they did get good marks, and that he would grow up to be well educated and useful if he did get bad ones when he did not deserve them; and I told George that one of these days, when they all grew up, that while those lazy, ignorant fellows found it impossible to earn a living, and what was worse, had no heart to do good, some College which wanted a splendid president, would write a letter to George and make him one, and he could become at once both honorable and useful.
Yes, my children, just so surely as the bright sun shines over your dear little heads, our loving God, who writes down in His book every act of injustice and wrong-doing, even to little children, will, if you only work on with a brave, patient heart, turn all your trials into blessings.