Coming to me in my need, repeating the words Mr. Kirby had spoken, going over with her Sabbath-school hymns and texts, she reminded me more and more of our sainted mother, and stimulated me more than words can tell to make use of every means in my power to get good and do good. Thus my evil thoughts did not gain the ascendency; and by continual striving I grew to enjoy my labor as my study, doing both with a will and determination to succeed.
Every Saturday I walked five miles, for the purpose of hearing Jennie’s weekly lesson and walking to church with her on the Sabbath.
“Do not forget the Sabbath,” had been one of the last injunctions of my dear mother; and when tempted, as I often was, to stay from church or from Sabbath-school because I was tired, or my dress was old and patched, or to read and study since I had so little time in the week, the thought of transgressing against her wish, rather than because it was a positive command of God, has often led me to his house, trying to cultivate a proper spirit on his holy day. And now that I have learned more of his law and of the wonderful plan of redemption for a guilty world, I bless his great name that I was early inclined to keep his Sabbath. Let me ask any little boy or girl who is trying to be a climber, to remember the Sabbath; not to think idle, foolish, wicked thoughts, neither to make companions of those who are accustomed to doing this; but reading God’s word, thinking of his love, listening to his servants, and praying for the indwelling of his Spirit.
The Sabbath before the fall term of the academy was to commence, Mr. Harlan preached at Claverton. His text was, “The entrance of thy word giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” He spoke of light as the great vivifier, the life-giving principle, the beautifier. It paints the leaf of the lily and the rose, veins the violet, and tinges the varied landscape with beauty. Without sunlight the visual scope would be limited, and the beautiful around us would fail to awaken our interest.
Before the Creator uttered that great fiat, “Let there be light,” darkness was upon the face of the great deep; all matter was in a circumfused mass, no ray of light to penetrate the gloom; and when there was light, it presented the earth without form and void. But when the sun was set in the firmament of heaven, then the earth brought forth grass, herbs, trees, and flowers; even the angels were charmed with its beauty, and the morning stars sang together for joy.
So without the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the great light of the moral firmament, all the light man has can only present a world without form, void of all beauty and all good; and it is only so far as “the Day-spring from on high has visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” that the moral earth begins to shoot forth the choicest plants and to produce the richest fruits, so that the sons of God shout for joy and heaven rings with anthems of praise.
The Scriptures set forth the birth of Christ under the figure of the rising sun. How glorious is this figure! When the heart drinks in the beauty of his words, when the light of his countenance shines upon the repentant soul, what a flood of rapture thrills the entire being! Christ is to us what the sun is to the material world, the dispenser of light, life, and joy.
We have seen vegetables growing in corners or cellars, pale and delicate, creeping feebly towards a ray of light that penetrated some small crevice, like beings in distress stretching out their hands for help. Like those delicate and sickly plants, watching eagerly every ray of light, feeling their way through the darkness, hoping to find some opening that would lead out into a world of beauty, is often the experience of the individual Christian. Religion is not a thing of gloom and clouds. It is a lamp, a light, a sun; the very thing to cheer a desolate heart, and to brighten still more a cheerful, happy spirit.
“That was what made Mr. Kirby so good and happy, wasn’t it?” said Jennie as we went home.
“And Mr. Brisbane,” I continued. “I often wondered how he could be so happy when he was always suffering.”