Miss Ruth smiled, and looked hopefully at her little charge, as she said, “I don’t expect to escape my share of trouble, Mrs. Keller, but I do not think that much of it will come by these little ones.”
The children heard the conversation, and mentally resolved to be very good, in order to disappoint Mrs. Keller and to please Miss Ruth.
When school closed they all joined in singing one of their Sunday school hymns—“Let us walk in the Light.” Frankie lingered a little after the others went out, and going to Miss Ruth said, “Won’t you tell me, please, just what it means to walk in the light? Is it to be good?”
“To be good?” said Miss Ruth. “Yes; those who walk in the light of God’s commandments are good. But I will explain it. If you were walking alone in the woods on a night so dark that you could not see one step before you, would you not be in danger of falling? And if, in the path, there were deep holes, fallen trees, and tangled underbrush, would you dare to walk in such a place on a dark night?”
“No, ma’am,” said Frankie, promptly. “I’d take our lantern, and then I guess it wouldn’t be so very easy.”
“Not very easy, perhaps,” Miss Ruth replied, “but if in your lantern you had so bright a light that you could see your path plainly, then you could walk around a fallen trunk, separate the tangled briers, and avoid the dangerous holes. With such a journey before you, would you not be very grateful to a kind friend who would offer you such a lantern, saying, ‘Take this to be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. If you walk in this light, and trust to me, I will guide you safely through the wilderness into the pleasant land beyond, where you will need no light, and where you will forget all the rough way in which you have come, or remember it only to sing praises to Him who was your Guide and Friend.’”
“Oh, Miss Ruth,” Frankie said eagerly, “I know what you mean. The light is the Bible, and the pleasant land is heaven. Mamma once told me something like what you have said.”
“Then, Frankie,” said Miss Ruth, “remember to ‘walk in the light’ of God’s word.”
Bidding his teacher good-night, Frankie went home, his heart full of what he had heard about the “light of God,” and of resolutions to “walk in that light.”
When he went in he found Aleck watching for him, anxious to hear about the school. So he told him the events of the day, and the conversation he had with Miss Ruth, adding, in conclusion, “and I’m going to try to walk in the light, Aleck. Let us read the Bible the first thing in the morning, before we have a chance to do anything wrong.”