“O sweet and blessed country
That eager hearts expect.”
One cold winter’s evening about Christmas time, Charlie, a little boy of six years old, sat reading with his mother. It was Sunday evening, and he had been looking at the pictures in his “Children’s Bible,” till his mother put down her own book and began to read verses to him out of his real Bible, in explanation of some of the pictures. With one of these especially, Charlie was very much pleased. It represented a great many people, men and women and children, and animals of every kind, all together, looking very peaceful and happy in a beautiful garden. Charlie could not pronounce the word at the foot of the picture; it was so very long.
“The—what is it, mother?” he asked.
“The Millennium,” his mother told him, and then she went on to explain what this long word meant, and read him some strange, beautiful verses about it, out of the big Bible. Charlie sat with his blue eyes fixed on her, listening to every word, and thinking this the most wonderful story he had ever heard yet. “And it is not like a fairy story, is it mother, for it is in the Bible? Oh, I do so wish God would let the millennium come now—immediately—mother, while I am a little boy, and you, just like what you are! I should not care nearly so much for it if you were old, mother, or if I was a big man.”
“I hope, my darling, the bigger you get the more you will care for it,” said his mother. Charlie looked puzzled, but seeing that he was thinking so deeply, that she feared he would think away his sleep (as he sometimes did, and it was nearly bed-time), she went to the piano and sang his favourite hymn—
“Jerusalem the golden,
With milk and honey blest.”
Charlie listened with delight; and when it was over went and kissed his mother for good-night, and trotted off to bed, his mind full of the words he had been hearing.
It felt cold at first, in his little crib, and he began thinking how nice it would be if the summer were back again. But he soon fell asleep. It seemed to him that he woke almost in a minute, and he felt surprised to see that there was already broad daylight in the room. Indeed, he felt exceedingly surprised, for these dark winter mornings he always woke before dawn, and now the sun was shining brightly, as if it had been at work for some hours. It looked so pleasant and cheerful that he lay still to enjoy it. Now I must tell you that Charlie had a baby brother, and that both these little boys were taken care of by a good old woman who had been nurse to their mother when she was a little girl. Nurse was very good and kind and true, but I must say that sometimes she was very cross. Perhaps it was that she was getting old, and that little boys teased her, not being always able to remember about being gentle and good: that is to say, Charlie himself, for the baby was really too little either to remember or forget. Nurse’s worst time was first thing in the morning; she nearly always had a cross face on when she came to wake Charlie, and to tell him to get up. He once heard some of the servants saying that nurse very often got out of the wrong side of her bed; and that day he vexed her very much without knowing why, for, after thinking a long time about what it could mean, he went all round her bed to see if there could be any nails or sharp pieces of wood sticking out at one side, which perhaps hurt her feet as she stepped out. Nurse came in while he was examining her bed, and when he told her what he was doing, and what he had heard Anne say, she was really very angry indeed, though he could not see that he had done anything naughty.
But this morning I am telling you about that Charlie lay in bed thinking how pretty the sunlight was, he was quite surprised to see nurse’s face when she came to the bedside to wake him. She spoke so sweetly, and really looked quite pretty. Her face had such a nice smile and looked so kind, and nearly all the wrinkles were gone.
“Dear nurse,” he said, “how nice you look!” This seemed to please her still more, for she kissed him, and then washed and dressed him, without once pulling or pushing him the least little bit; just as if she had never felt cross in her life.