Growing Up: A Story of the Girlhood of Judith Mackenzie

by Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin

“Don’t pity me. It was good for me, blessed for me, or it could not have happened, you know. I thought there was some great work for me to do—”

“Oh,” said Aunt Affy, with a quick, relieved cry.

“I was not sure whether it were to write a book, or to teach, or to go as a foreign missionary; I think I hoped it would be the foreign missionary, because that was the most self-sacrificing. The book was all one great joy. The teaching was absorbing, but I must go away to study. I was afraid to go away, I did not like to go away from Bensalem, I would miss my mother away from Bensalem, and you, and all the parsonage, and the whole village. But I thought I was called; as called as Roger was to preach, or any woman, saint, or heroine, who had done a great thing. You cannot think what it was to me. It made me old. I wanted God to speak out of Heaven and tell me what to do. It began to lose its selfishness, after that. The first thing that began to shake my confidence was something Mrs. Lane said that afternoon she talked to Jean and me about what women were doing and could do. She did not make woman’s work attractive; she took the heart out of me. I did not know why she should do that. I knew better all the time. I knew what women had done and were doing. I knew she was doing a noble work, literary work, work in prisons, temperance work; the instances she gave me seemed trivial, as if she were laughing at me. But something opened my eyes; I felt that I might be disobedient to my heavenly vision, that I was looking up into the heavens for my call, and the voice might be all the time in my ear. That was the night I came back here and found you so cozy and satisfied under your own roof-tree, with the voice in your ear, and the work in your hand. The world went away from me. I stayed. I am glad I stayed. My only trouble is, and it is a real trouble, that God did not care for my purpose, or my prayers; that he has let them go as if they never entered into his mind; I thought they were in his heart as well as mine.”

“They are, Deary,” said Aunt Affy, wiping her eyes; “He will not let one of them go.”

“But He did not do anything with them. He did not love my plan, and my prayers,” said Judith, wearily.

“Do you remember one time when Jesus was on the earth, a man, clothed and in his right mind, sat at Jesus’ feet? He had so much to be thankful for; no man ever had so much. And he sat at Jesus’ feet, near him because he loved him, and looked up into his face and listened. That was all he wanted on the earth, to be with Jesus; to follow him everywhere, to obey every word he said, to always see his face, to serve him. Did not the Lord care for such love when so many were scorning him and ashamed to be his disciples? When he came to his own, and his own received him not. When the man found that Jesus was going away, that his countrymen were sending him away, beseeching him to go, he besought Jesus, which was more than one asking, that he might go with him. That was all he wanted: just to go with him. Just as all you wanted was to be with him and do something he said, and be sure he said it. But Jesus sent this man away. He refused him; he denied his prayer.”

“That was very hard,” said Judith.

“Very hard. It was like giving him a glimpse of Heaven—it was Heaven, and then shutting the door in his face as he prayed.”

“Yes,” said Judith, who understood.

“But he did speak to him; he told him what to do: ‘Return to thine own house.’ If he had father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children, go back to them and tell them how good God had been to him. When I look at you, Deary, stepping about the house, so pretty and bright, I think of how glad your mother must be if she sees you. How glad to know the little girl she left was taken care of. And in church when you play the organ, and in Sunday School, and at the Lord’s own table, and doing errands all around the village, you are a blessing in your ‘own house.’”