A new graft on the family tree

by Pansy

Then she turned and went swiftly away. She had actually humbled her proud heart to ask her daughter-in-law to pray for John! She could not get away from the feeling that Louise's prayers would be likely to avail if any would. More than that—but this at the time was known only to her own heart, and to the One who reads the heart—in the silence and darkness of her own room, after Nellie was asleep, and before Farmer Morgan had drawn the last bolt preparatory to coming to his bed, she had got down on her knees and had offered what, in her ignorance, she thought was prayer. "O God," she said, "if thou hearest human beings in their need, hear me, and keep John from going away." There was no submission in her heart to the divine will, no reference to the name which is the only name by which we can approach God, no realization of anything save John's peril and a blind reaching out after some hand that had power. Yet it was a nearer approach to prayer than that mother had made for fifty years!

Neither could she help a feeling, which she told herself was probably superstition, that something somehow would prevent John from carrying out his designs. Yet the days went by, and no unseen arm stretched out its hand of power to arrest John. Instead, the rainy day wore on with the feeling settling down hopelessly on the mother's heart that her son had gone from her with hard words on his lips, and with the echo of hard words from her sounding in his heart. For, so strange a thing is this human heart, Mrs. Morgan had actually never seemed more hard or cold to her son than she did during the week that her heart was torn with anxiety for him.

But I have not told you the worst of this. The days moved on, and it became evident to all that John had carried out his threat and was gone. Then the mother's grief and dismay found vent in hard and cruel words. She turned in bitterness from Louise, yes, and from Dorothy, indeed from every one. To Louise she said plainly it was not strange that John had wanted to get away; she had given him no peace since she had been there; always tormenting him to go to church or to prayer-meeting, or to do something that he did not want to do. For her part, she did not see but he was quite as good as those who were always running off to meeting. He could not even have any peace in his own room; it must be cluttered up with rubbish that any man hated—vases to tip over, and tidies to torment him!

And she flung the tidies on a chair in Louise's room, and folded and packed away the cover which she said she had been "fooled into buying," and restored every corner of that little hall chamber to its original dreariness. And, worse than all, she declared that she hoped and trusted she would hear no more cant about prayers in that house. She had not been able to see for many a year that the kind of praying that was being done in these days accomplished any good.

To Dorothy she declared that if she had had the spirit of a mouse she might have exerted herself, as other girls did, to make a pleasant spot for her brother; that she had never tried to please him in anything, not even the mending of his mittens when he wanted them; she would rather dawdle over the fire roasting apples with Carey Martyn than give any thought to her own brother.

Now all this was bitterness itself to poor Dorothy, whose own heart reproached her for having been so many years indifferent to her brother's welfare, but who had honestly tried with all the force of her heart to be pleasant and helpful to John ever since she had been doing anything from a right motive.

Neither did Mrs. Morgan spare her husband. She would not have let a boy like that go off without a penny in his pocket, she said,—no, not if she had to sell all the stock to get him ready money. He had as good a right to money as Lewis ever had, and he had been tied down to the five barns all his life. No wonder he ran away. He showed some spirit, and she was glad he had.

Do you suppose Farmer Morgan endured this in silence? Not he. And sharp words grow sharper, and bitter feelings ran high, until the once quiet kitchen was transformed into a Babel of angry words, and poor Louise could only go away and weep.

But I have not told you the worst of this: actually the worst was in this Christian woman's own sore heart. The awful question, "Why?" had crept in and was tormenting her soul. She had been sincere in her prayers; she had been honest in her desires; she had been unwavering in her petitions. Why had God permitted this disastrous thing to come? Had she not tried—oh had she not tried with sincere desire ever since she came into this home to live Christ in it? Why, then, had she been allowed to so utterly fail? Would it not be to God's glory to save John Morgan's soul? Was it not evident that through him the mother might possibly be reached? Was it not perfectly evident that John, at home, under her influence and Lewis's and Dorothy's, would be in less danger than away among strangers, wandering whither he would? Was it not perfectly evident that this conclusion to their prayers had caused Mrs. Morgan to lose faith in prayer—to grow harder and harder in her feelings toward God and toward Christians? Why was all this allowed?

She had prayed in faith—or, at least, she had supposed she had; she had felt almost sure that God would answer her prayer. She had said to Dorothy, only the night before John went away—said it with steady voice and a smile in her eye—"I don't believe John will go away; I don't think God will let him go."