‘O how happy are they
Who the Saviour obey,
And have laid up their treasure above.’
“Poor Clary! she could almost have cried over her disappointment; for if the words had been Greek she could hardly have been more puzzled as to their meaning. As I have said, she had never been to church—she had never read the Bible;—and if ever she had heard the Saviour’s name, it was from those who spoke it with neither love nor reverence. Her father had been a drunkard,—her mother was a hard-working, well-meaning woman, but as ignorant as Clary herself. No preacher of the gospel had ever set foot in their house,—and ‘how should they believe on him of whom they had not heard?’
“So Clary puzzled over the lines and could make nothing of them. The word treasure she did indeed understand; but where it was to be laid up, and how, were as far from her as ever. And constantly her mind went back to that second line—‘Who the Saviour obey.’
“‘I wonder if I couldn’t do that?’ she thought to herself,—‘if I only knew how. Mother always said I was good about minding. It must be so pleasant to be happy.—It doesn’t say that nobody can do it but rich people, either,’—and again she read the words. They were at the bottom of the sheet, and the next might not come to her press at all, or not for some days. She looked over the rest of the sheet. A great many of the hymns she could make nothing of at all,—the very words—‘missionary,’ and ‘convert,’ and ‘ransom,’ were strange to her. Then this hymn caught her eye, and she read,—
“Come to the mercy-seat,—
“Come to the place of prayer;
“Come, little children, to his feet,
“In whom ye live and are.