HOME SCENES AND HEART STUDIES

HOME SCENES

AND

HEART STUDIES.

BY

GRACE AGUILAR,

AUTHOR OF “WOMAN’S FRIENDSHIP;”

“THE DAYS OF BRUCE;” “THE VALE OF CEDARS;” ETC., ETC.

Thirteenth Edition.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BY

HYDE W. BRISCOE.

LONDON:

GROOMBRIDGE AND SONS

1876.

HERTFORD:

SIMSON AND GROOMBRIDGE,

PRINTERS.

CONTENTS.

HOME SCENES AND HEART STUDIES.

The Perez Family.

CHAPTER I.

Leading out of one of those close, melancholy alleys in the environs of Liverpool, was a small cottage, possessing little of comfort or beauty in outward appearance, but much in the interior in favour of its inhabitants; cleanliness and neatness were clearly visible, greatly in contradistinction to the neighbouring dwellings. There were no heaps of dirt and half-burnt ashes, no broken or even cracked panes in the brightly shining windows, not a grain of unseemly dust or stains either on door or ledge,—so that even poverty itself looked respectable. The cottage stood apart from the others, with a good piece of ground for a garden, which, stretching from the back, led through a narrow lane, to the banks of the Mersey, and thus permitted a fresher current of air. The garden was carefully and prettily laid out, and planted with the sweetest flowers; the small parlour and kitchen of the cottage opened into it, and so, greatly to the disappointment and vexation of the gossips of the alley, nothing could be gleaned of the sayings and doings of its inmates. Within the cottage the same refinement was visible; the furniture, though old and poor, was always clean and neatly arranged. The Mezzuzot (Deut. vi. 9, 20) were carefully secured to every door-post, and altogether there was an indescribable something pervading the dwelling, that in the very midst of present poverty seemed to tell of former and more prosperous days.

Simeon and Rachel Perez had married with every prospect of getting on well in the world. Neither were very young; for though they had been many years truly devoted to each other, they were prudent, and had waited till mutual industry had removed many of the difficulties and obstacles to their union. All which might have been irksome was persevered in through the strength of this honest, unchanging affection; and when the goal was gained, and they were married, all the period of their mutual labour seemed but as a watch in the night, compared to the happiness they then enjoyed.

Simeon had been for several years foreman to a watchmaker, and was remarkably skilful in the business. Rachel had been principal assistant to a mantua-maker, and all her leisure hours were employed in plaiting straw and various fancy works, which greatly increased her little store. Never forgetting the end they had in view, their mutual savings had so accumulated, that on their marriage, Perez was enabled to set up a small shop, which, conducted with honesty and economy, soon flourished, and every year brought in something to lay aside, besides amply providing for their fast-increasing family.

The precepts of their God were obeyed by this worthy couple, not only in word but in deed. They proved their love for their heavenly Father, not only in their social and domestic conduct, but in such acts of charity and kindness, that many wondered how they could do so much for others without wronging their own. Perez and his wife were, however, if possible, yet more industrious and economical after their marriage than before, and many a time preferred to sacrifice a personal indulgence for the purer pleasure of doing good to others; and never did they do so without feeling that God blessed them in the deed.

A painful event calling Perez to London was the first alloy to their happiness. A younger sister of his wife, less prudent because, perhaps, possessed of somewhat more personal attraction, had won the attentions of a young man who had come down to Liverpool, he said, for a week’s pleasure. No one knew anything about Isaac Levison. As a companion, Perez himself owned he was very entertaining, but that was not quite sufficient to make him a good husband. Assurances that he was well able to support a wife and family, with Perez and Rachel (they were not then married), went for nothing; they wanted proofs, and these he either could not or would not bring; but in vain they remonstrated. Leah had never liked their authority or good example, and in this point determined to have her own way.

They were married, and left Liverpool to reside in London, and Leah’s communications were too few and far between to betray much concerning their circumstances. At length came a letter, stating that Leah was a mother, but telling also that poverty and privation had stolen upon them. Their substance in a few troubled years had made itself wings, and flown away when most needed, and Leah now applied for assistance to those very friends whose kindness and virtues she had so often treated with contempt. The fact was, Levison had embarked all his little capital (collected no one knew how) in an establishment dashing in appearance, but wanting the basis of honesty and religion. After seeming to flourish for a few years, it, of course, failed at last, exposing its proprietors to deserved odium and distrust, and their families to irretrievable distress.

For seven years Perez and his wife almost supported Leah and her child (secretly indeed, for no one in Liverpool imagined they had need to do so). Leah was still too dear, for the faults and follies of her husband, and perhaps her own imprudences, to form any subject of conversation with her relatives.

At length Leah wrote that she was ill, very ill. She thought the hand of death was on her; and she feared it for her child, her darling Sarah, whom she had striven to preserve pure amidst the scenes of misery and sin which she now confessed but too often neared her dwelling. What would become of her? Who would protect her? How dared she appeal to the God of the orphan, when her earthly father yet lived, seeming to forget there was a God? Perez and his wife perused that sad letter together; but ere it was completed, Rachel had sunk in bitter tears upon his bosom, seeking to speak the boon which was in her heart; but, though it found no words, Perez answered—

“You are right, dear wife; one more will make little difference in our household. Providence blessed us with four children, and has been pleased to deprive us of one. Sarah shall take her place: and in snatching her from the infection of vice and shame, may we not ask and hope a blessing? Do not weep then, my Rachel; Leah may not be so ill as she thinks. I will go and bring her and her child; and there may be happy days in store for them yet.”

Perez departed that same night by the mail to London; but, prompt as he was, poor Leah’s sufferings were terminated before his arrival. Her death, though in itself a painful shock, was less a subject of misery and depression to a mind almost rigid in its notions of integrity and honour as that of Perez, than the fearful state of wretchedness and shame into which Isaac Levison had fallen. Perez soon perceived that all hope of effecting a reformation was absolute folly. His poor child had been so repeatedly prevented attending school, by his intemperate or violent conduct, that she was at length excluded. Levison could give no good reason for depriving his little girl of these advantages, except that he hated the elders who were in office; that he did not see why some should be rich and some should be poor, and why the former should lord it over the latter. He was as good as they were any day, and his daughter should not be browbeaten or governed by any one, however she might call herself a lady. To reason with folly, Perez felt was foolishness, and so he contented himself with entreating Levison to permit his taking the little Sarah, at least for a time, into his family. Levison imagined Perez was the same rank as himself, and, therefore, that his pride could not be injured by his consenting. Equal in birth perhaps they were, but as far removed in their present ranks as vice from virtue, dishonesty from truth.

Perez, however, glad and grateful for having gained his point, made no comment on the many muttered remarks of his brother-in-law, as to his conferring, not receiving an obligation, by giving his child to the care of her aunt, but hastened home, longing to offer the best comfort to his wife’s sorrow by placing the rescued Sarah in her arms. And it was a comfort, for gradually Rachel traced a hand of love even in this affliction; the loss of her mother, under such circumstances, proving perhaps, in the end, a blessing to the child, if her father would but leave her with them. She feared that he would not at first; but Perez smiled at the fear as foolishness, and it gradually dwindled away; for years passed, and the little Sarah grew from childhood into womanhood, still an inmate of her uncle’s family, almost forgetting she had any father but himself.

But it is not to the unrighteous or the irreligious only that misfortunes come. Nay, they may flourish for a time, and give no evidence that there is a just and merciful God who ruleth. But even those who have loved and served Him through long years of probity and justice, and who, according to frail human perceptions, would look for nothing but favour at His hand, are yet afflicted with many sorrows; and our feeble and insufficient wisdom would complain that such things are. If this world were all, then indeed we might murmur and rebel; but our God himself has assured us, “There will come a day when He will discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those who serve God and those who serve Him not.” And it is our part to wait patiently for that day, and that better world where that word will be fulfilled.

Perez had now five children. Reuben, his eldest son, was full five years older than the rest, a circumstance of rejoicing to Perez, as he hoped his son would supply his place to his family, should he be called away before the threescore and ten years allotted as the age of man.

To do all he could towards obtaining this end, Perez early associated his son with him in his own business of watch-making; but too soon, unhappily, the parents discovered that a heavy grief awaited them, from him to whom they had most fondly looked for joy. They had indeed striven and prayed to train up their child in the way he should go, but it seemed as if his after years would not confirm the sage monarch’s concluding words. Wild, thoughtless, and headstrong, Reuben, after a very brief trial, determined that his father’s business was not according to his taste, and he could not follow it. His father’s authority indeed kept him steady for a few years, but it was continued rebellion and reproof: and often and often the father’s hard-earned savings were sacrificed for the wild freaks and extravagance of the son. Perez trembled lest the other members of his family, equally dear, should suffer eventual loss; but there is something in the hearts of Jewish parents towards an eldest son, which calls imperatively for indulgence towards, and concealment of his failings. Again and again Perez expended sums much larger than he could conveniently afford, in endeavouring to fix his son in business according to his inclinations; but no sooner was he apparently settled and comfortable, and his really excellent abilities fairly drawn forth, than, by negligence or inattention, or some graver misdemeanour, he disgusted his employers, and, after a little longer trial, was returned on his father’s hands.

Deeply and bitterly his parents grieved, using every affectionate argument to convince him of the evil of his ways, and bring him back again to the paths of joy. They did not desist, however their efforts and prayers seemed alike unanswered; they did not fail in faith, though often it was trembling and faint within them. One hope they had; Reuben was not hardened. Often he would repent in tears and agony of spirit and deplore his own ill fate, that he was destined to bring misery to parents he so dearly loved. But he refused to believe that it only needed energy to rouse himself from his folly, for as yet it was scarcely more. He said he could not help himself, could not effect any change, and therefore made no effort to do so. But that which grieved his parents far more than all else, was his total indifference to the religion of his forefathers. His ears, even as his heart and mind, were closed to those divine truths his parents had so carefully inculcated. He knew his duty too well to betray infidelity and indifference in their presence, but they loved him too well to be blind to their existence.

“What is it to be a Jew,” they heard him once say to a companion, “but to be cut off from every honourable and manly employment? To be bound, fettered to an obsolete belief, which does but cramp our energies, and bind us to detestable trade. No wonder we are looked upon with contempt, believed to be bowed, crushed to the very earth, as void of all spirit or energy, only because we have no opportunity of showing them.”

Little did he know the bitter tears these words wrung from his poor mother, that no sleep visited his father’s eyes that night. Was this an answer to their anxious prayer? Yet they trusted still.

Anxiety and grief did not prevent Perez attending to his business; but either from the many drains upon his little capital, or that trade was just at that time in a very low state, his prosperity had begun visibly to decrease. And not long afterwards a misfortune occurred productive of much more painful affliction than even the loss of property which it so seriously involved. A dreadful fire broke out in the neighbourhood, gaining such an alarming height ere it was discovered, that assistance was almost useless. Amongst the greatest sufferers were Perez and his family. Their happy home was entirely consumed, and all the little valuables it had contained completely destroyed. Perez gazed on ruin. For one brief moment he stood as thunderstricken, but then a terrible shriek aroused him. He looked around. He thought he had seen all whom he loved in safety, but at one glance he saw his little Ruth was not there. His wife had caught a glimpse of the child in a part of the building which the flames had not yet reached, and with that wild shriek had flown to save her. He saw her as she made her way through falling rafters and blazing walls; he made a rush forward to join and rescue or die with her; but his children clung round him in speechless terror; his friends and neighbours seconded them, and before he could effectually break from them, a loud congratulatory shout proclaimed that the daring mother had reached her child. A dozen ladders were hurried forward, their bearers all eager to be the first to plant the means of effectual escape; and clasping her Ruth closely to her breast, regardless of her increasing weight (for terror had rendered the poor child utterly powerless), the mother’s step was on the ladder, and a hush fell upon the assembled hundreds. There was no sound save the roar of the devouring element and the play of the engines. The flames were just nearing the beam on which the ladder leaned, but hope was strong that Rachel would reach the ground ere this frail support gave way; and numbers pressed round, regardless of the suffocating smoke and heat, in the vain hope of speeding her descent.

Perez had ceased his struggles the moment his wife appeared. With clasped hands, and cheeks and lips so blanched, as even in that lurid light to startle by their ghastliness, he remained, his eyes starting from their sockets in their intense and agonized gaze. He saw only his wife and child; but his children, with horror which froze their very blood, could only look on the fast-approaching flames. A wild cry of terror was bursting from young Joseph, Ruth’s twin brother, but Sarah, with instinctive feeling, dreading lest that cry should reach his mother’s ears and awaken her to her danger, caught him in her arms, and soothed him into silence.

Carefully and slowly Rachel descended. She gave no look around her. No one knew if she were conscious of her danger, which was becoming more and more imminent. Then came a smothered groan from all, all save the husband and the father. The flame had reached the beam,—it cracked—caught—the top of the ladder was wreathed with smoke and fire. Was there faltering in her step, or did the frail support fail beneath her weight? The half was past, but one-third to the ground remained; fiercer and fiercer the flames roared and rose above her, but yet there was hope. It failed, the beam gave way, the ladder fell, and Rachel and her child were precipitated to the ground. A heavy groan mingled with the wild shriek of horror which burst around. Perez rushed like a maniac forward; but louder, shriller above it all a cry resounded “Mother! mother! oh God, my mother! why was I not beside you, to save Ruth in your stead? Mother, speak; oh speak to me again!” And the father and son, each unconscious of the others presence, met beside what seemed the lifeless body of one to both so dear.

But Rachel was not dead, though fearfully injured; and it was in the long serious illness that followed, Reuben proved that despite his many faults and follies, affection was not all extinguished; love for his mother remained in its full force, and in his devotion to her, his almost woman’s tenderness, not only towards her, but towards his little sister Ruth, whose eyes had been so injured by the heat and smoke as to occasion total blindness, he demonstrated qualities only too likely so to gain a woman’s heart, as to shut her eyes to all other points of character save them.

A subscription had indeed been made for the sufferers by the fire, but they were so numerous, that the portion of individuals was of course but small; and even this Perez’ honest nature shrunk in suffering from accepting. Religious and energetic as he was, determined not to evince by word or sign how completely his spirit was crushed, and thus give the prejudiced of other faiths room to say, “the Jew has no resource, no comfort,” he yet felt that he himself would never be enabled to hold up his head again, felt it at the very moment friends and neighbours were congratulating him on the equanimity, the cheerfulness with which he met and bore up against affliction.

Yet even now, when the sceptic and unbeliever would have said, surely the God he has so faithfully served had deserted him, Perez felt he was not deserted, that he had not laboured honestly and religiously so long in vain. The wild and wayward conduct of the son could not, in candid and liberal minds, tarnish the character of the father; and thus he was enabled easily and pleasantly to obtain advantageous situations for his two elder children.

The dwelling to which we originally introduced our reader was then to let; and from its miserably dilapidated condition (for when Perez first saw it, it was not as we described), at a remarkably low rent. An influential friend made it habitable, and thither, some three months after the fire, the family removed.

And where was Sarah Levison in the midst of these changes and affliction? In their heavy trial, did Rachel and Perez never regret they had made her as their own? nor permit the murmuring thought to enter that, as the girl had a father, they had surely no need to support an additional burden? To such questions we think our readers will scarcely need an answer. As their own daughter Leah, they loved and cherished their niece, whose affection and gratitude towards them was yet stronger and more devoted than that of their own child, affectionate as she was. Leah had never known other than kind untiring parents, never, even in dreams, imagined the misery in which her cousin’s early years had passed. To Sarah, life had been a strange dark stream of grief and wrath, until she became an inmate of her uncle’s house. Though only just seventeen when these heavy sorrows took place, her peculiarly quiet and reflective character and strong affections endowed her with the experience of more advanced age. She not only felt, but acted. Entering into the feelings alike of her uncle and aunt, she unconsciously soothed and strengthened both. She taught Leah’s young and, from its high and joyous temperament, somewhat rebellious spirit, submission and self-control. She strengthened in the young Simeon the ardent desire to work, and not only assist his father now, but to raise him again to his former station in life. She found time to impart to the little Joseph such instruction as she thought might aid in gaining him employment. Untiringly, caressingly, she nursed both her aunt and the poor little patient sufferer Ruth, telling such sweet tales of heaven and its beautiful angels, and earth and its pleasant places, and kind deeds, that the child would forget her sorrow as she listened, and fancy the sweet music of that gentle voice had never seemed so sweet before; and while it spoke she could forget to wish to look once more on the flowers and trees and sky. And Reuben, what was his cousin Sarah not to him in these months of remorseful agony, when he felt as if he could never more displease or grieve his parents; when again and again he cursed himself as the real cause of his father’s ruin; for had not such large sums been wasted upon him, there might have been still capital enough to have set him afloat again? For several days and nights Sarah and Reuben had been joint-watchers beside the beds of suffering; and the gentle voice of the former consoled, even while to the divine comfort and hope which she proffered Reuben felt his heart was closed. He bade her speak on; he seemed, in those still silent hours, to feel that without her gentle influence his very senses must have wandered; and that heart must have been colder and harsher than Sarah’s which could have done other than believe she was not indifferent to him. Sarah did not think of many little proofs of affection at the time; she was only conscious that, at the very period heavy affliction had visited her uncle’s family, a new feeling, a new energy had awakened within her heart, and she was happy—oh, so happy!

It was to Sarah’s exertions their new dwelling owed the comfort, cleanliness, and almost luxury of its interior arrangements; her example inspired Leah to throw aside the proud disdain with which she at first regarded their new home—to conquer the rebellious feeling which prompted her to entreat her father to apprentice her anywhere, so she need not live so differently at home, and not only to conquer that sinful pride, but use her every energy to rouse her natural spirits, and make her parents forget how their lot was changed: and the girl did so; for, in spite of youthful follies, there was good solid sense and warm feelings on which to work.

Sarah and Leah, then, worked in the interior, and Perez and Simeon improved the exterior of the house, so that when the little family assembled, there was comfort and peace around them, and thus their song of praise and thanksgiving mingled with and hallowed the customary prayer, with which the son of Israel ever sanctifies his newly-appointed dwelling.

Rachel could no longer work as she had done; her right arm had been so severely injured as to be nearly useless, but Sarah supplied her place so actively, so happily, that Rachel felt she had no right to murmur at her own uselessness: the poor motherless girl she had taken to her heart and home returned tenfold all that had been bestowed. She could have entered into more than one lucrative situation, but she would not hear of leaving that home which she knew needed her presence and her services; and this was not the mere impulse of the moment—week after week, month after month, found her active, affectionate, persevering as at first.

The most painful circumstance in their present dwelling was its low neighbourhood; and partially to remedy this evil, Sarah prevailed on her uncle to employ his leisure in cultivating the little garden behind the house, making their sitting-room and kitchen open into it, and contriving an entrance through them, so as scarcely to use the front, except for ingress and egress which necessity compelled. This arrangement was productive of a twofold good; it prevented all gossiping intercourse, which their neighbours had done all they could to introduce, and gave Perez an occupation which interested him, although he might never have thought of it himself. Both local and national disadvantages often unite to debar the Jews from agriculture, and therefore it is a branch in which they are seldom, if ever, employed. Their scattered state among the nations, the occupations which misery and persecution compel them to adopt, are alone to blame for those peculiar characteristics which cause them to herd in the most miserable alleys of crowded cities, rather than the pure air and cheaper living of the country. Perez found pleasure and a degree of health in his new employment; the delight which it was to his poor little blind Ruth to sit by his side while he worked, and inhale the reviving scent of the newly-turned earth or budding flowers, would of itself have inspired him, but his wife too shared the enjoyment. It was a pleasure to her to take the twins by her side, and teach them their God was a God of love, alike through His inspired word and through His works; and Joseph and Ruth learned to love their new house better than their last, because it had a garden and flowers, and they learned from that much more than they had ever learned before.

For nine months all was cheerfulness and joy in that lowly dwelling. The heavy sorrow and disquiet had partially subsided. Reuben was more often at home, and seemed more steadily and honourably employed. Twice in six months he had poured his earnings in his mothers lap, and while he lingered caressingly by her side, how might she doubt or fear for him? though when absent, his non-attendance at the synagogue, his too evident indifference to his faith, his visible impatience at all its enjoyments, caused many an anxious hour. Simeon and Leah gave satisfaction to their employers, and Sarah earned sufficient to make her aunt’s compelled idleness of little consequence. Perez himself had been gladly received by his former master, as his principal journeyman, at excellent wages; and could he have felt less painfully the bitter change in his lot, all might have been well. Pride, however, was unhappily his heirloom, as well as that of Levison. With Perez it had always acted as a good spirit—with Levison as a bad; inciting the former to all honourable deeds and thoughts, and acting as religion’s best agent in guarding him from wrong. Now, however, it was to enact a different part. In vain his solid good sense argued misfortune was no shame, and that he was as high, in a moral point of view, as he had ever been. Equally vain was the milder, more consoling voice of religion, in assuring him a Father’s hand had sent the affliction, and therefore it was love; that he failed in submission if he could not bear up against it. In vain conscience told him, while she was at rest and glad, all outward things should be the same; that while his wife and children had been so mercifully preserved, thankfulness, not grief, should be his portion. Pride, that dark failing which will cling to Judaism, bore all other argument away, and crushed him. Had he complained or given way to temper, his health perhaps would not have been injured; but he was silent on his own griefs, even to his wife, for he knew their encouragement was wrong. There was no outward change in his appearance or physical power, and had he not been attacked by a cold and fever, occasioned by a very inclement winter, the wreck of his constitution might never have been discovered. But trifling as his ailments at first appeared, it was but too soon evident that he had no strength to rally from them. Gradually, yet surely, he sunk, and with a grief which, demonstrating itself in each according to their different characters, was equally violent in all, his afflicted family felt they dared not hope, the husband and the father was passing to his home above, and they would soon indeed be desolate.

It was verging towards the early spring, when one evening Perez lay on his lowly pallet surrounded by his family; his hand was clasped in that of his wife, whose eyes were fixed on him with a look of such deep love, it was scarcely possible to gaze on her without tears; the other rested lightly on the beautiful curls of his little Ruth, who, resting on a wooden stool close beside his bed, sometimes lifted up her sightless orbs, as if, in listening to the dear though now, alas! but too faint voice, she could see his beloved face once more. One alone was absent—one for whom the father yearned as the patriarch Jacob for his Joseph. Reuben had been sent by his employer to Manchester, and though it was more than time for him to return, and tidings of his father’s illness had been faithfully transmitted, he was still away. No one spoke of him, yet he was thought of by all; so little had his conduct alienated the affections of his family, that no one would utter aloud the wish for his presence, lest it should seem reproach; but the eyes of his mother, when they could turn from her husband, ever sought the door, and once, as an eager step seemed to approach, she had risen hastily and descended breathlessly, but it passed on, and she returned to her husband’s pallet with large tears stealing down her cheeks.

“Rachel, my own dear wife, do not weep thus; he will come yet,” whispered Perez, clasping her hands in both his; “and if he do not, oh, may God bless him still! Tell him there was no thought of anger or reproach within me. My firstborn, first beloved, beloved through all—for wayward, indifferent as he is, he is still my son—perhaps if he tarry till too late, remorse may work upon him for good, may awaken him to better thoughts, and if our God in His mercy detain him for this, we must not grieve that he is absent.”

For a moment he paused; then he added, mournfully, “I had hoped he would have supplied my place—would have been to you, my Rachel, to his brothers and sisters, all that a firstborn should; but it may not be. God’s will be done!”

“Oh, no, no; do not say it may not be, dear uncle! Think how young he is! Is there not hope still?” interposed Sarah, so earnestly, that the colour rose to her cheeks. “He will be here, I know he will, or the letter has not reached him. You cannot doubt his love; and whilst there is love, is there not, must there not be hope?”

The dying man looked on her with a faint, sad smile. “I do not doubt his love, my child; but oh, if he love not his God, his love for a mortal will not keep him from the evil path. His youth is but a vain plea, my Sarah; if he see not his duty as a son and brother in Israel now, when may we hope he will? but you are right in bidding me not despond. He is my heaviest care in death; but my God can lighten even that.”

“Death,” sobbed Leah, suddenly flinging herself on her knees beside the bed and covering her father’s hand with tears and kisses, “death! Father, dear, dear father, do not say that dreadful word! You will live, you must live—God will not take you from us!”

“My child, call not death a dreadful word, it is only such to the evil doers, to the proud and wicked men, of whom David tells us, ‘They shall not stand in the judgment, nor enter the congregation of the righteous, but shall be as chaff which the wind driveth away.’ For them death is fearful, for it is an end of all things; but not to me is it thus, my beloved ones. I have sought to love and serve my God in health and life, and His deep love and fathomless mercy is guiding me now, holding me up here through the dark shadows of death. His compassion is upon my soul whispering my sins are all forgiven, that he has called me unto Him in love, and not in wrath. There was a time I feared and trembled at the bare dream of death; but now, oh, it seems but as the herald of joy, of bliss which will never, never change. My children, think that I go to God, and do not grieve for me.”

“If not for you, my father, chide us not that we weep for ourselves,” answered Simeon, struggling with the rising sob; “what have you not been to all of us? and how may we bear to feel that to us you are lost for ever, that the voice whose accents of love never failed to thrill our hearts with joy, and when in reproach ever brought the most obdurate in repentant sorrow to your feet, that dear, dear voice we may never—” he could not go on for his own voice was choked.

“My boy, we shall all meet again; follow on in that path of good in which I have humbly sought to lead you; forget not your God, and the duties of your faith; obey those commands and behests which to Israel are enjoined; never forget that, as children of Israel, ye are the firstborn and beloved of the Lord; serve Him, trust Him, wait for Him, and oh, believe the words of the dying! We shall meet again never more to part. I do but go before you, my beloved ones, and you will come to me; there are many homes in heaven where the loved of the Lord shall meet.”

“And I and Ruth—father, dear father, how may we so love the Lord, as to be so loved by him?” tearfully inquired the young Joseph, drawing back the curtain at the head of the bed, which had before concealed him, for he did not like his father to see his tears. “Does he look upon us with the same love as upon you, who have served him so faithfully and well? Oh, what would I not do, that I may look upon death as you do, and feel that I may come to you in heaven, written amongst those He loves.”

“And our God does love you, my little Joseph, child as you are, or you would not think and wish this; my works are not more in His sight than yours. Miserable indeed should I now be, if I had trusted in them alone for my salvation and comfort now. No, my sweet boy, you must not look to deeds alone; study the word of your God to know and love Him, and then will you obey His commandments and statutes with rejoicing, and glory that He has given you tests by which you may prove the love you bear Him: and in death, though the imperfection and insufficiency of your best deeds be then revealed, you will feel and know you have not loved your God in vain. His infinite mercy will purify and pardon.”

His voice sunk from exhaustion; and Rachel, bending over him to wipe the moisture from his brow, tenderly entreated him not to speak any more then, despite the comfort of his simplest word.

“It will not hurt me, love,” he answered, fondly, after a pause. “I bless God that He permits me thus to speak, before I pass from earth for ever. When we meet again, there will be no need for me to bid my children to know and love the Lord; for we shall all know Him, from the smallest to the greatest of us. But to you, my own faithful wife, oh, what shall I say to you in this sad moment? I can but give you to His care, the God of the widow and the fatherless, and feel and know He will not leave you nor forsake you, but bless you with exceeding blessing. And in that heavy care—which, alas! I must leave you to bear alone—care for our precious Reuben, oh, my beloved wife, remember those treasured words, which were our mutual strength and comfort, when we laboured in our youth. How well do I remember that blessed evening, when we first spoke our love, and in our momentary despondence that long years must pass ere we could hope for our union, we opened the hallowed word of God, and could only see this verse: ‘Commit thy ways unto the Lord, trust also in him and he will bring it to pass.’ And did He not bring it to pass, dear wife? Did He not bless our efforts, and oh, will He not still? Yes, trust in Him; commit our Reuben unto Him, and all shall yet be well!”

“Yes, yes, I know it will; but oh, my husband, pray for me, that I may realize this blessed trust when you are gone. You have been my support, my aid, till now, cheering my despondence, soothing my fears; and now—”

“Rachel, my own wife, I have not been to you more than you have to me; it is our God who has been to us more—oh, how much more!—than we have been to each other, and He is with you still. He will heal the wound His love inflicts. But for our erring, yet our much-loved boy, I need not bid you love him, forgive him to the end—and his brothers and sisters. Oh, listen to me, my children.” He half-raised himself in the energy of his supplication. “Promise me but this, throw him not off from your love, your kindness, however he may turn aside, however he may fall; even if that fearful indifference increase, and in faith he scarcely seems your brother, my children, my blessed children, oh, love him still. Seek by kindness and affection to bring him back to his deserted fold. Promise me to love him, to bear with him; forget not that he is your brother, even to the last. Many a wanderer would return if love welcomed him back, many a one who will not bear reproach. Do not cast him from your hearts, my children, for your dead father’s sake.”

“Father, father, can you doubt us?” burst at once from all, and rising from their varied postures, they joined hands around him. “Love him! yes. However he may forget and desert us, he is still our brother and your son. We will love him, bear with him. Oh, do not fear us, father. There needed not this promise, but we will give it. We will never cease to love him.”

“Bless you, my children,” murmured the exhausted man, as he sunk back. “Sarah, you have not spoken. Are you not our child?”

She flung down her work and darted to his side. She struggled to speak, but no words came, and throwing her arms round his neck, she fixed on his face one long, piercing look, and burst into passionate tears.

“It is enough, my child. I need not bid you love him,” whispered Perez, so as to be heard only by her. “Would you were indeed our own; there would be less grief in store.”

“And am I not your own?” she answered, disregarding his last words, which seemed, however, to have restored her to calmness. “Have you not been to me a true and tender father, and my aunt as kind a mother? Whose am I if I am not yours? Where shall I find another such home?”

“Yet you have a father, my gentle girl; one whom I have lately feared would claim you, because they told me he was once more a wealthy man. And if he should, if he would offer you the rest and comfort of competence, why should you labour throughout your young years for us? If he be rich, he surely will not forget he has a child, and therefore claim you.”

“He has done so,” replied Sarah, calmly, regardless of the various intonations of surprise in which her words were repeated. “My father did write for me to join him. He told me he was rich; would make me cease entirely from labour, and many similar kind offers.”

“And you refused them! Sarah, my dear child, why have you done this?”

“Why,” she repeated, pressing the trembling hand her aunt held out to her between both hers; “why, because now, only now, can I even in part return all you have done for me; because I cannot live apart from all whom I so love. I cannot exchange for short-lived riches all that makes life dear. Had my father sent for me in sickness or in woe, I should fly to him without an hour’s pause. But it is he who is in affluence, in peace; and you, my best, kindest friends, in sorrow. No, no; my duty was to stay with you, to work for you, to love you; and I wrote to beseech his permission to remain, even if it were still to labour. I did not feel it labour when with you; and I have permission. I am still your child; he will not take me from you.”

“God’s blessing be upon him!” murmured Rachel, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom.

A pause of deep emotion fell upon the group. Perez drew her faintly to him, and kissed her cheek; then saying he felt exhausted, and should wish to be left alone a brief while, Sarah led the twins away, and, followed by Leah, softly left the apartment. Simeon and his mother still remained beside his couch.

The night passed quietly. Sarah put the twins to bed, and persuaded Leah to follow their example, and, exhausted by sorrow, she was soon asleep, leaving Sarah to watch and pray alone; and the poor girl did pray, and think and weep, till it seemed strange the night could so soon pass, and morning smile again. She had not told that permission to remain with her aunt had been scornfully and painfully given; that her father had derided her, as mean-spirited and degraded; that as she had chosen to remain with her poor relations, she was no longer his daughter. Nor did she pray and weep for the dying, or for those around him. One alone was in that heart! Why was he not there at such a moment? and she shuddered as she pictured the violence of the self-accusing agony which would be upon him when he discovered he had lingered until too late. Hour after hour passed, and there was no footstep. She thought the chimes must have rung too near each other; for as one struck, she believed he must be at home ere it struck another, and yet he came not: she watched in vain.

Day dawned, and as light gleamed in upon the dying, there was a change upon his face. He had not suffered throughout the night, seeming to sleep at intervals, and then lay calmly without speaking; but as the day gradually brightened, he reopened his eyes and looked towards the richly glowing east.

“Another sun!” he said, in a changed and hollow voice. “Blessed be the God who sets him in the heavens, strong and rejoicing as a young man to run a race: my race is over—my light will pass before his. I prayed one night’s delay, but still he does not come; and now it will soon be over. Rachel, my true wife, call the children; let me bless them each once more.”

They were called, and, awestruck even to silence at the fearful change in that loved face, they one by one drew near and bowed down their bright heads before him. Faintly yet distinctly, he spoke a blessing upon each; then murmured, “The God of my Fathers bless you all, all as you love Him and each other. Never deny him: acknowledge Him as One! Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God, the Lord is one!”

The words were repeated in tears and sobs by all; he fell back, and they thought his spirit gone. Minutes rolled by, and then there was a rapid step without; it neared the door, one moment paused, and entered.

“My son, my son! O God, I thank thee! Reuben, my firstborn, in time, I bless, bless—” the words were lost in a fearful gurgling sound, but the father’s arms were flung wildly, strongly round the son, who, with bitter tears, had thrown himself upon his neck—and there was silence.

“Father! oh, my father, speak—bless, forgive me!” at length Reuben wildly exclaimed, breaking from that convulsive hold to sink as a penitent upon the earth. He spoke in vain; the spirit had lingered to gaze once more upon the firstborn of his love, then fled from earth for ever.

CHAPTER II.

It is two years after the mournful event recorded in our last chapter that we recommence our simple narrative. When time and prayer had softened the first deep affliction, the widow and her family indeed proved the fulfilment of that blessed promise, “Leave thy fatherless children to me, and I will keep them alive, and let thy widows trust in me;” for they prospered and were happy. Affliction, either of failing health in those compelled to labour, or in want of employment, was kept far from them. The widow, indeed, herself often suffered; but she thanked God, in the midst even of pain, as she compared the blessings of her lot with those of others. Little Ruth, too, from her affliction and very delicate health, was often an object of anxiety; but so tenderly was she beloved, that anxiety was scarcely pain in the delight her presence ever caused. Sweet-tempered, loving, and joyous, with a voice of song like a bird’s, and a laugh of child-like glee, and yet such strong affections, such deep reverence for all things holy, that who might grieve for her afflictions when she was so happy, so gratified herself? She was the star of that lowly little dwelling, for sorrow, or discord, or care could not come near her.

Joseph, her twin brother, had attracted the notice of a respectable jeweller, who, though he could not take the boy into his house as a regular apprentice till he was thirteen, not only employed him several hours in the day in cleaning jewels, etc., but allowed him small wages—an act of real benevolence, felt by the widow as an especial blessing, rendered perhaps the dearer from the fact that it was the high character her husband had borne which gave his youngest son so responsible an office, intrusted as it was to none but the strictly honest.

Simeon, now nearly seventeen, was with the same watchmaker who had formerly brought forward his father. It was not a trade he liked; nay, the delicate machinery required was peculiarly annoying to him, but it was the only opening for him, and he conquered his disinclination. He had long since made a vow to use his every effort to restore his parents to the comfortable estate from which they had unfortunately fallen, and no thought of himself or his own wishes should interfere with its accomplishment. Persevering and resolute, he took a good heart with him to the business; and though his first attempts were awkward, and the laughter of his companions most discouraging, the praise of his master and his own conscience urged him on, and before the two years which we have passed over had elapsed, he had conquered every difficulty, and promised in time to be quite as good a workman as his father.

The extent of suffering which his father’s death had been to him no one knew, but he had felt at first as if he could not rouse himself again. It was useless to struggle on; for the beloved parent, for whose sake he had made this solemn vow, was gone for ever. His mother indeed was spared him; but much as he loved and reverenced her, his father had been, if possible, first in his affections. Perhaps it was that his own feelings, his own character, gave him a clue to all that his father had done and endured. He had all his honesty and honour, all his energy, and love for his ancient faith. One difference there was: Perez could bear with, nay, love all mankind—could find excuse for the erring, even for the apostate, much as he abhorred the deed; could believe in the sincerity and piety of others, though their faith differed from his own; but Simeon could not feel this. Often, even in his childhood, his father had to reprove him for prejudice; and as he grew older, his hatred against all those who left the faith, or united themselves in any way with other than Israelites, continued violent. Prejudice is almost the only feeling which reason cannot conquer—religion may, and Simeon was truly and sincerely religious; but he loved his faith better than he loved his God. He would have started and denied it, had any one told him so, and declared it was impossible—one feeling could not be distinct or divided from the other; yet so it was. An earnest and heartfelt love of God can never permit an emotion so violent as hatred to any of God’s creatures. It is no test of our own sincerity to condemn or disbelieve in that of others; and those who do—who prejudiced and violent against all who differ from them—may be, no doubt are, sincerely religious and well intentioned, but they love their faith better than they love their God.

These peculiar feelings occasioned a degree of coldness in Simeon’s sentiments towards his brother Reuben, of whom we have little more to say than we know already.

The death of his father was indeed a fearful shock; yet, from a few words which fell from him during some of his interviews with Sarah, she fancied that he almost rejoiced that he was bound by no promise to the dying. In the midst of repentant agony that he had arrived too late for his parent’s blessing, he would break off with a half shudder, and mutter, “If he had spoken that, he might have spoken more, and I could not have disobeyed him on his death-bed. Whatever he bade me promise I must have promised; and then, then, after a few brief months, been perjured. Oh, my father, my father! why is it my fate to be the wretch I am?”

This grief was violent, but it did not produce the good effect which his parents had so fondly hoped. Even in the days of mourning, it was evident that the peculiar forms which his faith enjoined, as the son of the deceased, chafed and irritated him; and had it not been for the deep, silent suffering of his mother, which he could not bear to increase, he would have neglected them altogether. When he mixed with the world again, he followed his own course and his own will, scarcely ever mixing with those of his own race, but seeking, and at last finding employment with the stranger. He had excellent abilities; and from his having received a better education than most youths of his race, obtained at length a lucrative situation in an establishment which, trading to many different parts of the British Isles, often required an active agent to travel for them. His peculiar creed had been at first against him; but when his abilities were put to the proof, and it was discovered he was in truth only nominally a Jew, that he cared not to sacrifice the Sabbath, and that no part of his religion was permitted to interfere with his employments, his services were accepted and well paid.

Had then Reuben Perez, the beloved and cherished son of such good and pious parents, indeed deserted the religion of his forefathers? Not in semblance, for there were times when he still visited the synagogue; and as he did so, he was by many still conceived a good Jew. The flagrant follies of his youth had subsided; he was no longer wild, wavering, and extravagant. Not a word could be spoken against his moral principles; his public, even his domestic conduct was unexceptionable, and therefore he bore a high character in the estimation alike of the Jewish and Christian world. What cause had his mother, then, for the grief and pain which swelled her heart almost to bursting, when she thought upon her firstborn? Alas! it was because she felt there was One who saw deeper than the world—One, between whom and himself Reuben had raised up a dark barrier of wrath—One who loved him, erring and sinful as he was, with an immeasurable love, but whose deep love was rejected and abused—even his God, that God who had been the Saviour of his forefathers through so many thousand ages. The mother would have preferred seeing him poor, dependent, obtaining but his daily bread, yet faithful to his faith and to his God, than prosperous, courted, and an alien.

The brothers seldom met, and therefore Simeon was ignorant how powerfully coldness was creeping over his affections for Reuben; how, in violently condemning his indifference and union with the stranger, he was rendering the observance of his promise to his dying father (to bear with and love his brother) a matter of difficulty and pain. Faithful and earnest himself, he could not understand a want of earnestness and fidelity in others. But, however the world might flatter and appear to honour his exemplary moral conduct, one truth it is our duty to record—Reuben was not happy. It was not the mere fancy of his mother and cousin, it was truth; they knew not wherefore—for if he neglected and contemned his religion, he could scarcely feel the want of it—but that he was unhappy, perhaps was the secret cause which held the love of his mother and Sarah so immovably enchained, bidding them hope sometimes in the very midst of gloom.

Of the female members of Perez’ family we have little to remark. Leah’s good conduct had not only made her the favourite of her mistress, but her liveliness and happy temper had actually triumphed over the sometimes harsh disposition she had at first to encounter. There was no withstanding her good humour. She had the happy knack of making people good friends with themselves, as well as with each other, and was so happy herself, that, except when she thought of her dear father, and wished that he could but see her and hear her sing over her work, sorrow was unknown. Every Friday evening she went home to remain till the Sunday morning, and that was superlative enjoyment, not only to herself, for her mother looked to the visit of her merry, affectionate daughter as a source of pure feeling, delight, and recreation.

In Sarah there was no change. Still pensive, modest, and industrious, she continued quietly to retain the most devoted affections of her relatives, and the goodwill and respect of her employers. Of her own individual feelings we must not now speak, save to say that few even of her domestic circle imagined how strong and deep was the under-current of character which her quiet mien concealed.

It was the evening of the Sabbath, and the widow and her daughters were assembled in their pretty little parlour. Simeon and Joseph were not yet returned from synagogue. Reuben, alas! was seldom there on the Sabbath eve. The table was covered with a cloth, which, though not of the finest description, was white as the driven snow; and the Sabbath lamp was lighted, for in their greatest poverty this ceremony had never been omitted. When they had no lamp, and could not have afforded oil, they burnt a wax candle, frequently depriving themselves of some week-day necessary to procure this indulgence. The first earnings of Sarah, Leah, and Simeon had been used to repurchase the ancient Sabbath lamp, the heirloom in their family for many generations. It was silver and very antique, and by a strange chance had escaped the fire, which rendered perhaps the sale of it the more painful to Perez. His gratification on beholding it again had amply repaid his affectionate children. Never being used but on Sabbaths, it seemed to partake of the sanctity of that holy day.

Bread and salt were also upon the table, and the large Bible and its attendant prayer-books there also, open, as if they had just been used. Ruth had plucked some sweet flowers just before Sabbath, and arranged them tastefully in a china cup, and Leah had playfully removed a sprig of rosebuds and wreathed it in the long glossy curls which hung round Ruth’s sweet face and over her shoulders. The dresses of all were neat and clean, for they loved to make a distinction between the seventh day and the six days of labour.

“If we were about to pass a day in the presence of an earthly sovereign, my dear children,” the widow had often been wont to say, “should we not deserve to be excluded if we appeared rudely and slovenly and dirtily attired? You think we could not possibly do so; it would not only be such marked disrespect, but we should not be admitted. How, then, dare we seek the presence of our heavenly sovereign in such rude and sinful disarray? The seventh day is His day. He calls upon us to throw aside all worldly thoughts and cares, and come to Him, and give our thoughts and hearts to His holy service. If an earthly king so called us, how anxious should we be to accept the invitation—shall we do less for God?”

“But, dear mother,” Leah would answer, “will God regard that? Is He not too holy, too far removed from us, too pure to mark such little things?”

“Nothing is too small for Him to remark, if done in love and faith, my child. The heart anxious to mark the Sabbath by increase of cleanliness and neatness in personal attire, as well as household arrangements, must conceive it God’s own day, and observing it as such will receive His blessing. It is not the act of dressing or the dress He observes. He only marks it as a proof His holy day is welcomed with love and rejoicing, as He commanded; and the smallest offering of OBEDIENCE is acceptable to Him.”

“But I have heard you remark with regret, mother, that some of our neighbours are dressed so very smart on Sabbath. If it be to mark the holy difference between that day and the others, why should you regret it?”

“Because, love, there ought to be moderation in all things, and when I see very smart showy dresses, which, if not in material, in appearance are much too fine and smart for our station, I fear it is less a religious than a worldly feeling which dictates them. Have you not noticed that those who dress so gaily generally spend their Sabbath in walking about the streets and exchanging visits, conversing, of course, on the most frivolous topics? I do not think this the proper method of spending our Sabbath day, and therefore I regret to see them devote so much time and thought on mere outward decoration, which is so widely different from obedience to their God.”

Leah thought of this little conversation many times. From thoughtlessness and dislike to trouble, she had hitherto been rather negligent than otherwise in her dress; then going to a contrary extreme, felt very much inclined to imitate some young companions in their finery. Her mother’s word saved her from the one, and their subsequent misfortunes effectually from the other, as all her earnings were hoarded for one holy purpose, simply to assist her parents; and she would have thought it sacrilege to have spent any portion on herself, except on things which she absolutely needed. But so neat and clean was she invariably in her dress, that her mistress always sent her to receive orders, and, trifling as appearance may seem, it repeatedly gained customers.

“They are coming—I hear their footsteps,” said the little Ruth, springing up to open the parlour door. “Oh! I do so love the Sabbath eve, for it brings us all together again so happily.”

“Is it only Simeon and Joseph, my child?” inquired the widow, mournfully; for there was one expectation on her heart and that of Sarah, which, alas! was seldom to be fulfilled.

Ruth listened attentively.

“Only they, mother!” she said, checking her voice of glee, and returning to her mother’s side, for she knew the cause of that saddened tone, and she laid her little head caressingly on her mother’s breast.

Simeon and Joseph at that moment entered, and each advancing, bent lowly before their mother, who, laying her hand upon each dear head, blessed them in a voice faltering from its emotion, and kissed them both. The kiss of love and peace went round, and gaily the brothers and sisters drew round the table, which Sarah’s provident love speedily covered with the welcome evening meal. The happy laugh and affectionate interchange of the individual cares and pleasures, vexations and enjoyments of the past week, occupied them delightfully during tea. Sarah had to tell of a new kind of work which had diversified her usual employment, and been most successful; a kind of wadded slipper, which, after many trials, she had completed to her satisfaction, in the intervals of other work; and which not only sold well, but gave her dear aunt an occupation which she could accomplish without pain, in wadding and binding the silk. Leah told of a pretty dress and bonnet which her mistress had presented to her, in token of her approbation of her steadiness in refusing to accompany her companions to some place of amusement, which, from its respectability being doubted, she knew her mother would not approve; and, by staying at home, enabled Mrs. Magnus to finish an expensive order a day sooner than had been expected, and so gained her a new and wealthy customer.

“Dearest mother, you told me how to resist temptation even in trifles,” continued the affectionate girl, with tears of feeling in her bright dark eyes. “You taught me from my earliest childhood there was purer and more lasting pleasure in conquering my own wishes than any doubtful recreation could bestow; and that in that inward pleasure our heavenly Father’s approval was made manifest. And so, you see, though you were not near me and I could not, as I wished, ask your advice and permission, it was you who enabled me to conquer myself, and resist this temptation. I did want to go, and felt very, very lonely when all went; but when Mrs. Magnus thanked me for enabling her to give so much satisfaction, and said I had gained her a new customer, oh, no circus or play could have given me such happiness as that; and it was all through you, mother, and so I told her.”

The happy mother smiled on her animated girl; but her heart did not glorify itself, it thanked God that her early efforts had been so blessed. “And Ruth!” some of our readers may exclaim, “poor blind Ruth, what can she have to say?” And we answer, happy little Ruth had much of industry and enjoyment to dilate on. The straw she had plaited, the hymns she had learnt through Sarah’s kindly teaching, the dead leaves she had plucked from the shrubs and flowers, for so delicate had her sense of touch become, she could follow this occupation in perfect security to the plants, distinguishing the dead and dying from the perfect leaves at a touch. Then she told of a poor little orphan beggar girl, whom Sarah had one day brought in cold and crying, because she had been begging all day and had received nothing, and she knew she should be beaten when she went home; and how she had said she hated begging; but she could do nothing else; and little Ruth had asked her if she would like to sell flowers; and poor Mary had told her she should like it very very much, but she could not get any. She knew no one who would let her take them from the garden. How she (Ruth) had promised to make her some little nosegays, and Sarah and her mother said they would make her some little nick-nacks, pincushions, and housewives to put with her flowers.

“Ah, we made her so happy!” continued the child, clasping her little hands in delight. “Mother gave her some of my old things, which were quite good to her, and it is quite a pleasure to me to make her nosegays, and feel they give her a few pence better than begging; and Sarah is going to try if I can make her some little fancy things when winter comes. You know I am quite rich to her, for God has given me a home, and such a kind mother, and dear brothers and sisters, and she has neither home nor mother, nor any one to love her. Poor, poor Mary! and then, too, some say the Christians do not like the Jews, and I know she will and does like us, and she may make others of her people like us too.”

“Ruth,” said her brother Simeon, in a very strange husky voice, “Ruth, darling, come here and kiss me. I wish you would make me as good as you.”

“As good!” exclaimed the child, springing on his knee, and throwing her arms round his neck; “dear naughty Simeon, to say such a thing. How much more you can do than I. Do you not work so very much, that dear mother sometimes fears for your health? and it is all for us, to help to support us, mother and me, because we cannot work for ourselves. Ah, I am blind, and can only do little things, and try to make every one happy, that they may love me; but I am only a little girl; I cannot be as good as you.”

“Ruth, darling, I could not do as you have done. I cannot love and serve those who hate and persecute us as Israelites.”

“They do not persecute us now, brother. Sarah told me sad tales of what we suffered once; but God was angry with us then, and he made the nations punish us. But now, if they still dislike us we ought not to dislike them, but do all we can to make them love us.”

Simeon bent his head upon his sister’s; her artless words had rebuked and shamed him. But prejudice might not even then be overcome. He knew she was right and he was wrong, so he would not answer, glad to hear Leah gaily demand a history of his weekly proceedings, as he had not yet spoken. He had little to relate, except that he was now beginning really to understand his business. His master had said that he should soon be obliged to raise his salary; and, what was a real source of happiness, from the care and quickness with which he now accomplished his tasks, he found time for his favourite amusement of modelling, which circumstances had compelled him so long to neglect. Joseph had to tell of similar kindness on the part of his master and industry on his own. He told, too, with great glee, that Mr. Bennet had promised to give him some lessons in the evenings, in the language which of all others he wished most particularly to understand. He knew many were satisfied merely to read their prayers in Hebrew, whether they understood them or not, but he wished to understand it thoroughly, and all the time he was cleaning jewels, for he was now quite expert, he thought over what his master had so kindly taught him; perhaps one day he might be able to know Hebrew thoroughly himself, and oh, what a delight that would be!

By the time Joseph had finished his tale, the table had been cleared; and then the widow opened the large Bible, and after fervently blessing God for His mercy in permitting them all to see the close of another week in health and peace, read aloud a chapter and psalm. Varied as were the characters and wishes of all present, every heart united in reverence and love towards this weekly service—in, if possible, increased devotion towards that beloved parent, who so faithfully endeavoured to support not alone her own duties towards her offspring, but those of their departed father. She had not lost those hours and days, aye, and sometimes long weeks of suffering, with which it had pleased God to afflict her. When confined to her bed, the Bible had been her sole companion, and she so communed with it and her own heart, that many passages, which had before been veiled, were now made clear and light, and her constant prayer for wisdom and religion to lead her offspring in its paths of pleasantness and peace granted to the full. Yet Rachel was no great scholar. Let it not be imagined amongst those who read this little tale, that she was unusually gifted. She was indeed so far gifted that she had a trusting spirit and a most humble and child-like mind, and of worldly ways was most entirely ignorant; and it was these feelings which kept her so persevering in the path of duty, and, leading her to the footstool of her God, gave her the strength of wisdom that she needed; and to every mother in Israel these powers are given.

“Well, my dear children, to whom must I look for the text which is to occupy us this evening?” said the widow, glancing affectionately round as she ceased to read.

“To me and Ruth, mother; for you know we always think together,” answered Joseph, eagerly. “And you don’t know how we have both been longing for this evening, for the verse we have chosen has made us think so much, and with all our thinking, we cannot quite satisfy ourselves.”

“But what is it, my boy?”

“It is the one our dear father repeated on his death-bed, mother. I have often thought of it since, but feared it would make you sorrowful, if we spoke of it for the first year or two; but as I found Ruth had thought of it and wished it explained also, we said we would ask you to talk about it to-night. You repeat it, Ruth; you pronounce the Hebrew so prettily!”

And timidly, but sweetly, Ruth said, first in Hebrew and then in English, “‘Commit your ways unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.’ Ways,” continued the child, “was the word which first puzzled us, but Sarah has explained it to me so plainly, I understand it better now.”

“Tell us then, Sarah dear,” said her aunt.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that the word ways has many meanings. In the verse, ‘Show me thy ways, O Lord,’ I think it means actions. In another verse, ‘The Lord made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel,’ I think ways mean thoughts!”

“And there are several in Proverbs,” interposed Simeon, “which would make us regard ways as the path we are to tread; as for instance, ‘Who leaveth the path of righteousness, to walk in the ways of darkness.’”

“But Ruth and I want to know in which of these ways we are to regard it in our verse,” persisted Joseph.

“As meaning both outward actions and inward thoughts, my dear children,” replied his mother. “I have thought long on this verse, and I am glad you have chosen it for discussion. Perhaps you do not know, my little Joseph, that we must think to act; that it is very seldom any good or bad action is performed without previous thought; and, consequently, if we would be pure in act, we must commit our thoughts unto the Lord.”

“But how are we to do this, mother?” asked Leah.

“By constant prayer, my love; by endeavouring, wherever we are, or whatever we may be doing, to remember God knows our every thought before it has words, and long before it becomes action. We are apt, perhaps, to indulge in the wildest thoughts, simply because we imagine ourselves secure from all observation. From human observation we are secure, but not from our Father who is in heaven; and therefore we should endeavour so to train our thoughts as to banish all which we dare not commit unto our God.”

“But are there not some things, dear aunt, too trivial, too much mingled with earthly feelings, to bring before a Being of such ineffable holiness and purity?” inquired Sarah, in a voice which, notwithstanding all her efforts, audibly faltered.

“Ah, that is what I want so much to know,” added Joseph.

“You must not forget, my dear Sarah,” resumed Mrs. Perez, “that our God is a God of love and compassion, as infinite as His holiness; that every throb of pain or joy in the creature His love has formed, is felt as well as ordained by Him. No nation has a God so near to them as Israel; and we, of all others, ought to derive and realize comfort from the belief that He knows our nature in its strivings after righteousness, as well as in its sin. He knows all our temptations, all our struggles, far better than our dearest earthly friends, and His loving mercy towards us is infinitely stronger. Therefore we can better commit our secret thoughts and feelings unto His keeping, than to that of our nearest friends on earth.”

“And may children do this, mother?”

“Yes, dear boy; our Father has children in His tender care and guiding, even as those of more experienced age. Accustom yourselves, while engaged in thought, to ask, ‘Can I ask my Father’s blessing on these thoughts, and on the actions they lead to?’ and rest assured conscience will give you a true answer. If it say, ‘No,’ dismiss the trifling or sinful meditations on the instant; send up a brief prayer to God for help, and He will hear you. If, on the contrary, conscience approve your thought, encourage it, as leading you nearer, closer, and more lovingly to God.”

“But is not this close communion more necessary for women than for men, mother?” inquired Simeon.

“Women may need it more, my dear boy; but, believe me, it is equally, if not more necessary for man. Think of the many temptations to evil which men have in their intercourse with the world; the daily, almost hourly call for the conquest of inclination and passion, which, without some very strong incentive, can never be subdued. One unguarded moment, and the labour of years after righteousness may be annihilated. Man may not need the comfort of this close communion so much as women, but he yet more requires its strength. Nothing is so likely to keep him from sin, as committing his thoughts even as his actions unto the Lord.”

“Thank you, my dear mother; that first bit is clear,” said Joseph. “Now I want the second: the third is the most puzzling of all, but we shall come to that by and bye.”

“You surely know what it means by to ‘trust in Him,’ Joseph?” said Leah.

“I think I do, sister mine, for it was mother’s humble trust in the Lord that supported her in her sorrows: that I saw, I felt, though I was a child; but—” he hesitated.

“Well, my boy?”

“To trust, I think, means to have faith. Now, Henry Stevens said the other day, Jews have no faith—and how can we trust, then?”

“My dearest Joseph, do not let your companions so mislead you,” answered his mother, earnestly. “I know that is a charge often brought against us; but it is always from those who do not know our religion, and who judge us only from those who, by their words and actions, condemn it themselves. The Jew must have faith, not only in the existence of God, but in the sacred history our God inspired, or he is no Jew. He must feel faith—believe God hears and will answer, or his prayers, however fervent, are of no avail. Without faith, his very existence must be an enigma, and his whole life misery. Oh, believe me, my dear children, as no nation has God so near them, so no nation has so much need of faith, and no nation has so experienced the strength, and peace, and fulness which it brings.”

“But how does our verse mean that we are to trust in the Lord, mother?” asked Ruth.

“It belongs both to the first and last division of the verse, my love. If we commit our ways unto the Lord, and trust also in Him (remember one is of no avail without the other), then He will bring it to pass.”

“Ah! that is it. I am so glad we have come to that,” eagerly exclaimed Joseph. “Mother, does it mean, can it mean that our Father will grant our prayers, will give us what we most wish?”

“If it be for our good, my boy; if our wishes be acceptable in His sight; if they will tend to our eternal as well as our temporal welfare; and we bring them before Him in unfailing confidence, believing firmly that He will answer in His own good time—we may rest assured that He will answer us, that He will grant our prayers.”

“But that which is for our good may not be what we most wish for,” resumed Joseph, despondingly.

“But, my boy, if what we wish for is not for our good, is it not more merciful and kind to deny than to grant it? Remember, God knows us better than we know ourselves; and we may ask what would lead us to evil temporally and eternally. If, for a wise and merciful purpose, even our good desires are not granted, be assured that peace, strength, and healing will be given in their stead.”

The little circle looked very thoughtful as the impressive voice of the widow ceased.

Sarah seemed more than usually moved; for, as she bent over her little Bible, which she had opened at the verse, tears one by one fell silently upon the page. Whether Ruth heard them drop, or from her seat close by her cousin felt that the hand she caressingly held trembled, we know not, but the child rose and threw her little arms around her neck.

“Do you remember who it was wrote the verse we are considering?” said the widow, after a pause.

“King David,” answered Joseph and Simeon together.

“Then you see it was no prosperous monarch, no peaceful lawgiver, but one whose life had passed in trials, compared to which our severest misfortunes must seem trifling. Hunted from place to place, in daily danger of his life, compelled even to feign madness, separated from all whom he loved, from all of happiness or peace, even debarred from the public exercise of his faith, his very prayers at times seemingly unheeded—yet it is this faithful servant of God who exclaims, ‘Commit your ways unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.’ We know not the exact time he wrote these words; but we know he wrote from experience, for did not God indeed bring happiness to pass for him? If we think of the life of him who wrote these blessed words, as well as the words themselves, we must derive strength and comfort from the reflection.”

“Yes, yes; I see and feel it all now,” exclaimed Joseph, eagerly as before. “Oh, mother, I can think about it now without any puzzling at all. I am so glad. Cannot you, Ruth?”

“Hush!” answered the child, as she suddenly started up in an attitude of attentive listening. “Hush! I am sure that is Reuben’s step: he is coming, he is coming. Oh, what joy for me!”

“You are wrong, dear; and it only disappoints mother,” said Leah, gently.

“No, no! I know I am not. There listen; do you not hear steps now?”

“Yes: but how can you be sure they are his?” answered Simeon. “It is so very unlikely, I should have thought of everybody else first?”

Ruth made no answer; but she bounded from the room, and had opened the street-door, regardless of Leah’s entreaties to wait at least till the steps came nearer. A very few minutes more, and all doubts were solved by the entrance of Ruth, not walking, but clinging round her brother Reuben’s neck and almost stifling him with kisses, only interrupting herself to say, “Who was right, Miss Leah and Master Simeon? Ah, you did not have Reuben for long weeks to attend and nurse, as I had, or you would have known his step too.”

“You can love me still, then?” murmured her brother, as only to be heard by her; then added aloud, “my mother should have had the first kiss, dearest; let me ask her blessing, Ruth?”

She released him, though she still held his hand; and hastening to his mother, he bent his head before her.

“Is it too late to ask my mother’s Sabbath blessing?” he said, and his voice was strangely choked. “Bless me, dearest mother, as you used to do.”

The widow rose and, laying her hands upon his head, repeated the customary Hebrew blessing, and then folded him to her heart.

“It is never, never too late for a mother’s blessing—a mother’s love, my Reuben,” she said, her voice quivering with the efforts she made to restrain her emotion. “I could have wished it oftener and earlier asked on the Sabbath eve; but it is yours, my boy, each night and morning, though you hear it not.”

“And will it always be? Mother! mother! will you never withdraw it from me? No, no, you will not. You love me only too, too well,” and abruptly breaking from her, after kissing her passionately, he turned to greet his brothers and sisters.

All met him cordially and affectionately, except perhaps that there was a stern look of inquiry in Simeon’s eyes, which Reuben, from some unexpressed feeling, could not meet; and, looking from him, he exclaimed—

“Sarah! where is my kind cousin Sarah? will she not give me welcome?”

“She was here this moment,” said Leah; “where can she have vanished?”

“Not very far, dear cousin: I am here. Reuben, can you believe one moment that I do not rejoice to see you once again at home?” said Sarah, advancing from the farther side of the room and placing her hand frankly in her cousin’s, looking up in his face with her clear, pensive eyes, but cheeks as pale as marble.

Reuben pressed her hand within his own, tried to meet smilingly her glance and speak as usual, but both efforts failed, and again he turned away.

“And he has come to stay with us—he will not leave us in a hurry again,” said the affectionate little Ruth, keeping her seat on his knee, and nestling her head in his bosom. “I wanted but you to make this evening quite, quite happy.”

Reuben kissed her to conceal a sigh, and controlling himself, he entered cheerfully and caressingly into all Ruth and Joseph had to tell, called for all interesting conversation from the other members of his family, and imparted many particulars of himself. He was rising high in the world, had been the fortunate means of preventing a great loss to the firm of which he was a servant, and so raised his salary, and himself in the estimation of his employers. Fortune smiled on him, he said, in many ways, and he had had the happiness of securing a trifling fund for his mother, which though small was sure, and would provide her yearly with a moderate sum. He had something else to propose, but there would be time enough for that. His mother blessed and thanked him; but her heart was not at rest. Cheerful as the conversation was, happy as the last hour ought to have been, there was a dim foreboding on her spirit which she could not conquer. Something was yet to be told, Reuben was not at peace, and when indeed he did speak that something, it was with a confused more than a joyous tone.

“I do not know why I should delay telling you of my intention, mother,” he said at length; “I have had too many proofs of your affection to doubt of your rejoicing in anything that will make my happiness—I am going to be married.”

There was a general start and exclamation from all but two in the group—his mother and cousin.

“If it will make your happiness, my son, I do indeed rejoice,” the former said very calmly. “Whom do you give me for another daughter?”

“You do not know her yet, mother; but I am sure you will learn to love her dearly: it is Jeanie Wilson, the only child of my fellow-clerk.”

“Jeanie Wilson!—a Christian! Reuben, Reuben, how have you fallen!” burst angrily, almost fiercely, from Simeon; “but it is folly to be surprised—I knew it would be so.”

“Indeed! wonderfully clear-sighted as you were then, if you consider such a union humiliation, it would have been more brotherly, perhaps, to have warned me of the precipice on which I stood,” answered Reuben, sarcastically.

“Yes! you gave me so fair an opportunity to act a brother’s part; never seeking me, or permitting me to seek you, for weeks together; herding with strangers alone—following them alike in the store and in the mart—loving what they love, doing as they do—and, like them, scorning, despising, and persecuting that holy people who once called you son—forgetting your birthright, your sainted heritage—throwing dishonour on the dead as on the living, to link yourself with those who assuredly will, if they do not now, despise you. Shame, foul shame upon you!”

“Have you done?” calmly inquired Reuben, though the red spot was on his cheek. “It is something for the elder to be bearded thus by the younger. Yet be it so. I have done nothing for which to feel shame—nothing to dishonour those with whom I am related. If they feel themselves dishonoured, let them leave me; I can meet the world alone.”

“Aye, so far alone, that you will rejoice that others have cast aside the chains of nature, and given you freedom to follow your own apostate path unquestioned and unrebuked.”

“Peace, I command you!” exclaimed the widow, with a tone and gesture of authority which awed Simeon into silence, and checked the wrathful reply on Reuben’s lips. “My sons, profane not the Sabbath of your God with this wild and wicked contention. Simeon, however you may lament what Reuben has disclosed, it is not your part to forget he is your brother—yes, an elder brother—still.”

“I will own no apostate for my brother!” muttered the still irritated young man. “Others may regard him as they list; if he have given up his faith, I will not call him brother.”

“I have neither the will nor occasion to forswear my faith,” replied Reuben calmly. “Mr. Wilson has made no condition in giving me his daughter, except that she may follow her own faith, which I were indeed prejudiced and foolish to deny. He believes as I do; to believe in God is enough—all religions are the same before Him.”

“That is to say, he is, like yourself, of no religion at all,” rejoined Simeon, bitterly. “Better he had been prejudiced, rigid, even despising us as others do; then this misfortune would not have befallen us.”

“Is it a misfortune to you, mother? Leah—Ruth—Joseph, will you all refuse to love my wife? You will not, cannot, when you see and know her.”

“As your wife, Reuben, we cannot feel indifference towards her,” replied Leah, tears standing in her eyes; “yet if you had brought us one of our own people, oh, how much happier it would have made us!”

“And why should it, my dear sister? Mother why should it be such a source of grief? I do not turn from the faith of my fathers: I may neglect, disregard those forms and ordinances which I do not feel at all incumbent on me to obey, but I must be a Jew—I cannot believe with the Christian, and I cannot feel how my marriage with a gentle, loving, and most amiable girl can make me other than I am. We are in no way commanded to marry only amongst ourselves.”

“You are mistaken; we are so commanded, my dear son. In very many parts of our Holy Law we are positively forbidden to intermarry with the stranger; and, as a proof that so to wed was considered criminal, one of the first and most important points on which Ezra and Nehemiah insisted, was the putting away of strange wives.”

“But they were idolaters, mother. Jeanie and I worship the same God.”

“But you do not believe in the same creed, and therefore is the belief in one God more dangerous. We ought to keep ourselves yet more distinct, now that we are mingled up amongst those who know God and serve Him, though not as we do. You do not think thus, my dear son; and therefore all we may do is but to pray that the happiness you expect may be realized.”

“And in praying for it, of course you doubt it, though I still cannot imagine why. Sarah, you have not spoken: do you believe me so terrible a reprobate that there is no chance for my happiness, temporally and eternally?”

He spoke bitterly, perhaps harshly, for he had longed for her to speak, and her silence strangely, painfully reproached him. He did not choose to know why, and so he vented in bitter words to her the anger he felt towards himself.

“My opinion can be of little value after my aunt’s,” she answered, meekly; “but this believe, dear cousin, if you and Jeanie are only as blessed and happy together as I wish you, you will be one of the happiest couples on earth.”

“I do believe it!” he said, passionately springing towards her, and seizing both her hands. “Sarah, dear Sarah, forgive me. I was harsh and bitter to you, who were always my better angel; say you forgive me!” He repeated the word, with a strong emphasis upon it.

“I did not know that you had given me anything to forgive, Reuben,” she replied, struggling to smile; “but if you think you have, I do forgive you from my very heart.”

“Bless you for the word!” he said, still gazing fixedly in her face, which calmly met his look.

“Thank God, one misery is spared me,” he muttered to himself; then added, “and you think I may be happy?”

“I trust you will; and if it please God to bless you with prosperity, I think you may.”

“How do you mean?”

“That while all things go smoothly, you will not feel the division, the barrier which your opposing creeds must silently erect between you. But if affliction, if death should happen, Reuben, dearest Reuben, may you never repent this engagement then.”

The young man actually trembled at the startling earnestness of her words.

“And will you, surely you will not, marry in church, brother?” timidly inquired Joseph.

“He must, he cannot help himself!” hoarsely interposed Simeon, who had remained sitting in moody silence for some time; “and yet he would say he is no apostate, no deserter from our faith.”

“You said you had something to ask mother, Reuben,” said Ruth, pressing close to his side, for she feared the painful altercation between her brothers might recommence.

“I had,” he answered, “but I fear it is useless now. Mother, Jeanie and I hoped to have offered you a home—to have entreated you to live with us, and return to the comforts which were yours; we should seek but to give you joy. But after what has passed this evening, I fear we have hoped in vain.”

“I wonder you dared hope it,” muttered Simeon. “Would our mother live with any one who lives not as a Jew, whose dearest pride is to seem in all points like the stranger with whom he lives?”

“Thank you for the kind will, my dear son,” replied the widow, affectionately, though sorrowfully; “but you are right in thinking it cannot be. I am too old and too ailing to mingle now with strangers. I cannot leave my own lowly dwelling; I cannot give up these forms and ordinances which I have learned to love, and believe obligatory upon me. Bring your wife to me, if indeed she does not scorn your poor Jewish mother; she will meet but love from me and mine.”

Reuben flung himself impetuously on her neck, and she felt his whole frame tremble as with choking sobs. His sister, Sarah, and Joseph reiterated their mothers words; Simeon alone was silent. Another half-hour passed—an interval painful to all parties, despite the exertions of Sarah and the widow to make it cheerful, and then Reuben rose to depart. His affectionate embrace, his warm “Good night, God bless you,” was welcomed and returned as warmly by all, and then he looked for Simeon. The youth was standing at the farther end of the apartment, in the deepest shadow, his arms folded on his breast, his lip compressed, and eyes fixed sternly on the ground.

“Simeon!” exclaimed Reuben, as he approached him with frankly extended hand, “Simeon! we are brothers; let us part friends.”

“Give up this intended marriage, come back to the faith you have deserted, and we are brothers,” answered Simeon, sternly. “If not, we are severed, and for ever.”

“Be it as you will, then,” answered Reuben, controlling anger with a violent effort. “Should you need a brother or a friend, you will find them both in me: the God of our fathers demands not violence like this.”

“He does not—He does not. Simeon, I beseech, COMMAND you, do not part thus with your brother; on your love, your duty to me, as your only remaining parent, I command this,” his mother said, mildly, but imperatively; but for once she spoke in vain. Leah, Sarah, Joseph, all according to their different characters, sought to soften him; but the dark cloud only thickened on his brow. At that moment a light form pressed through them all, and clasping his knees, looked up in that agitated face, as if those sightless orbs had more than common power—and Ruth it was that spoke.

“Brother,” she said, in her clear, sweet voice, “brother, our father bade us love our brother, even if he turned aside from all we hold most sacred and most dear. We stood around his death-bed, and we promised this—to love him to the end. Brother, you will not break this vow? No, no: our father looks upon us, hears us still!”

There was a strong and terrible struggle on the part of Simeon, and a heavy groan of repentant anguish broke from the very heart of Reuben.

“My father, my poor father! did he so love me? And will you still hate me, Simeon?” he gasped forth.

Another moment, and the brothers were clasped in each others arms.

CHAPTER III.

It had been with the most simple and heartfelt prayer, that the widow Perez had sought to instil the beautiful spirit breathing in the verse forming the subject of their Sabbath conversation in the hearts of her children. Yet ere the evening closed, how sadly and painfully had her faith been tried, and how bitterly did she feel that to her prayers there seemed indeed no answer. It was her firstborn whom she had daily, almost hourly “committed to the Lord;” for him she sought with her whole heart, “to trust” that He would, in His deep mercy, awaken her boy to the error of his ways; but did it appear as if indeed the gracious promise would be fulfilled, and the Lord would indeed “bring it to pass?” Alas! farther and farther did it now seem removed from fulfilment. By his marriage with a Gentile what must ensue?—a yet more complete estrangement from his father’s faith.

The mother’s heart indeed felt breaking; but quiet and ever gentle, who but her loving children might trace this bitter grief? And there were not wanting very many to give the mother all the blame of the son’s course of acting. “What else could she expect by her weak indulgence?” was almost universally said. “Why did she not threaten to cast him off, if he persisted in this sinful connection, instead of encouraging such things in her other children, which of course she did, by receiving Reuben as usual? Why had she not commanded him, on peril of a parent’s curse, to break off the intended match? Then she would have done her duty; as it was, it would be something very extraordinary if all her other children did not follow their elder brother’s example.”

The widow might have heard their unkind remarks, but she heeded them little; for she had long learned that the spirit guiding the blessed religion which she and her husband had felt and practised was too often misunderstood and undervalued by many of her co-religionists; the idea of love bringing back a wanderer was, by the many, thought too perfectly ridiculous ever to be counted upon. But her conscience was at rest. None but her own heart and her God knew how she had striven to bring up her firstborn as he should go, or how agonizing she had ever felt this failure of her struggles and prayers in the conduct of her son, and this last act more agonizing than all. She knew, aye, felt secure, that neither of her other children needed severity towards Reuben to prevent their following his example. In them she saw the fruits of her efforts in their education, and she knew that they felt their brother’s wanderings from their beloved faith too sorrowfully ever to walk in his ways. They saw enough of their poor mother’s silent, uncomplaining grief, to suppose for a moment that her absence of all harshness towards Reuben proceeded from her approval of his marriage; and each and all lifted up the fervent cry for strength always to resist such fearful temptation, and to adhere to the faith of their fathers, even until death.

We are quite aware that, by far the greater number of our readers, widow Perez will be either violently condemned or contemptuously scorned as a weak, mean-spirited, foolish woman. We can only say that if so, we are sorry so few have the power of understanding her, and that the loving piety, the spiritual religion of her character should find so faint an echo in the Jewish heart. The consequences of her forbearance will be too clearly traced in our simple tale, to demand any further notice on our own part. We would only ask, with all humility, our readers of every class and grade, to recall any one single instance in which parental violence and severity, even coupled with malediction, have ever succeeded in bringing back a wanderer to his fold; if so, we will grant that our idea of love and forbearance effecting more than hate and violence is both dangerous and false. But to return to our tale:—

There was another in that little household bowed like the mother in grief. Sarah had believed that it was her care for Reuben’s spiritual welfare which had engrossed her so much—that it was as distinct from him temporally as from herself. A rude shock awakened her from this dream, and oh, so fearfully! The wild tumult of thought pressing on her heart and brain needs no description. From the first year of her residence with her aunt, Reuben had been dear to her; affection so strengthening, increasing with her growth, so mingled with her being, that she was unconscious of its power. And now that consciousness had come—the prayers, the wishes of a lifetime were dashed down unheard and unregarded—could she believe in the soothing comfort of that inspired promise? Had she not committed her ways? had she not trusted? and had it not proved in vain? Sarah was young, had all the inexperience, the elasticity, and consequent impatience of early life; and so it was, that while the mother trusted and believed, despite of all, aye, trusted her boy would yet be saved, to Sarah life was one cheerless blank; her heart so chilled and stagnant, it seemed as it were, the power of prayer was gone—there could be no darker woes in store. Perhaps her very determination to conceal these feelings from every eye increased the difficulties of self-conquest.

Day after day passed, and her aunt and cousins saw nothing different from her usually quiet, cheerful ways. It might be that they suspected nothing—that even the widow knew not Sarah’s trial was yet greater than her own. But at night it was that the effects of the day’s control were felt; and weeks passed, and time seemed to bring no respite.

“You can trust, if you cannot pray,” the clear still voice of conscience one night breathed in the ear of the poor sufferer, so strangely distinct it seemed as if some spiritual voice had spoken. “Come back to the Father, the God, who has love and tenderness for all—who loves, despite of indifference and neglect—who has balm for every wound, even such as thine. Doth He not say, ‘Cast your burden on Him, and he will sustain you; trust in His word, and sin no more?’” It was strange, almost awful in the dead stillness of night, that low piercing whisper; but it had effect, for the hot tears streamed down like rain upon the deathlike cheek; the words of prayer, faint, broken, yet still trustful, burst from that sorrowing heart, and brought their balm: from that hour the stagnant misery was at an end. Sarah awoke to duty, alike to her God as to herself; and then it was she felt to the full how unutterably precious was the close commune with the Father in heaven, which her aunt’s counsels had infused. Where could she have turned for comfort had she been taught to regard Him as too far removed from earth and earthly things to love and be approached?

Time passed. Reuben’s marriage took place at the time appointed, and still with him all seemed prosperity. It was impossible to see and not to love his gentle wife. Still in seeming a mere child, so delicate in appearance, one could scarcely believe her healthy, as she said she was. It was, however, only with his mother and sisters that Reuben permitted her to associate.

He called himself, at least to his mother, a son of Israel; but all real feeling of nationality was dead within him—yet he was not a Christian, nor was his wife, except in name. They believed there was a God, at least they said they did; but life smiled on them. He was not needed, and so they lived without Him.

Simeon, true to his prejudices, would not meet his brother’s wife, nor did his mother demand such from him. It was enough that with Reuben himself, when they chanced to meet, he was on kindly terms. Ruth’s appeal had touched his heart, for the remembrance of his father was as omnipotent as his wishes had been during his lifetime. The interests of the brothers, alike temporal as eternal, were, however, too widely severed to permit confidence between them, and so they passed on their separate ways; loving perhaps in their inward hearts, but each year apparently more and more divided.

About six months after Reuben’s wedding, Sarah received a letter which caused her great uneasiness. Our readers may remember, at the conclusion of our first chapter, we mentioned Isaac Levison having written to his daughter, stating he was again well to do in the world, and offering her affluence and a cessation from all labour, if she liked to join him. We know also that Sarah refused those offers, feeling that both inclination and duty bade her remain with the benefactors of her youth, when they were in affliction and needed her; and that, irritated at her reply, her father had cast her off, and from that time to the present, nearly three years, she had never heard anything of him. The letter she now received told her that Levison was in the greatest distress, and seriously ill. His suspiciously-amassed riches had been, like his former, partly squandered away in unnecessary luxuries for house and palate, and partly sunk in large speculations, which had all failed; that he was now too ill to do anything, or even to write to her himself, but that he desired his daughter to come to him at once. She had been ready enough to labour for others, and therefore she could not hesitate for him, who was the only one who had any real claim upon her.

“The only one who can claim my labour,” thought the poor girl, as she read the harsh epistle, again and again. “What should I have been without the beloved friends whom he thus commands me to leave? Yet he is my father; he sent for me in prosperity—I could, I did refuse him then, but not now. No, no, I must go to him now, and leave all, all I so dearly love;” and letting the paper fall, she covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly.

“Yet perhaps it is better,” she thought, after a brief interval of bitter sorrow; “I can never conquer this one consuming grief while I am here, and so constantly liable to see its cause. My heavenly Father may have ordained this in love; and even if it brings new trials, I can look up to Him, trust in Him still. I do not leave Him behind me—He will not leave me, nor forsake me, whatever I may be called upon to bear,” and inexpressibly strengthened by this thought, she was enabled, without much emotion, to seek her much-loved aunt, to show her the letter and its mandate. The widow saw at a glance the duty of her adopted child, and though to part with her was a real source of grief, she loved her too well to increase the difficulty of her trial by endeavouring to dissuade her from it.

“You must go, my beloved girl,” she said, folding her to her heart; “but I trust it will be but for a short time. My home is yours, remember—always your home, wherever else you may be, as only a passing sojourn. Your duty is indeed trying, but fear not, you will be strengthened to perform it.”

Yet however determined were the widow and her family to control all weakening sorrow and regret, there was not one who did not feel the unexpected departure of Sarah as an individual misfortune. Each was in some way or other so connected with her, that separation caused a blank in their affections; and what then must have been her own feelings? They parted with but one dear friend; she from them all, to go amongst those with whom she had not one thought or feeling in common.

But she who had worked so perseveringly for them, who had felt herself a child in blood as well in heart of the widow’s, that she had never thought of making a distinct provision for herself, this unselfish one was not to leave them portionless; and with so much attention to her feelings did her aunt and cousins proffer their gifts, it was impossible, pained as she was, to refuse. They said, it would be long perhaps before she could find employment in her new home, and she might need it: besides, it was not a gift, it was her due; her earnings had all gone for them, and they offered but her rightful share. Reuben and his wife were not at Liverpool when Sarah was compelled to leave it; and she rejoiced that it was so.

We will not linger either on the day of parting or the poor girl’s sad and solitary journey. Simeon went with her as far as Birmingham, and when he left her, the scene of loneliness, of foreboding sorrow, pressed so heavily upon her that her tears fell unrestrainedly; but though her heart did feel desolate, she knew she was not forsaken. Her God was with her still, and He would in His own good time bring peace. She was obeying His call, by discharging her duty, and He would lead her through her dreary path.

“Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and exceeding great reward,” were the words in her little Bible, on which her eyes had that morning glanced, dim with tears—they could see but those; again and yet again she read them, till they seemed to fix themselves upon her heart, as peculiarly and strangely appropriate to herself. Like Abraham, she was leaving home and friends, to dwell in what was to her a strange land, and the same God who had been with him the God of Abraham and Israel, was her God also. “His arm was not shortened, nor his ear heavy, that he could not save.” And oh, what unspeakable comfort came in such thoughts. Century on century had passed; but the descendants of Abraham were still the favoured of the Lord, having, in the simple fact of their existence, evidence of the Bible truth. Sarah had often gloried in being a daughter of Israel, but never felt so truly, so gratefully thankful for that holy privilege as she did when thinking over the history of Abraham, and the promise made to him and his descendants, in her lonely journey, and feeling to the full the comfort of the conviction that Abraham’s God was hers.

It was a dull and dreary evening when Sarah entered the great city of London. The stage put her down about half an hour’s walk from her destination, and she proceeded on foot, followed by a boy conveying her little luggage. She struggled hard to subdue the despondency again creeping over her, as she traversed the crowded streets, in which there was not one to extend the hand of kindly greeting. She felt almost ashamed, though she could not define why, that the boy should see the low dark alleys which she was obliged to tread before she could discover where her father now lived, and when she did reach it, she stood and hesitated before the door, as if the house she sought could scarcely be there, it was such a wretched-looking place.

Her timid knock was unheard, and the impatient porter volunteered a tap, loud enough to bring many a curious head to the other doors in the alley, and hastily to open the one wanted. A long curious stare greeted Sarah, from an old woman, repulsive in feature and slovenly and dirty in dress, who to Sarah’s faltering question if Mr. Levison lived there, somewhat harshly replied—

“Yes, to be sure he does; and who may you be that wants him? He is not at home, whatever your business is.”

“Did he not expect me, then? I wrote to say I should be with him to-night,” answered Sarah, trying to conquer the painful choking in her throat. “I thought he was too ill to go out.”

“Why, sure now, you cannot be his daughter!” was the reply, in a softened tone, and the woman looked at her with something very like pity. “Come in with you, then, if you really are Sarah Levison; send the boy away and come in.”

Trembling from a variety of feelings, Sarah mechanically obeyed, giving the boy the customary fee ere she discharged him; a proceeding which caused the woman to look at her with increasing astonishment, and to exclaim, when Sarah was fairly in the dirty miserable room called a parlour, “She can do that too, and yet she comes here. Sarah Levison, are you not a great fool?”

The poor girl started, fairly bewildered by the question, and looked at her companion very much as if she thought she had lost her wits. “A fool!” she repeated.

“My good girl, yes. What have you left a comfortable house and kind friends, and perhaps a good business, for?”

“To obey my father,” replied Sarah, simply. “Did he not send to tell me he was ill, and wanted me; that he was no longer the wealthy, prosperous man that he was, and I must labour for him now? or have I been deceived, and is it all false,” she added, in accents of terror, as she grasped old Esther’s arm, “and has some one only decoyed me here?”

“No, child, no; folks about here are bad enough, but not as bad as that. Levison is poor enough, both in health and pocket, and wrote as you say; but for all that, I say you are a fool for coming.”

“Was it not my duty?” asked Sarah. “Oh, it was sad enough to leave all I love!”

“I dare say it was, dear, I dare say it was,” and the old woman’s face actually lost its repulsiveness, in such a strong expression of pity, that the desolate girl drew closer to her, and clasped her hand. “And more’s the pity you should have left them at all. Duty—it is a fine sounding word; but I don’t know what duty Levison can claim—he has never acted like a father, never done anything for you; how can he expect you should for him?”

“Still he is my father,” repeated Sarah. “He sent for me when he was prosperous; and though I did not come, his kind wish was the same, and proved he did not forget me. Besides, even if he had, God’s plain command is, to honour your father and mother. We can scarcely imagine any case when this command is not to be obeyed; and surely not when a parent is in distress.”

“You have learned fine feelings, my poor child. I hope you will be able to keep them; but I don’t know, I tried to do my duty, God knows, when I was young and hearty, but now poverty and old age have come upon me, and I have left off caring for anybody or anything. It is better to take life as we find it, and hard enough it is.”

“Not if we believe and feel that God is with us, and will lead us in the end to joy and peace,” rejoined Sarah, timidly.

“Why, you cannot be so silly, child, as to believe that God,” her voice deepened into awe, “cares for such miserable worms as we are, and would lead us as you say?”

“We are taught so, and I do believe and feel it,” replied Sarah, earnestly.

“Taught so; where, child, where?” reiterated old Esther eagerly.

“In God’s own book, the Bible,” answered Sarah. The old woman’s countenance fell.

“The Bible, child! now that must be your own fancy. I never found it there, and I think I must have read it more than you have.”

“Have you looked for it?” inquired Sarah, timidly, for she feared to be thought presumptuous.

“Looked for it—I don’t know what you mean. I read it every Saturday, the parts they tell us to read; and I do not find much comfort in them, for they seem to tell me God is too far off to care for such as us.”

“Oh, do not, do not say so,” replied Sarah, with unaffected earnestness. “Every word of that blessed book brings our God near us as a tender and loving father—tells us we are His children. He loves us, cares for us, bears all our sorrow, feels for us more deeply than any earthly friend. I am not very old, but I have learned this from His holy book; and so, I am sure, will you. Forgive me,” she added, meekly, taking the old woman’s withered hand, “I am too young perhaps to speak so to one old and experienced as you are.”

“Forgive you—you are a sweet angel!” hastily replied Esther, suddenly rising and pressing Sarah in her arms. “Too good, too good to come to such a house as this. God forbid you should have such trials as to make you doubt what you now so steadfastly believe; the more you talk the more I wish you had not come.”

“But why do you regret it? What is it I must expect? Pray tell me; be my friend, I have none on earth near me to love me now.”

“I wish I could be a friend to you, poor child, but I am of little service now, and you can better tutor me than I can you. It is a hard thing to say to a child of her own father, but you are too good for such as he.”

“Oh no, no; pray do not say so. Tell me, only tell me I may love my father!” entreated Sarah.

“You cannot, child; you have been used to kindness and love, you will find harshness and anger; you have only associated with religion and virtue, you have come to misery and vice. As the niece of the worthy widow Perez you have been respected, and always found employment; as the daughter of Isaac Levison you will be shunned, and may be left to starve. It is hard enough to find employment for children of respectable parents amongst us poor Jews; and so how can we expect it for others? Don’t cry, dear; it is sad enough, but it is only too true; and so I grieve you have given up even your character to come here.”

“But what can I do—what can I do?” repeated Sarah, lifting up her streaming eyes with an expression which almost brought tears to those of Esther. “Could I desert my own father, and I heard he needed me? Is he not in poverty and distress? And is his own child to forsake him because others do?”

“Poor he is, child, and so are most of us. But how can you help him?”

“Can I not work for him as I did for my aunt?”

“Yes; if you can get employment, which will not be very easy. You are known in Liverpool, and you are not in London; and the few trades in which we poor Jews can work are overstocked. Take old Esther’s advice—return as you came; your father will never know you have been here, and you may be sure I will not betray you. Go back to your happy home and kind friends, it cannot be your duty to give up happiness for misery; and as he forsook you, your conscience can be quite at rest in your leaving him. Do not hesitate, my good child, go at once; he has no claim upon you.”

There are some who doubt the necessity of daily prayer; that we need not pray against temptation, there being so few times in which any great temptation is likely to assail us. Great temptations to sin perhaps we seldom have, but small—oh, of what hour can we be secure? Little did poor Sarah imagine when she entered that lowly roof, the almost overpowering temptation which was to assail her. The home of peace, cleanliness, and comfort which she had deserted; the beloved friends of her youth; the happy hours that were gone; all rose so vividly before her, conjuring her to return to them, not to devote herself to misery—which, after all, was but a doubtful duty—that her first impulse was indeed to fly from a scene where everything around her confirmed old Esther’s ominous words. But Sarah was no weak, wavering child of impulse; her principles were steady, her faith was fixed, and the inward petition arose, with a fervour and faith which gave it power to penetrate the skies—

“Save me from myself, O God? Do not forsake me now. Teach me my duty, the one straight path, and whatever may befall, let me abide by it.”

The brief orison was heard, for the God of Israel has love and mercy for the lowest of his creatures, and strength was given.

“No, Esther, no,” she answered mildly, yet firmly; “I will not turn aside, whatever may await me. God sees my heart, knows that I am here to do my duty, even if I be mistaken in the means. He will strengthen me for its performance. Do not try to frighten me away,” she added, trying to smile. “I dare say all you tell me may be very true, and it will be difficult to bear, but a good heart and a firm faith may make it lighter, you know. I want a friend sadly, and I feel as if you would be a kind one; your experience may smooth my way.”

“Blessings on your sweet face for such words, my darling!” murmured the old woman; “it is long since old Esther has heard anything but abuse and unkindness. I wish I could do for you all my heart tells me, but, deary me, that is a vain wish; for I would take away all sorrow from you, and how can a poor creature like me do that?”

Esther would have run on much more in the same strain, and Sarah felt much too grateful for the kind feeling, however rudely expressed, to check her, had not the old woman suddenly recollected the poor traveller might like some tea, which she hastened to prepare. It was, indeed, a different meal, both in quality and comfort, to that which, even in her uncle’s poorest days, she had been accustomed to; but Sarah was too much engrossed in anxiety for her father to heed it, and only made the effort to partake of it, in gratitude to her companion. She had time to conclude her meal and hear much concerning her father, before he appeared. Esther said he had been ill, but never seriously so; that he could often have procured employment in various humble ways; but for some of them he was too proud, and in others behaved so as to disgust those who would have befriended him, and that now he literally had not a friend in the world, either amongst his superiors or his equals. It was a sad, sad tale, and Sarah’s feelings, as she listened, may easily be imagined. But how could he live? Old Esther really did not know. She lodged in the same house with him, but she knew little of his private concerns; she only knew he was a wretched temper, which, of course, daily grew worse and worse. He went to the synagogue regularly, that he did, but it did not seem to benefit him much. How could it, when his actions denied his prayers?

It was late before Levison returned. He was still a good looking man, but miserably attired, and pale from recent illness. He greeted his daughter with affection, for in the lowest and most debased amongst Israel that redeeming virtue is seldom found wanting; and Sarah felt, as she looked on him, all the daughter glowing in her heart: that she could love, work for, do anything for him. Little sleep had she that night; not because her bed was hard, its covering coarse and unseemly, but from the many thoughts pressing on her mind. Her path was all dark; nothing but the unexpected warmth of her father’s welcome and old Esther’s kindness to make it light. She could but trust and pray not only for strength to meet her trials, but that she might so be blessed as to erase from her heart the pang which lingered in it still.

Weary days passed; often and often did Sarah’s spirit so sink within her, that she felt as if it could never rise again. Her father’s moroseness returned; affection, in a character like his could not obtain effective power over the evil habits of long years. Sarah could not realize that he loved her, and had it not been for her firm confidence in the love which was unending, pitying, strengthening, as the gracious Lord from whom it comes, her every energy must have failed. She exerted herself to effect a reformation in their dwelling and in her father’s slender wardrobe. To look on him, any one would have believed him a very mendicant; yet there were some few articles of clothing easily to be repaired, and so made decent, and this Sarah did. Struck by her method, her perseverance, and the quiet easy way in which she did everything, Esther Cardoza, old, and often ailing as she was, did not disdain to profit by her example; she became more tidy, more careful, and was surprised to find that it was just as easy to be clean and neat, however poor her apparel, as the contrary, and for comfort the one could not be mentioned with the other. One sweet source of pleasure Sarah indeed had. She had excited an ardent desire in the old woman’s mind to become thoroughly acquainted with God’s holy volume, and many an evening did they sit together, and Esther listened to the sweet pleading voice of her young companion, till she felt with her whole heart that God must be with Sarah; she could not be the good, gentle, yet strong-minded creature she was without His help: and then came the thought and belief, that if she sought Him, He would be found too of her, unworthy and lowly as she was. Such a rich treasury of promises did Sarah open to her longing heart and eyes, that she often wondered how she could have been blind so long; and she would thank and bless her with such strong feeling, that Sarah would feel with thankfulness, and chastened joy, in the midst of her own sorrows, that she had not left her own dear home in vain.

“I begin to think, dearie,” Esther one day said, “that I must have been cross and harsh myself, which made folks abuse me as they did; since you have been here, I feel an altered creature, and now meet with kindness instead of wrong.”

“Perhaps you are more inclined to think it kindness,” said Sarah, smiling.

“Perhaps so, dear; but that is all your doing. Since you have read to me, and proved to me that God, even Abraham’s God, cares for and loves me, I am as happy again, and I think if He can love me, why, surely some of my fellow-creatures can too. They cannot be as unjust and harsh as I once thought them. What would have become of me if you had taken my advice, and gone home again?”

“Then you see, Esther, I was not sent here for nothing; humble as I am, I have made one fellow-creature happy.”

“You must make every one happy who talks with you, darling; but I want you to be happy yourself, and you have not come here to be that, I’m thinking.”

“It is better for me that I should not be happy yet, Esther, or our Father would make me so. You know He could, with a word, and He will in His own good time. I did not think I should find one friend, but His love provided you.” Her voice quivered, and she threw her arms round old Esther’s neck, to hide and subdue her emotion, which kindness alone had power to excite.

But though for Esther she had been permitted to do so much, her father seemed neither to understand nor appreciate her; and to change the opinions to which he so often gave vent, and which, from their strangeness and laxity, often actually appalled her, seemed to her utterly impossible. The sacred name of God was with him a common interjection, introduced in every phrase; it mattered not whether called for by anger or vexation, or any other feeling. Sarah shuddered with agony as she heard it—that awful name, which she never dared pronounce save with reverence and love, which should be kept far from all moods and tempers of sin—that name, the holiness of which was enjoined as strictly, as solemnly, as “thou shalt not kill,” and “thou shalt not steal.” She could not conquer the feeling which its constant and sinful use excited, and once so horror-struck was her countenance, that her father marked it and demanded its cause. Tremblingly she told him, and a rude laugh was his reply, coupled with an injunction not to preach to him—words which ever checked her when, in his moments of irritation against the whole world and his own fate, she sought to comfort him by the religion of her own pure mind; she gave up the effort at length, but she did not give up prayer. She would not listen to the agonized supposition that for such as he even the long suffering of an infinitely compassionate God would be of no avail. She prayed and wept for those who prayed not for themselves, and there was comfort in her prayer.

But to pass her life in idleness was impossible. From the first week of her residence in London, she had sought for employment. Her father would not hear of her living out, and so she endeavoured to find daily occupation, or to work at home. In both of these wishes, as old Esther had foreboded, she failed.

In the low neighbourhood where her father dwelt there was no one to employ her, and she had no friend to speak for her in the higher classes. In vain she had at first urged she must seek for a situation in a private family, as upper housemaid, lady’s maid, or nurse. Levison so raged and stormed at the first mention of the plan, that Sarah felt as if she never dared resume it. Yet as weeks passed and the little fund she had brought from Liverpool would very soon be exhausted, something must be done. Our readers, perhaps, think that her idea of the duty she owed her father went so far as even in this to obey him; they are wrong if they do. Sarah’s mind was not of that weak cast which could not discern right from wrong. She knew it was a false and sinful pride which actuated Levison’s refusal. “Jews were Jews,” he declared, “and one class should not serve the other; his daughter was as good as any in the land, and she should not call any one mistress.” Mildly, yet firmly, Sarah resisted his arguments. We have not space to repeat all she said, but her father at length yielded, with an ill grace indeed, and vowing she should go nowhere unless they would let her come to him when he wanted her. But still he yielded, and Sarah thankfully pursued her plan. But, alas! she encountered only disappointment; there were no Jewesses established as milliners, dressmakers, or similar trades in London, and therefore no possibility of her getting occupation with them as she wished. She would not heed old Esther’s assurances that no one would take Jewish servants. Unsophisticated and guileless herself, she could not believe that her nation would refuse their aid and patronage to those of their own faith; and she strained every energy, she conquered her own shrinking diffidence, but all without effect. Again and again the fact of her being a Jewess completed the conference at once. One said that Jewish servants were more plague than enough, they should never enter her house. Another, that their pride and ignorance were beyond all bounds, and as for a proper deference towards their superiors, a willingness to be taught or guided, it was not in their nature. Another, that a Jewish cook might be all very well, but for anything else it was quite out of the question; they knew the low habits, the laziness and insolence that characterised such kind of people, and they certainly would not expose themselves to it with their eyes open. In vain Sarah pleaded for a trial—that she was willing, most willing to be taught her duty; that she was not wholly ignorant, and humbly yet earnestly trusted she was not proud. Her duty to her God had, she hoped, taught her proper deference towards her superiors on earth. Some there were who, only her superiors in point of fortune, stared at her with stupid surprise, and utterly unable to understand such pure and truthful feelings, sharply terminated their conference at once. Others would not even hear her. Some there were really superior in something more than fortune, and anxiously desirous to alleviate distress and aid their poorer brethren, but they shrank from being the first to engage a Jewess as lady’s maid or nurse. Some, touched by her respectful, and gentle manner, would have waived this, but when the question who was her father, was asked and answered, the most kindly intentioned shrank back—it could not be. In vain she told them she had never been under his care, and offered references to many respectable families in Liverpool. A daughter of Levison was no fit servant for any respectable family; they were sorry, but they could do nothing for her.