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About Pacific Christian messenger. (Monmouth, Or.) 1877-1881 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1879)
PACIFIC CHRISTIAN MESSENGER, FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1879. 6 Christian Family. “God Knows.” An immigrant ship recently foundered in a atorm, and of the two hundred and twenty who went down,, only one—a • little child—drifted aaliore. When the waif wv laid at reat front her troubled baptum, eomebody ached the question: “ What name?" and the reply was ** God know«." A gentleuiau preaent, touched by the word«, cauaed a headatoua to be erected bearing this: "God Knows.” I An immigrant ship with a world aboard Went down by the head on the Kentish » coast. No tatter of banting at the half mast low ered. No cannon to toll for the creature loot. Two hundred and twenty their souls let slip. Two hundred and twenty with speechless lip , Went staggering down in the foundered ship! Nobody can tell it—not you nor 1, The frenzy of fright when lightning thought Wove like a shuttle the far and the nigh, Shot quivering gleams through the long forgot And lighted the years with a ghastly glare, A second a year, and a second to spare 1 Mid surges of water and gasps of prayer. The heavens were doom and the Lord was dumb The cloud and the breaker was blent in one, No angel in sight—not any to come ! God pardon their sins for the Chriit His Son! The tempest died down as the tempest As tame as the moon on a window sill, ' The roses were red on the rugged hill— The roses that blow in the early light And die into gray in the mists of night. Then drifted ashore in a night gown t dressed, A waif of a girl with her sanded hair, And hands like a prayer on her cold blue breast. And a smile on her mouth that was not despair. No stitch on the garment ever to tell Who bore her, who loved her well. Unnamed as a rose—was it Norah or Nell? The coasters and wreckers around her stood And gazed on the treasure trove upward cast, ~ As round a dead robin the sturdy wood. Its plumage all rent and the whirlwind past. They laid a white croBB on her home-made vest, The coffin was rnde as a red-breast’s nest, And poor was the shroud' but a perfect rest ' Fell down on the.child like dew on the west. »■ A ripple pf sod just covered her over. Nobody To bid her “ Good night my _ bird!” ____ ~ Spring waited to weave a quilt of red clovi r, Nobody alive had her pet name heard. "What name?" asked the preacher. ** God knows !” they said, Nor waited nor wept as they made her bed, But sculptured “God knows!' * on the elate at her head. The legend be ours when the night runs wild, The road out of sight and the stars gone home, Lost hope or lost heart, lost Pleiad or child, Remember the words at the nameless tomb 1 Bewildered and blind the sonl finds repose. Whether cypress or laurel blossoms and blows, Whatever betides, for the good ** God knows I” “ God knows ” all the while, our blind ness His sight. Our darkness flis day, our weakness His might ! Leave the Fort Hold the Fort for I am coming I" K Thia has been the cry too long ; k, Ws mast now put on the armor ; And go forth to meet the wrong. Let the feeble and the cowards, Still the wall and earthworks shield, Bat the strong and valiant soldier Loves to fight on open field. * Leave the Fort how'er securely All its mighty towers are made, Plants whoso nature crave the sun-light Can not prosper in the shade ; So the soul of noble impulse, With a firm and manly port, Boldly marches forth to battle ; Brother, sister, " Leave the Fort !” There are evils past enduring, There are victories to be gained; Leave the Fort, how’er alluring, There's no siege to be sustained. Let our warfare be aggresirre ....... . Dnty, danger, let us court; Then our life will be progressive * Brother, sister, " Leave the Fort!" All alorg the line of action Let this better watchword ring, Scorning party, creed and faction, Loyal only to our King— Henest and of good report— 4 Let us walk, "as in the daylight. * Brothers, sisters, “ Leave the Fort !” * -jr —— —Copper money is coined for ex clusively religious purposes. It fre quently enables a man to feel that he has contributed to the spread of the Gospel without drawing to largely on his income. —The idea that fruit eaten at night is deleterious if proved by the bad ef fect it had upon Adam for eating an Apple after Eve. ■1 4 ... ■ The Singing Girl of Eisenach. The brown stone church in Eisen ach is very old. Luther preached in it three centuriet. ago, and it was old then, so that three centuries have net changed it much. I should like to describe it to you, for those old cities over 'the sea have many curious things in them which we never see in our land; but my story has not se much to do with the church itself, as with something that once happened there. If you had stood in its porch on a Sunday morning, some years ago, you might have seen, among the crowd of men, women and children in their beet clothes and with their Sunday faces, a little child stealing in, keeping timidly to one side as if afraid she had no right to be there. Her faded frock was patched, and her head had no other covering than the long hair that might have been pretty if a mother’s hand had brushed and curled the straggling waves that fell over her face; but Margaret was an or; > han. She was too little to work, but she sang ballads in the streets of Eisenach, and sometimes a working man or a good-natured woman would give her a kreutzer; of the great people she was always afraid. On Sundays she did not sing in the streets, and could go where she pleased, so she went to the brown church ever since the day when blind Albert took him to lead him up and down the stone steps. Albert did not go often, but Margaret was there every Sunday. Behind one of the pillars there • was a little nook just large enough to hold a child and here she sat quite hidden by the column; at the first sound of.the organ she would shut her eyes and listen. Indeed, it was the organ that brought Margaret to the church. One winter evening (it was the sa- sristan’s day for sweeping the church), Reinhold,, tlxa organist, came with bis music to practice. He had opened the organ before he saw a little child’s figure sitting on the floor, fast asleep» with her head leaning on a bench. Reinhold looked at her, looked at the old, thin dress, and the feet almost bare, and said to himself. “ She must be half frozen? He stepped and picked her up—she wax very light for seven years old—and she waked with a start, and struggled to get out of his arms. “ Oh1 please don’t hurt me; I didn’t mean to do any harm.” Reinhold soothed her, and when she looked into his face, she was no longer afraid that he would hurt her. “ And what were you doing here, when you fell asleep in the cold ?” he asked. *’ I came to hear the angel sing,” said Margaret “ The angel1 Wbat do you mean, little one ?’’ “ The angel that sings every Sun day. He stays in here. Blind Al bert told me so.” * When did yeu hear him ?” asked Reinhold, with a smile. “ I came to hear him on Sunday when the |>eople come to.church, and I saw the doors open to-day so I came on tiptoe; I thought, maybe, he would come out if nobody was here.” “ Do you believe that he is inside ?’’ ^ATLeif loTdTneso. w 1 “Albeit mnst have been playing with you ; there is no living thing here ; this is a muric instrument” “ What is that ?” asked Margaret. Reinhold nodded to her to look at his hands, and began to play. Then he told her to put her fingers on the keys and see if she could make sounds, and Margaret wondered^,more and more until, at last, the organist set up his music and began to practice; then she slipped down beside him, and sat there listening. The last winter sunlight faded and the church was growing dark. “ Now,” said Reinhold, “ tell me where you live, and I will take you home.” But Margaret began to cry bitterly. “ Theresa will beat me,” she sob bed. “Who is Theresa?” asked Rein bold. ** The woman that I live with ; and I got only two kreutzers this morn ing, and shV^jnh me out after dinner, and told me hot to come home with out ten, and I havn’t one. Oh ! dear ! oh! dear!” “ Is Theresa your mother ?’’ “No." “ Your aunt ?” “No; I live with her. She says she is very good to take care of me, but if I don’t get money she beats me.” “ Can you tell me where you live ?” ** Away off, far.” , “ And you say she beats you ?’’ He spoke in a questioning tone, and the child thought that he did not be lieve her; she hung down her head for a moment, but suddenly looking up with a quick Might smile that made the little thin face look pretty through the straggling hairj she pushed up her sleeve to the shoulder, and held up her arm, smiling all the while ;^t was bruised in places and stripeir with purple marks, some faint, as though they had been there a long while, others quite fresh. Rein hold understood it all, and though he was a great, strong man, he could not keep back the tears when he looked from the bright, eager face to the little bruised arm, and he thought “how many a beating this chiTd must have had, when she can smile at the proofs of it marked on her tender flesh.” He looked into her blue eyes, and thought of another pair that used to look up in just that way ail’d grow brighter at his coming; but it was more than a year since they had looked into his, and there was nothing left like them except the blue speed well that in summer time- grew on little Madchen’s grave. But these eyes were like hers. He stooped and softly kissed the scars. ** You shall go home with me to night. Do you want to ?” “ Oh! yes,” and Margaret jumped up and put her hand in his ; but Rein hold lifted her tenderly in his arms, and went out from the church leaving his music behind. In the organist’s home there was a warm bright fire, and a little supper table, with places and cups for two be fore it, an armchair ready for the “ good man,” and a low stool where a woman sftt knitting. She had a pleas ant face—one that could smile, though beyond the smile was a soft shadow that told she had wept: but the face was the better for it, as the moonlight is softer than the day, and the twilight than the sunrise.. The knitting-needles clicked with the ticking of the dock till a step qn the stair, and a hand on the latch, and she stooped to lift the kettlo from the fire. “ You are late, good man, and it is a bitter night.” . “ A bitter night, good wife, but see what I have got.” and he put Margar et dowir ¡before the fire, only half a- wake. The walk was long, and with asleey. “ Dear heartcried Liebchen : a lit tle child; and where did you find her ?” “ In the church;” and Reinhold told her what the child had told him, and Liebchens tears fell as his had done ; but when she would have questioned her, Reinhold said gently. “ No, wait until she is warmed and fed." , But when the table was cleared, they sat down with the child between them. .“ Dost remember thy father and thy mother ?” asked Liebchen. "Father died. He used to ait all day in a chair by the window, and was sick. He was so good to me, I loved him. He said he was coming back and I waited a long time, but he didn’t come.” “ Coming back ? Where did he go?” “ He died." “ And what was that he told thee f “ He said that I would see him.” “ Yes,” said Reinhold, “ thou shalt see him, but he cannrt come back.” “ And thy mother ?’ asked Liebchen “ thou hadst a mother?’, “ I don’t know,” said Margaret. “ Poor child f murmured Liebchen, to herself, “ that knows not what a mother is * “ Oh ! yes,” said Margaret, “ I know that a mother is a good thing, for Martha has a mother, and when;1 we go singing together and get notjnpg, her mother kisses her and cries,but There sa beats me.” “ How long is it that thou hast liv- with her ?” “ A long time,” answered the child, with a sigh ; and Reinhold and Lieb chen glanced at each other and sighed, too ; and all three sat and looked in to the fire, till the child's head began to droop she was falling asleep. “ Shall 1 bring in the cot ?” asked Reinhold. “ Yes,” said Liebchen, and she softly rose and unlocked a drawer where lit tle clothes were laid away between sprigs of lavender carefully, as though for a long time. A tear fell into the drawer, and Liebchen knelt there» looking into it and seeing nothing. Reinhold came in with the cot, and she rose with a little white gown in her hand, and undressed the child. Her little shoulders were marked, as the arm, and brought a low cry of pity from the good man as he saw them; but Liebchen rubbed them with ointment, and the string around her neck. “ Now, I’ll put you in a nice, warm bed.” “ Wait a minute, pleas^,” said Mar garet, and she knelt down”and said. “ Come Lord Jesus.” “ Why do you say that ?” asked Re inhold. “ Father said it,” answered the child. “ Did he teach you ?’* “ No, but he said it often when he was Bick. He was somebody that fa ther loved, and he wanted Him to come, he always called him when something hurt him ; so when There sa beat me and I was hungry, I said it too. I say it every night. Maybe he will come if he knows it, for he is good, father said so.” “ Thou dear heart!” cried Liebchen, “and is this all thou knowest of the blessed Jesus ?” “ Do you know Him ?” asked the child earnestly. " “Ay, and to-morrow will tell thee of Him; but now thou must go to * sleep. ’ ** Come hither, Margaret,” said Re inhold, here is something else for thee to say at night and in the morning. When my father and mother for sake me, then the Lord will take me up.’ ” Softly the childish voice repeated the words, “ When father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” When her breathing showed that .alia..wax asleep, Liebebea-lookod up, and in a trembling voice asked. “ What didst mean, good man, by that Verse of tie psalms ?” " Good wife,” said Reinhold, “ the child is an orphan and friendless. The good God took our child, and in those dark days we thought that nev er again should we hear a little voice say ‘father, mother,’ but now he sends us a child to fill our hoarts.” A look of pain came over Liebchen's face; she tried to keep back the tears, but they would come, and she bent her head and sobbed. “ Oh ! good man, anything but that anything but that.” “ Liebchen,’’ said Reinnold, “ thou wouldst not let her go into the storm te-night, wouldst send her into the bitter world to-morrow I” “Nay, good man, it is notin my heart I will keep her and work for her, do everything to bring her up, but not to be our child ; our own child: it would hurt me to hear * mother * from her lips.” “ Then,” said Reinhold, “you will give the orphan every thing but love ?” “ Oh! good mar:, do not be hard upon me; thon wast never a moth er.” “ But I have been a father, Liebchen and the good Father in heaven loves us all. Think, good-wife, if we had died, and it was our Madchen that went singing through the streets with scars on her neck and arms." The name and words touched an other chord. She went to the cot and kissed the childrthen came and stood by her husband’s side. “ Good n an, thou hast a better heart.than mine; in shall be as thou sayst.” So the little singing girl grew up with her father Reinhold, and her mo ther Liebchen. She learned of Jesus, and in theprayerstaughther,never for got to say, “ When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me Up." Ten years have passed over the family at Eisenach ; it' was midsum mer, and the window was open, the evening sun came in, flinging the vine shadows on the floor and brightening the spots of the Hewers on the window sill. Liebchen sat in the arm-chair - now, but she was not knitting. Her face, pale and thin, showed that she .. had been ill. She sat there quietly, leaning back her head, and watching a girl who stepped lightly about the room, laying, the supper table and making up a vase of Howers—so tall and rosy, you would never have guessed her to be fit tie Margaret. “ Daughter,” said Liebchen, “I hear thy father's step on the stairs; get thy hat and go with him to the singing; thou hast been housed too long with a sick woman. “ But thou mayst grow tired of sit ting up mother, and maybe get lone ly” “ I will not tire, my child, and I have enough to do tosit down hereand be thankful.” They went out together—Margaret and Reinhold—she carrying the mu sic ; and Liebchen sat there in the Summer evening sunshine, an 1 watch ed them down the stair. The even ing air came fresh and cool through the window, and filled the room with the perfume of flowers that Margaret’s hands tended, the pictures on the wall were of her drawing, and many, little tokens of love and care showed the presence of a daughter. Liebchen closed her eyes and mur mured softly. ** A good child is hea ven’s blessing,,’ and being tired, she fell asleep.— N.Y. Observer. Each in His Own Way. All great works are done by serving God with wbat we have on hand. Moses was keeping sheep in Midian. God sent him to save Isreal, hot he shrank from the undertaking. We sympathize with Jeth ro's herdsman, alon$ and a stranger, own ing not a lamb that he watched. He bad nothing bnt his shepherd's rod oat out of a thicket, the mere crabstick with which he guided his sheep. Any day he might throw ft «w *y ahifela betfef God said : ** What is that in thine hand ? With this rod, with this stick, thou shalt save Isreal " and so it proved. " What is that thou hast in thy hand, stranger?" "An ox-goad with which I nrge mv lazy beast.” Used for God. and Shamgar's ox goad defeats the Philistin es. ** Wbat is that in thine hand, David?" My sling, with which I keep the wolvee from t> e sheep." Yet with that sling be slew Goliah, whom an army dared not meet "What is that in thine band, disciple F * “ Nothing but five barley loaves and two fishes." " Bring them to me, give them to God." And the multitudes were fed. "Wbat hast thou, Dorcas ?” "My needle." Use it for God, and those coats and garments keep multiplying, and are clothing the naked »till.— Bible Student». Emperor William in'going to cele brate his golden wedding next year and the monarchs of Europe will bo his gu^ts.
