"The next night he was out again; and this continued for some nights, until his money—two hundred dollars—was all gone. He then went to father for more, and, as he had unbounded confidence in my brother, father very readily gave him quite a little sum, without asking what he was going to do with it. This was soon gone. When he asked for more, father desired him to tell what he was doing with so much money. Not receiving a direct answer, father gave him a small sum, and told him he could get no more unless he would give a clear report of the use he made of his money. This money was soon spent, and when he went for more, but was unwilling to account for what he had received, father refused to give him more. With this refusal he became angry, and told father he would make him willing to let him have the money. My brother then went into the city again, and, as usual, into a gambling-den, where he managed to get money for gaming, or sat and looked on. He was absent for nearly a week.

"During this time my mother neither ate nor slept, as I might say; and when my brother was brought home drunk, she took her bed, and never got up again, but died of a broken heart, within a few days.

"We hoped this would stop my brother's course, but it did so only for a short time. He soon began gambling and drinking again; and, being young and rather delicate, it was not long until he was brought home in delirium tremens. Upon this father took his bed, languished, sank, and died, leaving myself and my brother alone in the world. O, how I wished I could die, too! But it seemed that God determined that I should see the end of my work in wrecking our family, and I was compelled to still remain, and reap the harvest of my own doings.

"Every influence that could be brought to bear on my poor brother I made use of, but to no avail; and, O, how I prayed for him! But it was of no use! He went even more rapidly down the way of ruin, now that father was dead and out of his way. Only a few weeks after I had followed my father to his resting-place in the silent grave, my brother was brought home with delirium tremens again, and, after suffering for a short time the most terrible agony, the poor boy died, and was laid in a drunkard's grave. O my God! why was I ever born? Why cannot I die, too? But what will my eternity be for having thus ruined my own brother, the bright and beautiful boy? This is why I spell my name Mara."

Soon after the lady commenced her sad story, the ladies in the company began weeping; and when it was finished, they were all sobbing as if their hearts would break; and the eyes of the men also were moist. The cards had disappeared, and vows were solemnly expressed by the entire company that never again would one of them be guilty of engaging in that sport, but that they would ever do their best to endeavor to put the practise out of society.—Selected.



Sowing to the Flesh

Are you sowing to the flesh, O youth? Have you turned your back upon the truth? Are you scattering seeds of evil From the garner of the devil? Are you thinking of the harvest By and by? Soon will spring and summer pass, Brown and sere will grow the grass; No time then for good seed-sowing: You and I Must gather what we've sown, forsooth. Are you sowing to the flesh, O youth?

Are you sowing to the flesh, O maid? Can you think of the harvest unafraid? Is this world your only treasure? This life all your joy and pleasure? Are you laying up no portion In the sky? He that soweth to the wind Shall a whirlwind's harvest find, And he'll see himself a pauper By and by. We must reap of what we sow, it is said: Are you sowing to the flesh, O maid?

ELIZABETH ROSSER.



"THE MAN THAT DIED FOR ME"

For many years I wanted to go as a foreign missionary, but my way seemed hedged about. At last I went to live in California. Life was rough in the mining country where I lived, with my husband and little boys.

While there I heard of a man who lived over the hills and was dying of consumption. The men said: "He is so vile that no one can stay with him; so we place some food near him, and leave him for twenty-four hours. We will find him dead sometime, and the sooner the better. Never had a relative, I guess."

This pitiful story haunted me as I went about my work. For three days I tried to get some one to go to see him and find out if he was in need of better care. As I turned from the last man, vexed with his indifference, the thought came to me: "Why not go yourself? Here is missionary work, if you want it."

I will not tell how I weighed the probable uselessness of my going, nor how I shrank from one so vile as he. It was not the kind of work I wanted.

But at last one day I went over the hills to the little abode. It was a mud cabin, containing but one room. The door stood open. In one corner, on some straw and colored blankets, I found the dying man. Sin had left awful marks on his face, and if I had not heard that he could not move, I should have retreated. As my shadow fell over the floor, he looked up and greeted me with an oath. I stepped forward a little, and again he swore.

"Don't speak so, my friend," I said.

"I ain't your friend. I ain't got any friends," he said.

"Well, I am your friend, and—"

But the oaths came quickly, and he said: "You ain't my friend. I never had any friends, and I don't want any now."

I reached out, at arm's length, the fruit I had brought for him, and stepping back to the doorway, asked if he remembered his mother, hoping to find a tender place in his heart; but he cursed her. I spoke of God, and he cursed him. I tried to speak of Jesus and his death for us, but he stopped me with his oaths, and said: "That's all a lie. Nobody ever died for others."

I went away discouraged, saying to myself that I knew it was of no use. But the next day I went again, and every day for two weeks. He did not show the gratitude of a dog, and at the end of that time I said that I was not going any more. That night as I was putting my little boy to bed, I did not pray for the miner. My little boy noticed it and said:—

"Mama, you did not pray for the bad man."

"No," I answered, with a sigh.

"Have you given him up, mama?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"Has God given him up, mama? Ought you to give him up till God does?"

I could not sleep that night. I thought of the dying man, so vile, and with no one to care! I rose and went away by myself to pray; but the moment that I knelt, I was overpowered by the sense of how little meaning there had been to my prayers. I had had no faith, and I had not really cared, beyond a kind of half-hearted sentiment. I had not claimed his soul for God. O, the shame of such missionary zeal! I fell on my face literally, as I cried, "O Christ, give me a little glimpse of the worth of a human soul!" Did you, Christian, ever ask that and mean it? Do not do it unless you are willing to give up ease and selfish pleasure; for life will be a different thing to you after this revelation.

I remained on my knees until Calvary became a reality to me. I cannot describe those hours. They came and went unheeded; but I learned that night what I had never known before, what it was to travail for a human soul. I saw my Lord as I had never seen him before. I knelt there till the answer came.

As I went back to my room, my husband said:—

"How about your miner?"

"He is going to be saved."

"How are you going to do it? he asked.

"The Lord is going to save him; and I do not know that I shall do anything about it," I replied.

The next morning brought a lesson in Christian work which I had never learned before. I had waited on other days until afternoon, when, my work being over, I could change my dress, put on my gloves, and take a walk while the shadows were on the hillsides. That day, the moment my little boys went to school, I left my work, and, without waiting for gloves or shadows, hurried over the hills, not to see "that vile wretch," but to win a soul. I thought the man might die.

As I passed on, a neighbor came out of her cabin, and said, "I will go over the hills with you."

I did not want her to go, but it was another lesson for me. God could plan better than I could. She had her little girl with her, and as we reached the cabin, she said, "I will wait out here."

I do not know what I expected, but the man greeted me with an awful oath. Still it did not hurt; for I was behind Christ, and I stayed there; and I could bear what struck him first.

While I was changing the basin of water and towel for him, things which I had done every day, but which he had never thanked me for, the clear laugh of the little girl rang out upon the air.

"What's that?" said the man eagerly.

"It's a little girl outside waiting for me."

"Would you mind letting her come in?" said he, in a different tone from any I had heard before.

Stepping to the door, I beckoned to her; then, taking her hand, said, "Come in and see the sick man, Mamie." She shrank back as she saw his face, but I assured her with, "Poor sick man! He can't get up; he wants to see you."

She looked like an angel, her bright face framed in golden curls and her eyes tender and pitiful. In her hands she held the flowers that she had picked from the purple sage, and, bending toward him, she said: "I'm sorry for 'ou, sick man. Will 'ou have a posy?"

He laid his great, bony hand beyond the flowers, on the plump hand of the child, and tears came to his eyes, as he said: "I had a little girl once. Her name was Mamie. She cared for me. Nobody else did. Guess I'd been different if she'd lived. I've hated everybody since she died."

I knew at once that I had the key to the man's heart. The thought came quickly, born of that midnight prayer service, and I said, "When I spoke of your mother and your wife, you cursed them; I know now that they were not good women, or you could not have done it."

"Good women! O, you don't know nothin' 'bout that kind of woman! You can't think what they was!"

"Well, if your little girl had lived and grown up with them, wouldn't she have been like them? Would you have liked to have her live for that?"

He evidently had never thought of that, and his great eyes looked off for a full minute. As they came back to mine, he cried: "O God, no! I'd killed her first. I'm glad she died."

Reaching out and taking the poor hand, I said, "The dear Lord didn't want her to be like them. He loved her even better than you did, so he took her away. He is keeping her for you. Don't you want to see her again?"

"O, I'd be willing to be burned alive a thousand times over if I could just see my little girl once more, my little Mamie!"

O friends, you know what a blessed story I had to tell that hour, and I had been so close to Calvary that night that I could tell it in earnest! The poor face grew ashy pale as I talked, and the man threw up his arms as if his agony was mastering him. Two or three times he gasped, as if losing his breath. Then, clutching me, he said, "What's that you said t'other day 'bout talkin' to some one out o' sight?"

"It is praying. I tell Him what I want."

"Pray now, quick. Tell him I want my little girl again. Tell him anything you want to."

I took the hands of the child, and placed them on the trembling hands of the man. Then, dropping on my knees, with the child in front of me, I bade her pray for the man who had lost his little Mamie, and wanted to see her again. As nearly as I remember, this was Mamie's prayer:—

"Dear Jesus, this man is sick. He has lost his little girl, and he feels bad about it. I'm so sorry for him, and he's sorry, too. Won't you help him, and show him how to find his little girl? Do, please. Amen."

Heaven seemed to open before us, and there stood One with the prints of the nails in his hands and the wound in his side.

Mamie slipped away soon, and the man kept saying: "Tell him more about it. Tell him everything. But, O, you don't know!" Then he poured out such a torrent of confession that I could not have borne it but for One who was close to us at that hour.

By and by the poor man grasped the strong hand. It was the third day when the poor, tired soul turned from everything to him, the Mighty to save, "the Man that died for me." He lived on for weeks, as if God would show how real was the change. I had been telling him one day about a meeting, when he said, "I'd like to go to a meetin' once."

So we planned a meeting, and the men from the mills and the mines came and filled the room.

"Now, boys," said he, "get down on your knees, while she tells about that Man that died for me."

I had been brought up to believe that a woman should not speak in meeting, but I found myself talking, and I tried to tell the simple story of the cross. After a while he said:—

"Boys, you don't half believe it, or you'd cry; you couldn't help it. Raise me up. I'd like to tell it once."

So they raised him up, and, between his short breathing and coughing, he told the story. He had to use the language he knew.

"Boys," he said, "you know how the water runs down the sluice-boxes and carries off the dirt and leaves the gold behind. Well, the blood of that Man she tells about went right over me just like that. It carried off about everything; but it left enough for me to see Mamie, and to see the Man that died for me. O boys, can't you love him?"

Some days after, there came a look into his face which told that the end had come. I had to leave him, and I said, "What shall I say tonight, Jack?"

"Just good night," he said.

"What will you say to me when we meet again?"

"I'll say, 'Good morning,' over there."

The next morning the door was closed, and I found two men sitting silently by a board stretched across two stools. They turned back the sheet from the dead, and I looked on the face, which seemed to have come back nearer to the image of God.

"I wish you could have seen him when he went," they said.

"Tell me about it."

"Well, all at once he brightened up, 'bout midnight, an' smilin', said: 'I'm goin', boys. Tell her I'm going to see the Man that died for me;' an' he was gone."

Kneeling there with my hands over those poor, cold ones, which had been stained with human blood, I asked that I might understand more and more the worth of a human soul, and be drawn into a deeper sympathy with Christ's yearning compassion, "not willing that any should perish."—Mrs. J. K. Barney.



How Wonderful!

He answered all my prayer abundantly, And crowned the work that to his feet I brought, With blessing more than I had asked or thought,— A blessing undisguised, and fair, and free. I stood amazed, and whispered, "Can it be That he hath granted all the boon I sought? How wonderful that he for me hath wrought! How wonderful that he hath answered me!" O faithless heart! He said that he would hear And answer thy poor prayer, and he hath heard And proved his promise. Wherefore didst thou fear? Why marvel that thy Lord hath kept his word? More wonderful if he should fail to bless Expectant faith and prayer with good success!

—F. R. Havergal.



OUR GRASS RUG AND—OTHER THINGS

Our house isn't so very nice. We own it, of course, and that is a great deal, as mother has often reminded us when we grumbled. But we girls always thought there were some drawbacks even to that, because we couldn't ask a landlord for new paper or fresh paint, and as for us—we never had money to spare for such superfluities.

There are only four of us,—mother and Jack, Rose and me. We children have been busy all our lives trying to get educated, so we could keep mother in luxury after a while. In the meantime, she had done with bare necessities, for the life-insurance father left wasn't large enough to take any liberty with. Mother has things spick and span. No palace could be more beautifully kept than our home, but the furnishing is nothing whatever to boast of.

Our room was almost the worst of all, with its odds and ends of things. "Other girls have silver-backed hair-brushes!" wailed Rose one night, regarding her old one with a scornful glance.

"Yes, and chairs that don't tip one over," I added, as I managed to save myself from a fall.

"Isn't it horrid to be poor, Meta?" said Rose.

"It's no joke." I was very grim because I had bruised my hand on the rickety chair, and tomorrow was music-lesson day, as I remembered.

It was then and there we rebelled. Not so mother could hear us—we weren't mean enough for that! She'd have been only too glad to help matters if she could. So we had our indignation meeting by our two selves. We said we'd had enough of old furniture and cheap sash curtains, and we decided it was time to act.

Having reached this decision, we proceeded to carry it out, and we surprised ourselves with the speed of our achievements. My hope lay in music, Rose's in arithmetic. I trailed around the neighborhood, next day, looking for scholars, and Rose betook herself straight down to the Cowans, who had been hunting for a "coach" for their twins. We had discussed the Cowan possibility some time before, but Rose declared then that she couldn't spare a minute from the demands of her studies, while I knew it would keep me busy to be graduated on schedule time without doing anything outside.

It makes a difference when you get interested in something for yourself. As soon as ever we girls viewed these occupations in the light of furnishings for our room, we felt sure we could squeeze them in—and we did. I got six beginners, and Rose captured the Cowans, root and branch—four instead of two; for it seemed they were not proficient in mathematical pursuits, and their mother was delighted to get them off her distracted hands. All our friends know that Rose adores sums and problems, and she didn't need any other recommendation.

Well, we did it! It wasn't easy, either. If my half-dozen aspirants for fame escaped shaking till their teeth chattered, it wasn't because I didn't ache to administer it. And Rose feared her hair would be white before the end of the term. You see, when there's a certain amount of housework you feel obliged to do, and when your studies fairly clamor for attention the rest of the time, it sets your nerves all awry to keep the tempo for clumsy fingers that go just half as fast as they should; or to teach over and over again that four times five are always twenty.

But I suppose all these trials helped us to appreciate our possessions when we did get them. They were just as sweet and dainty as we had hoped. We got two single beds—white enamel with brass trimmings—and a pretty mirror in a neat frame. Our old dressing-table looked like new with fresh drapery, and there were full-length curtains to match. Two cunning white rockers, two other chairs, and a little round stand made us feel simply blissful. We painted our book-shelves with white enamel paint, and did our woodwork ourselves. Jack painted the floor a soft gray that would blend with anything, and after it was dry we laid on it one of our chief treasures. It was a grass rug, in two shades of green, with a stenciled border and a general air of elegance that almost overpowered us. It was large enough almost to cover the floor, and we stenciled green borders on our curtains and drapery in the same Grecian pattern.

It seemed too good to be true as we stood in the door and viewed the landscape o'er after we had it done. "It isn't often that our dreams come true!" sighed Rose.

"But this one has," I assured her.

She nodded happily. "Yes, and it's just as nice as we thought it would be!"

"Won't it do our hearts good to 'give notice,' as the cooks say?"

"I can hardly wait to tell those awful Cowans that they may get along as best they can. I'm so tired of them, Meta!"

"I know you are. I wouldn't mind the music so much if I had time. But it's dreadful when your own studies drag like millstones about your neck. I'm not clever at learning as you are, Rose. I have to work for what I get. So I shall tell them, next Tuesday, that I've decided not to teach any more till school's out."

Jack stopped on his way down the hall to look over our shoulders. "Huh!" he said, if you know what that means.

"Doesn't it look lovely?" asked Rose, her face all full of dimples. Rose is as pretty as a picture, anyway, and when she smiles, you can't help smiling back. Jack patted her cheek, and said, "It certainly does," and then he passed on abruptly.

"Something doesn't suit him!" I declared as he shut his room door behind him. "I can't imagine what it is, and it's of no earthly use to ask him." It wouldn't have been. You can't worm a thing out of that boy till he gets ready to tell.

Mother came up the stairs just then waving a note in her hand. "It's from Helen Hunt!" she announced joyfully. "She is going to spend a day and a night with us next week on her way to Grovesport. I shall be so glad to see her." Mrs. Hunt and mother have been friends more years than Rose and I have lived, and they very seldom meet any more. So we girls were almost as glad as mother was, because that dear woman doesn't have as many pleasures, as she deserves.

After we went to bed that night, we planned the surprise. The visitor should have our lovely new nest, and we'd go and camp in the shabby old guest-room. We knew it would please mother, for she hadn't had so pretty a place to entertain Mrs. Hunt in for many years. It did please her, too, so much that she almost cried, and she hugged us and thanked us till we felt very happy and self-satisfied. Jack was standing by, and he said "Huh!" again, in that same queer tone. Then mother turned and hugged him, and Rose and I said to each other how strange it was that Jack should be jealous of his own sisters.

It shone the day she came—the room, I mean, though the sun was on duty. too. Mother went to the station to meet her, and, as she started out, she called back, "Children, if any of you have occasion to go into my room while I'm gone, be sure to shut the door when you come out!"

We answered "All right!" all three at once, and then Rose said, "How funny! What do you suppose made her tell us to do that?"

"I can't imagine," I replied, and then Jack smiled. If it had been anybody but our jolly old Jack, I'd have said his smile was sarcastic; but no one ever accused that boy of anything so ill-natured. Then he said in a quiet, even voice: "It doesn't take a Solon to see through that. She wants to make sure that Mrs. Hunt doesn't see the contrast between her room and the one across the hall. She might not understand—or approve."

And with that he took his cap and went out.

Stunned? I guess we were! Rose and I stared at each other as if we'd seen a ghost. Then we put our arms around each other and went up-stairs without a word. It was mother's door we opened, and we stood there and gazed as if we'd never seen that room before. She had been darning her carpet again. We could see the careful stitches and the frayed edges her art couldn't quite conceal. "She has polished her furniture, too! See how it shines, Meta. She tried to make it look its best." Rose's voice was mournful, so I tried to speak up cheerfully.

"To be sure she did, and succeeded!" Then we turned, and both of us choked back a sob at what we saw. She had taken our discarded dressing-table drapery, cut out the best portions, ruffled it daintily, pressed it neatly, and put it on her own bureau. Our worn-out sash curtains, nicely laundered, veiled her book-rack.

"Meta, our mother—our precious jewel of a mother! We've taken everything for ourselves and left her the rags!"

Rose had her head on my shoulder, and by that time I was crying as hard as she was.

"No wonder Jack was dissatisfied!" I sobbed. "Rose, why didn't he tell us?"

"O Meta, why did we need telling? That's what breaks my heart. Even our rickety chair fixed up and set back in the shadow! O, I can't stand it!"

"We've got to!" I stiffened up grimly. "We've got to stand it, and it serves us right. But we'll make it up to her as soon as Mrs. Hunt is gone!"

"Yes, if we can live till then!"

"I think we'll manage to. Mortification won't kill us in twenty-four hours. We'll make her sleep in there tonight, and they can have one cozy visit in suitable quarters. Monsters!"

Rose didn't resent the epithet. She knew it was appropriate.

We did some thinking that night. I never felt so utterly insignificant in my life. We realized at last that there are other ways to show love than letting its object do all the sacrificing, all the giving and enduring, while the one who bestows it revels in selfishness. We didn't say anything then, but mother wasn't allowed to touch that supper, only the portion of it that filled her own plate, and she didn't wash a dish after it, either! If Rose and I sat over our books an hour after our usual bedtime, in consequence, it hurt no one but ourselves, and we deserved it.

They had a lovely time together. We could hear their soft voices rise and fall, with once in a while a ripple of laughter, till we dropped off to sleep. The next night, mother went back to her own room. We didn't say a word to prevent it, though it hurt us to think of our old duds in there for mother to use.

Next day the early morning post brought a note from Mrs. Hall, an old neighbor, urging mother to meet her down-town at ten o'clock. There was some important shopping on hand, and mother's advice was indispensable. The dear thing didn't suspect that her daughters had frantically besought Mrs. Hall the day before to concoct some scheme that would clear the coast at home. "All day, Mrs. Hall!" we pleaded. "We've planned a surprise for her, and it will take a good while to arrange it."

Mother didn't see how she could be spared to go, but we assured her that since we'd be at home, she wasn't needed at all. If this struck her as a most unusual state of affairs, she was too polite to say so, and, true to her habit of helpfulness, she dressed and went to Mrs. Hall's rescue.

We didn't waste any time, I assure you. We couldn't paint her floor then, but Jack stained it around the edges where it wouldn't have to be walked on, and the grass rug covered the rest. We burned the made-over rags. It did our hearts good to see them crisp and turn to ashes.

Into the attic went the ugly old things, and across the hall came the pretty new ones,—curtains, dressing-table, chairs, every single dainty belonging, even the drapery from our book-shelves. Teddy Ward came in and helped carry things, and Jack worked like a beaver. He didn't need any urging, either. If ever a boy's face shone like a full moon, Jack's did that happy day, though he stopped at least a dozen times to hug his sisters. "What a beast I was to think you could be as selfish as all that!" he exclaimed once, "I ought to have known better!"

"But we were just that selfish, Jacky," we told him. We didn't mean to sail under false colors. "We'd never have thought, if it hadn't been for you."

"Yes, you would. The first jolt would have waked you up. Lend a hand here, Meta!"

It was done at last, all cozy and fresh. Rose stopped in the door. "It looks like mother," she said, and her voice was husky. "It's pure and sweet like her!"

"The other one looks pretty forlorn, girls. What are you going to do about it?" Jack had a hand on our shoulders as he spoke, and we felt his sympathy.

"Do?" we chirped up as brisk as millionaires. "Why, furnish it, of course."

"We have one bed to start on," Rose reminded him. "That's a big help, and the floor and woodwork are still painted. How are we to do it? Lessons, to be sure. Cowans and scales!"

"Thought you wanted to quit." Our brother looked troubled, for all his satisfaction.

"My son, we have changed our minds. Our most ardent desire now is to keep on," I told him. Rose smiled drolly. "I am seriously considering refurnishing the entire domicile," she remarked. "The Cowans are good for the next twenty years, judging from their present attainments, and it's fine practise for me!"

We didn't give mother a hint till after supper. It was hard to wait, but we made ourselves do it so everything would come about quite naturally. She took her bonnet and wrap up to put them away, and we three tagged, as softly as if we had pads on our feet, like cats. She opened her door and gave one bewildered glance, then she turned and saw us. "It's yours, Lovey, every bit!" we told her.

"Darlings, I couldn't!" she said. "Your hard work—your dear new treasures! I couldn't permit such a sacrifice, my darlings!" We just would not cry, though the lumps in our throats made our voices sound as if they belonged to some other family.

"They aren't our new treasures, they're yours."

"Who has been making sacrifices all our lives?"

"We love you so—you couldn't hurt us by refusing, Lovey!"

"There is no question of refusing." Rose spoke with great emphasis. "This room is hers, once for all, and there is no more to be said about it."

We tucked her into her pretty white bed that night, and we kissed the dear face on the ruffled pillow. Jack came in for his good night, too, and we all stood looking down at her, so happy we couldn't talk. She lifted her arms—those arms that had worked so hard for us—and gathered the three of us to her at once. "My darlings!" was all she said, and we crept out softly, knowing we had received her benediction.

Yes, we are getting our second collection of furniture into shape slowly but surely. But we have learned that there are more precious things to be had in homes than beds and chairs, or even green grass rugs. We have them—the precious things—so, now that mother's room is accomplished, we can wait very happily for the beds and chairs—Rose, and Jack, and I.—Elisabeth Price, in St. Nicholas, copyrighted by the Century Company, 1913.

* * * * *

"The tender words unspoken, The letters never sent, The long-forgotten messages, The wealth of love unspent,— For these some hearts are breaking, For these some loved ones wait; Show them that you care for them Before it is too late."

THE END