CHAPTER VII.
MARY JAY’S SUNDAY SCHOOL.
MARY JAY lived at some distance from any church, and so it was very seldom that she was able to go to church; for she could not walk very far. But it happened that, at a short distance from the house where she lived, there was a small red school-house, at the edge of a grove of pine-trees, on the bank of a river; and Mary Jay used to go there every Sabbath day, to keep a Sabbath school for the little children that lived near.
The next Sabbath after the gypsy supper, Mary Jay was going to close her school. Marielle wanted to go very much; and she proposed to Lucy that they should both ask their mothers to allow them to go, instead of going to church. Lucy said that she was willing.
So they both asked their mothers, and they said yes. Royal wanted to go too, but his father thought that it was not best. So Marielle and Lucy set off alone. They were going to call at Mary Jay’s house, a little before the time, and so walk along to the school-house with her.
They found Mary Jay all ready for them, sitting in a chair, upon the door step. She had her bonnet on, and she was reading. One crutch was leaning against the post of the door. When she saw the two little girls coming, she shut her book, rose, and took her crutch under her arm.
“But, Mary Jay,” said Lucy, “where is your other crutch?”
“I am not going to take but one,” said Mary Jay.
“But you always used to have two.”
“I know it, but I am better and stronger now, and can get along very well with only one; unless I have to go a great way.”
“I am very glad of that,” said Marielle. “And perhaps, by-and-by, you will get so well that you can go without any.”
“No,” said Mary Jay, “I never expect to be well enough to walk without one crutch.”
“But perhaps you will, Mary Jay,” said Lucy—“perhaps.”
Mary Jay stepped down from the step, and took hold of Lucy’s hand with that one of her own hands that was free. Marielle went upon the other side, and carried her books; and thus they walked along together towards the school.
There was a short path through the fields which they took, which was more shady than the open road. They had to get over some fences; but then there were stiles or gaps in the walls, at the crossing-places, so that they got along without much difficulty. At one place there was a gate. Marielle held it open while Mary Jay and Lucy went through. At length, they reached the school-house.
It stood in a very pleasant place between the road and the river; on one side was a grove of trees, and on the other, before the door, was a little play-ground, green and level. From the play-ground there was a path which led down to the shore of the river, where there was a smooth beach. The children, in the recesses of the school on week-days, used to love to go down to this beach, and amuse themselves by throwing pebbles into the water.
“When they saw her coming, they went in.”—
Several little children were standing at the door and around upon the green, when Mary Jay and the other girls came up. When they saw her coming, they went in, and Mary Jay followed them. There was a fireplace, but it was filled with evergreens, because it was summer. Directly before the fireplace was Mary Jay’s table. Then before the table there was a level area extending into the middle of the room, and benches and desks around the four sides.
The children took their seats upon benches which were arranged around this area, next to the desks. So they formed a sort of a hollow square. Mary Jay asked two of them to move her table forward a little way; and then she took her seat at it; so that now she could see all the children, and all the children could see her. She gave Marielle and Lucy seats near her, on one side.
First Mary Jay read a hymn, and she and all the children sang it. Then she opened the book which she had brought with her, and read a prayer. The children listened to it with great reverence and attention.
After the prayer was ended, there was a moment’s pause, and then Mary Jay rapped gently upon the table. Immediately the room seemed to be in confusion. The children all arose, and began to move about, passing and repassing among each other, and going behind the desks, in apparent confusion; but very soon they seemed to be coming into order again, and Marielle and Lucy saw that they had arranged themselves in little classes, at the desks.
“What are they going to do now?” said Lucy, in a low tone, to Mary Jay.
“They are going to say their lessons,” replied Mary Jay.
“Who are they going to say them to?” asked Lucy again.
“To the teachers,” replied Mary Jay.
“But I don’t see any teachers,” rejoined Lucy.
Mary Jay smiled, and said, “The teachers are not very big.” By this time the room was all in a buzz. The children were all saying their lessons. The lessons were very short—only two short verses; but then all the teachers had to hear each member of her class repeat them, and so it took some time.
“I suppose they learned their lessons at home,” said Marielle.
“No,” replied Mary Jay; “they learned them here last Sunday. I teach them the verses one day, and then they recite them to my little assistant teachers the next.”
“Yes, but, Mary Jay,” said Marielle, “why don’t you let them learn their lessons at home?”
“Because,” said Mary Jay, “it would be a great deal of trouble to their mothers to attend to it; for their mothers are all very busy with their work. And if nobody attended to them, they would not have them well learned, and my assistant teachers would have to hear bad lessons recited; and that is very painful and unpleasant to teachers, and very injurious to scholars. So I teach them their lessons myself, and so they are almost all well learned.”
Marielle and Lucy now looked around the room, and they observed that it was getting very still again. A large part of the classes had finished saying their lessons. Mary Jay waited a few minutes longer, until all had finished, and then she rapped again upon her table. Then the children all returned again to their places, upon the seats around the area. Marielle observed that they were arranged regularly, the younger children at the two sides, nearest to Mary Jay, and the older ones back upon the seat that passed across at the farther end of the area.
When they were all seated, they looked attentively towards Mary Jay, in silence, as if they expected something; and then suddenly, all together at the same instant, they rose. At the next instant, they all faced half round, those on each side turning towards the ends of the seats where the little girls sat, which were towards Mary Jay. The larger girls, on the seat at the back side of the area, faced in opposite directions; one half turning out towards one side of the room, and the other towards the other. Of course the two girls which were in the middle stood back to back. Marielle and Lucy wondered how they happened to move so precisely together. The fact was, they moved in obedience to signals which Mary Jay made, but which were so slight that Marielle and Lucy did not observe them.
“Sing,” said Mary Jay; and she immediately began herself to sing a hymn, in a clear and sweet tone of voice, to a tune which all the children knew, and which was a very good tune to march by. The children joined in with her, singing loud and full. As soon as the children had taken up the tune, Mary Jay stopped singing, and let them go on alone. Presently, just as they reached the end of the first line, she gave another order, which was,—
“Time.”
The children all began beating the time with the left foot, while they went on singing. At the end of the second line, Mary Jay said,—
“March.”
And the children all began to march. The two little girls who were at the ends of the line towards Mary Jay’s table, turned, and marched towards each other, advancing in front of the table. When they met, they turned towards the area, and took hold of hands; and then they marched along down the centre of the area, all the rest following, and joining hands, two by two, as fast as they came together.
When the two leaders reached the back side of the area, they separated again, and turned off, one to each side, and so came back, along by the seats where the line had first been formed. Thus they passed around and down through the area three or four times, until they had sung all the verses of the hymn. Then they took their places in the lines again; and, at a given signal from Mary Jay, they all sat down together.
“Now, children, we will learn the verse for the next Sabbath;—no, you will not come here next Sabbath to recite it, for this is the last day; but you can learn the verse, at any rate. I have chosen one for you which is a great comfort to me now that I am going away. It is this:—
“‘Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing? and, behold, not one of them is forgotten before God.’
“Now, repeat. Are not two sparrows—”
And all the girls said after her, “Are not two sparrows.”
“Sold for one farthing,” continued Mary Jay.
“Sold for one farthing,” repeated the scholars.
And thus they went on, Mary Jay enunciating the several clauses of the verse in succession, and the children repeating them after her. Marielle and Lucy were surprised to see how precisely together the children repeated the words.
Mary Jay had trained them to do it very accurately.
“Children,” said Mary Jay, “do you know what this verse means?”
The children were silent.
“It means,” said Mary Jay, “that sparrows are such little things that it takes two of them to be worth a farthing; and yet God takes care of every one. Of course much more will he take care of us. So you see, children, it is an excellent verse for us all; and particularly it is an excellent verse for me, now that I am going away alone among strangers.
“And now let us see,” she continued, “if some of you can repeat the verse. Lucretia, you may try.”
So Lucretia, who was one of the girls upon the back seat, rose, and repeated the verse. She spoke in a low and gentle tone, but they were all very still, and so they could hear her; and she said it very correctly.
“Anna,” said Mary Jay.
Anna was a little girl who sat very near Marielle and Lucy. She rose, and repeated the verse in a very correct and proper manner.
“Now all may repeat it together,” said Mary Jay. “Begin.”
At the word begin, they all commenced with one voice, and went through the verse with great correctness and precision.
“Very well, children,” said Mary Jay. “Here ends your lesson. Now we will sing a verse. Rise.”
And all the children rose.
Then Mary Jay commenced singing, and all the children joined with her. When it was concluded, she directed them to sit down again. And then she said, “Recess;”—and all her scholars arose, and began to walk about the room, mingling with each other, and talking in low and subdued tones.
“Why, Mary Jay,” said Marielle, “do you have a recess in your Sunday school? I never heard of a recess in a Sunday school.”
“Nor I,” said Mary Jay; “but my scholars are so little that they get tired of sitting still so long; and so I let them have a little recess, to move about a few minutes and rest themselves. But I tell them that they must remember that it is the Sabbath day, and so be very still. And I think that they are pretty still.”
“Yes,” said Marielle, “I think they are very still, indeed.”
“What comes after the recess?” asked Lucy.
“Why, what I call my sermon comes next,” said Mary Jay, with a smile.
“Your sermon?” said Lucy. “Do you have a sermon?”
“You’ll see,” said Mary Jay.
During the recess, some of the girls went out and stood upon the door step, or walked about upon the green. But they all came back again very soon; and when Mary Jay rapped upon the table, they were all ready to take their seats.
When they were seated, Mary Jay began to instruct them as follows:—
“What is necessary for us, children, in order that we should be happy in heaven, after we die?”
The children seemed to hesitate: at length, one or two said, “We must be good.”
“We must be good,” repeated Mary Jay. “Is that the right answer? All of you that think that is the right answer, may hold up your hands.”
Nearly all the children held up their hands.
“I don’t think it is the best answer,” said Mary Jay. “We will examine it a little. Must we be always good, or will it do to be sometimes good and sometimes bad?”
“Always,” replied the children, very promptly.
“Then, in order to go to heaven after we die, we must be always good.”
“Yes,” said the children, with one voice.
“Then,” said Mary Jay, “who do you think will ever go to heaven?”
There was a long pause;—none of the children answered.
“Who do you think will ever go to heaven,” repeated Mary Jay, “if it is only those can go who are always good?”
There was of course no reply to be made to this question.
“No, children,” continued Mary Jay, “you have not given me the right answer. You have given the common answer, but I don’t think it is the right answer.
“You have all heard of the thief that was crucified with Jesus Christ—the penitent thief. Where did he go when he died?”
“To heaven,” said a great many of the children.
“Yes,” said Mary Jay. “Jesus Christ promised him that he should go with him into paradise; which meant heaven. Now, was he good while he lived in this world?”
“No, indeed,” said one of the children; “he was a thief.”
“Yes,” replied Mary Jay; “so that you see the right answer is not that we must be good in order to go to heaven; we must be——what?”
Mary Jay paused, and looked all about the room, waiting for an answer.
“We must be——what?——forgiven. That’s it—FORGIVEN. Not good, but forgiven, for being bad. That’s the distinction.
“Do not think, however, children, that I am excusing you from being good. We ought to be good all the time. We ought to obey all God’s commands, and do all our duty. But, then, we must not expect to depend on this as the means of going to heaven. It is forgiveness for our sins that we need. Therefore, children, remember, if you want to be happy when you die, you must confess your sins to God, and ask him to forgive you now. This is my last advice to you. Ask God to forgive you for every sin. Whenever you do wrong, as soon as possible ask God to forgive you, and every night, when you go to bed, confess all your sins, and pray to God to forgive you. That is the way to prepare yourselves to go to heaven. And remember that there never was a person good enough to go to heaven without forgiveness, nor bad enough to be shut out with it.”
Mary Jay made some further explanations, and then she gave them another verse to sing. After they had sung the verse, she read another prayer out of her book; and this was the closing exercise of the school. Then the children put on their bonnets and caps, and all went away.
Mary Jay and the two girls then set out together to walk along towards home.
They went on slowly, and talking by the way, for some time. They did not go back the way they came, for there was some difficulty in getting over the fences; and now the sun was down so far that the road was pretty cool and shady. They saw little groups of Mary Jay’s scholars walking along the road, at different distances before them. These children, however, gradually disappeared. Some turned off into other roads; some went into farm-houses; and pretty soon all had gone but two, who were standing at a little gate which led to a small white house, a little way back from the road, and at a short distance before Mary Jay and the two girls who were with her. When they came up to the place where the two scholars were standing, they spoke to Mary Jay, and told her that their mother wanted to have her come in a minute as she was going by.
Mary Jay said that she would; and she asked Lucy and Marielle to go in with her. But they declined. Marielle said that she and Lucy would walk along very slowly. So Mary Jay went in, and Marielle and Lucy walked on a few steps, and then sat down to wait for her.
After about five minutes, they saw Mary Jay coming out with something in her hand. Lucy wondered what it could be. When Mary Jay came along to where Lucy was, she and Marielle rose, and went forward to meet her, and asked what it was.
“Why, the mother of two of my scholars lives there,” said Mary Jay, “and she says that she is very much obliged to me for teaching her children, and that they have been a great deal better children since they came to my Sabbath school; and so she has made me a present of these good, warm moccasins. They are to keep my feet warm next winter.”
Lucy and Marielle looked at the moccasins. They were very pretty, and Marielle said that they looked as if they would be very warm.
“I should think you would be very glad to get such good, warm moccasins,” said Lucy.
“I am,” replied Mary Jay. “And I am glad, too, to hear that any of my scholars are good children.”