“I want a sweet sense of Thy pardoning love,
That my manifold sins are forgiven;
That Christ as my Advocate pleadeth above,
That my name is recorded in Heaven.”
“WELL, Annis, will you take a riding lesson this afternoon?” asked Mr. Dinsmore as they left the dinner-table; then seeing the little girl hesitate in her reply, “Ah, I think you are tired and would prefer a nap.”
“Yes, sir, I believe I should, if—” again she hesitated.
“If I will not feel hurt?” he asked with a smile. “No, not in the least. And I advise Elsie to try a siesta too. Then we older people shall have two bright little girls to help our enjoyment of the evening.”
Elsie thought it a very nice plan, and the two went away together to carry it out.
“Your prescription seems to have worked well, Dinsmore,” was Dr. Landreth’s smiling remark as the two young faces showed themselves in the parlor shortly before tea, rosy, bright, and beaming with health and happiness.
“Yes; I find there is no other restorer of wearied nature equal to restful sleep,” Mr. Dinsmore said, regarding his little girl with his wonted look of proud, fond, fatherly affection. “Are you quite rested, daughter?” he asked, drawing her to his side.
“Yes, sir, I don’t believe I shall need any more sleep till after ten o’clock to-night,” she answered, looking straight into his eyes with an arch, sweet smile.
“Ah,” he said, with amusement, “quite an adroit way of putting a request to be allowed to stay up beyond the regular hour for retiring. Well, we’ll see about it when the time comes.”
“And Elsie will be contented with papa’s decision, whatever it may be,” added Rose, smiling affectionately upon the little girl.
“Are you not fond of going to bed early, Elsie?” asked the doctor.
“Yes, sir, generally; but I think it is very nice to stay up a little later sometimes, when papa is willing and I’m not sleepy.”
“And,” remarked Annis, “when the grown-up folks are playing games, or talking in a very interesting way, it does seem hard for little folks to have to go away and leave it all.”
“Yes,” said Mildred, “I can remember that I felt it so when I was a child. Yet I mean to train my boy to go to his bed at a regular and early hour, for I am convinced that it will be for his good.”
“I hope everybody wants to play with letters again to-night,” remarked Annis; “because I’ve hunted up some very hard words for Cousin Horace and Brother Charlie to make out.”
“You are not going to bestow all your favors upon them I hope,” Rose said, playfully.
The older people being in an amiable mood, the wishes of both little girls were gratified to some extent; the greater part of the evening being spent in word-making, and Elsie permitted to stay up half an hour beyond her regular bed-time.
Sunday always passed very quietly at the Oaks; the master and mistress, having a supreme regard for the sacredness of the day, gave no entertainments and allowed no unnecessary work in the house or on the plantation. It was a time of peaceful Sabbath rest.
The church to which the family belonged was some miles distant, but nothing except sickness or extremely inclement weather ever kept them at home from the morning service—the only one held there.
The afternoon and evening were also profitably spent in studying the Scriptures for themselves, and imparting their teachings to the ignorant about them.
The first Sunday after the arrival of the cousins from Pleasant Plains was clear and bright. The ladies and little girls drove to church in the family carriage, the gentlemen accompanying them on horseback.
The short ride through a beautiful country, in the bright sunlight, and pure, bracing autumn air, was a pleasant one to all; to Annis it had the charm of novelty, to Dr. Landreth and Mildred that of agreeable association. How often they had traversed that road together, or met in the little church, during the winter she had spent at Roselands years ago!
The Roselands family was represented to-day by Mr. Dinsmore, Adelaide, and Lora. Mr. Travilla and his mother, from Ion, were present at the service also, and at its close there was a little chat among them all in the vestibule of the church—an exchange of kindly greetings and inquiries ere the ladies were handed to their carriages and the gentlemen mounted their steeds for the homeward trip.
“How do you spend the rest of the day, Elsie?” Annis asked, when they found themselves again in Elsie’s pretty boudoir.
“Part of it in teaching the negroes about Jesus and the way to heaven. Papa and mamma have classes of the grown-up ones, and I one of the little boys and girls. I tell them Bible stories; sometimes from the Old Testament and sometimes from the New. I have a simple little catechism too that I teach them, by asking the questions and making them repeat the answers after me,” Elsie replied, with an animation of look and tone which showed that she felt greatly interested in her work.
“I like best of all to talk to them about the wonderful love of Jesus,” she went on; “how he left that beautiful heaven and came down to our world, and labored and suffered and died the cruel death of the cross; keeping God’s holy law for us, and bearing the penalty of our sins; and how he rose again and ascended to heaven and ever lives there to make intercession for us. O Annis, isn’t it the sweetest story?”
Tears were trembling in the soft hazel eyes, and Annis, putting her arms about her, said, “What a good little Christian you are, Elsie! I wish I were one too.”
“Oh, I’m not at all good, Annis,” answered the little girl with earnest sincerity; “but I do love Jesus. Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure. I do try to do right, but I so often do wrong that I’m afraid I’m not a Christian.”
“But, O Annis, Christians are not people who never do wrong, but those who trust only in the blood and merits of Jesus Christ; who expect to be saved because of what he has done and suffered, and who long and strive to be good and holy because they love him and want to please him and be like him. Not because they expect to be saved by being good. Don’t you remember the Bible says, ‘There is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ ‘There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.’”
“Yes, I remember that, and that even the Apostle Paul said he couldn’t do the good he wanted to, and couldn’t help doing the evil he didn’t want to,” Annis said, thoughtfully. “I see the difference is that Christians hate sin and want to be free from it because God hates it, and it is dishonoring to him; and sinners love it and would only leave it off for fear of punishment.”
“Yes, you know the Bible says, ‘Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children’! Oh, I think I understand what that means! because, loving my dear papa so much, and feeling so sure that I am a very dear child to him, I almost always find it a real pleasure to obey him.”
“Yes, and I can understand it for the same reason. Isn’t it a sweet text?”
“Yes, indeed! and, oh how many others there are that are ‘sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’! as the Psalmist says,” Elsie exclaimed, taking up her Bible and turning over its leaves.
“May I be with you while you talk to your little scholars?” asked Annis.
“Oh, yes! if you wish; and perhaps you may like to teach some of them yourself.”
“Well, maybe,” Annis answered, and just then the call to dinner came.
At the table Dr. Landreth asked Mr. Dinsmore the same question which Elsie had answered to Annis, “How do you spend the rest of the day here? I understand there is no afternoon or evening service near enough for us to attend.”
“No, there is not,” replied Mr. Dinsmore; and went on to tell of the afternoon instruction to the negroes.
“After that,” said he, “we usually fill up the time with suitable reading, and I hear Elsie recite her catechism, passages of Scripture, and perhaps a hymn or two. Most of our evening is usually spent in the study of the Word—a Bible reading in which the three of us take part; and we are very apt to have some sacred music after that. Will you and Mildred and Annis join us in such exercises to-night?”
The invitation was accepted with pleasure by all three.
“What subject shall we take up to-night?” asked Mr. Dinsmore as they gathered about the centre-table after tea, with Bibles, Concordance, and Bible Text-Book.
“Christ a living Saviour,” suggested Mildred; “living still in both his divine and his human nature.”
“There could not be a sweeter theme,” said Rose. “‘Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.’”
“I should like nothing better,” said the doctor.
“Nor I,” added Mr. Dinsmore. “I have often thought that while we cannot dwell too much upon the theme of Christ’s life on earth and atoning sacrifice—his sufferings and death in our stead—we do not think and talk enough of his resurrection and ascension into heaven; of his mediatorial work there. Here in Hebrews we are told, ‘This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’”
“Yes,” said Mildred, “I have thought much about it since a talk I had some time ago with a gentleman friend who is, I believe, a true Christian, yet surprised me greatly by remarking that he had always thought Christ’s body ceased to exist after his death, because—so it seemed to him—he had no further use for it.”
“A very strange and unscriptural idea!” exclaimed Rose. “Why the Bible seems to me to teach a belief in the resurrection of Christ necessary to salvation. ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ And it was his human body that died, was buried, and rose again.”
“What did your friend think became of it?” queried the doctor; “matter is indestructible; and besides we are told that he saw no corruption.”
“Yes; in several passages. Here is one—Acts 13, beginning with verse 29,” and Mildred read aloud, “‘And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead, and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption; but he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.’”
“There we have the whole thing,” remarked her husband, “and as far as proof is concerned, need look no farther.”
“But, oh, mayn’t we go on and hunt out other passages?” asked Elsie eagerly.
“What have you there?” asked her father, for her Bible was open in her hand.
“The fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians, beginning with the third verse, papa: ‘For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once: of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.’”
“Does Paul tell there of every time that the risen Saviour was seen and recognized by those who had known him before his death?” asked Mr. Dinsmore.
“Oh no indeed, papa! Mary Magdalen saw him in the garden just after he had risen, and then— But, Annis, don’t you want to tell of the others?”
Annis looked her thanks, and added, “The two who were walking into the country; the disciples met together in the upper room when Thomas wasn’t with them, and afterward when he was with them; Peter and John and some of the others when they were out in a boat fishing.”
Annis paused, and Mildred proposed that each passage bearing on the subject should be sought out and read aloud, all taking turns.
“Not a link wanting in the chain of evidence,” remarked Mr. Dinsmore, as they finished with these words from the account of the martyrdom of Stephen: “‘But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God,’—we have just read, ‘that he died, was buried, rose from the grave, ascended into heaven and there remains at God’s right hand.’”
“Where he ever liveth to make intercession for us,” added Rose softly, a glad light in her sweet blue eyes.
Then Mildred read aloud from her open Bible, “‘seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’”