“NOW you are ready for a profession,” said Miss Grimshaw, as once more we were seated in her little parlor.
“Marston is troubled about being a lawyer,” Jennie said, as she leaned over my shoulder, running her taper fingers through my hair. “He used to think he could be happy in nothing else.”
“Yes,” said grandma, “what fine speeches he used to make before the looking-glass, and how often he said he would never undertake a case that was not just, and then he would be sure to win.”
True, grandma’s words carried me far back into my boyhood. I could see now that I had been ambitious. Poor and friendless, I had read of others who had attained worldly preferment and riches, and I resolved to do the same. To be a successful lawyer seemed to me to be the height of intellectual attainment. This I would be, and for this did I first study. I was ambitious for myself, and I was equally ambitious for Jennie.
Once my great desire was to rise in the world; but now my aim was higher. As a lawyer, I did not intend that my knowledge and influence should become a screen for guilt. I would never be an oppressor of the poor and miserable. I had not the remotest wish to make vice appear virtue, nor to clothe transgressors in the garb of honorable men; neither did I expect to bury my conscience. I looked for a noble manhood.
Now it seemed to me my life could not be spent aright if I did not make the service of God my chief and direct aim, and that no other service would suit me so well as, in utter self-renunciation, to give myself entirely to the work of saving poor ruined sinners, spending my time, talents, health, all, in telling in the nooks and corners of the land, wherever I could find a listener, of the depth and fulness of His love for man. Compared with this, the fields of worldly ambition seemed a vast waste, without flowers or fruit.
“I am glad that you feel like this, Marston;” and grandma tottered across the room and laid her withered hand upon my head. “I have prayed earnestly for this. Young, earnest, persevering, you have the power of doing much good. I am thankful, Oh how thankful, that you see it in this light.”
The tears streamed over the cheeks of this aged saint. Jennie was weeping too, and I could not speak. I felt my own unworthiness and insufficiency, and only prayed that God would give me that ready tact and skill to say and do those things that would be pleasing in his sight, and enable me to win souls for his kingdom.
Still, I had only passed through my collegiate course; there were years of preparation before I could become fitted for the high and noble office of a preacher of his word. In the darkest lot there is some sunshine. With health, strength, some culture of mind, and the presence of my Saviour, the passing clouds only made the sunshine brighter.
Before the vacation closed I met Mr. Wyman. With his old frankness, he invited us all to spend the day with him, and more than this, sent his carriage to take us there. Considering that I had done nothing wrong, I was delighted with again meeting him, as well as Mrs. Wyman and Alice, in their old home.
My greeting was cordial, while his had all the tenderness of a father.
“I am glad to see, Marston, that you can forgive me for sending you away as I did. I knew that I was wrong, that I ought not to do it, that I was breaking a positive command; but I had always seen it done. My father I believed to be a good man; and though he did not work on the Sabbath, still, if his harvest or his hay-field was in danger of being ruined by a shower, he gathered it in, let the day be what it might. Then I was angry that you should reprimand me before all the hands.”
“I only repeated the commandment. I did not intend it as a reproof of mine. It was God’s command, and must be obeyed.”
“I knew it; but I was vexed. You have forgiven me, Marston, and I hope God has forgiven me. I have not had any Sabbath work done on the place since then, that could possibly be avoided; and I trust that I live nearer my Saviour and am a more consistent Christian than I was before.”
Neither of us said any more on that subject; and before we left, we bowed with clasped hands to seek our Father’s blessing upon the reconciliation and on our future life.
“Henceforth you shall truly stand to me in the light of Willie,” said Mr. Wyman; “and still, had Willie lived, he would have been a minister in the room of a lawyer.”
“By the grace of God, I am to be a minister, Mr. Wyman.”
“Are you, Marston? God be thanked for this. How many times during the last four years have I washed it. But we thought you were fully determined to become a lawyer.”
“So I was; but God has made me feel that it is the highest honor for mortals to serve him, and the highest service to spend and be spent in telling poor sinful men of the Saviour. If I can get through with my theological studies, I trust this will be my work.”
“You can and you shall, Marston. Willie was to have been a minister. You shall be to me as my Willie would have been.”
When we reëntered the farm-house there was great rejoicing, Mrs. Wyman taking me by the hand and telling me how thankful she felt that I had changed my purpose.
“A broad field of usefulness lies before you, Marston; you must, you will fill it nobly.”
I entered upon my theological course at once. Mr. Wyman was faithful to his promise, making of me a second Willie. And now, as the pastor of a prosperous church, I love to look back over the track of my early years, and read His goodness in ordering all my steps. Surely his goodness is unsearchable, and his love past finding out.
Led by His grace, I love to recount all his goodness in the way he has led me. I never pass a lad in the street, dirty, ragged, and homeless, but I think of my own early lot; never look upon the pale face and blue eyes of a little girl, that I do not think of Jennie, kept by his goodness and shielded by his love. And I would say to all the climbers—to all those boys and girls who are striving to help themselves, to work, and study—first make the Saviour your friend, give him your hearts, then go on courageously in the path he will be sure to open before you. Never stop to parley with wrong, or to shun a duty, however small and insignificant. A lofty purpose, pursued with undeviating integrity, never fails of a rich and gracious reward.
Would you know of my class-mates? Robert Lovell is a foreign missionary, known and loved of God and man. Frank Clavers and Harry Gilmore are lawyers of acknowledged ability and rare moral worth. Wright, my former rival, is not only a brother clergyman and friend, but as the husband of my darling Jennie, he claims still more of my regard.
Surely the prayers of our sainted mother, and the supplications of our early friend, were heard by Him who ruleth all. Our path has been hedged about by his kindness, and his banner over us has been love.