FRIENDLY LEAVES. VOL. V. EDITED BY M. E. TOWNSEND. SEPTEMBER, 1880. Plain Words for Young Women. BY THE RIGHT REV. W. WALSHAM HOW, ILL you let me say a few simple words to you to-day about a very familiar and common thing, and yet a thing that is very great, and high, and wonderful? I want to talk to you a little about Prayer. I think you must know well enough what prayer is. It is nothing else but speaking to God. But what a wonderful thing it is that God, so great and holy as He is, should allow His poor, weak, sinful creatures to speak to Him at all! And then, that He should ask them to tell Him all that is in their hearts-their sins, their wants, their troubles, their hopes. This, surely, must make us feel His goodness and His love. It is not because He does not know all these things without our telling Him. He knows them far better than we do. If we remember some of our worst sins, He knows far more, for He knows our secret sins, and our forgotten sins. He reads our hearts through and through. If we can ask Him for some few things we think would be good for us, He is infinitely wise, and knows exactly what is really good for us. No, we do not pray in order that God may know these things, but because He wants us to No. 49. treat Him as a Friend-nay, as a Father, to whom we may fly at all times, just as any little child would run to an earthly father whom it loved, and knew would help it, and take care of it. Besides, telling God of our sins, or of our wants, helps us to feel them much more, and understand them much better. We confess our sins, not to teach God, but to teach our own hearts how sad and hateful they are. Now, my children, do you really pray? I am afraid this is not a question so easily answered as it seems. I have no doubt you say your prayers. But a great many do that who never pray. They say the words, but never speak to God. They go through the form of prayer, but their hearts are not really praying. Oh! do take care not to be unreal and untrue in such a solemn thing as this. Do take care lest you deceive yourselves with the mere outward form, while all is hollow and a mockery in the sight of God. Whatever you do, make your prayers real prayers. Speak from your heart to God. I do not think it matters much whether you use a set form of words or pray in your own words, so long as you really speak from the heart to God. Our dear Lord taught us to use set forms of words when He gave us the Lord's Prayer, so it would be very wrong to despise them. Yet it is a very good thing to pray also, when you are alone with God in your own words, because you are sure (if you are in earnest) to have things to tell God about which your regular set forms of prayer do not speak of. You have some temptation pressing hard upon you, some failing you want very much to conquer, some blessing you desire very much to obtain, some friend for whom you want to pray, some difficulty you long to see your way out of,-and such things you should tell God about in your own simple words. But for things you have to ask over and over again day by day you will do best to use the same words, for it would be foolish to be always trying to change the words when you want to say the same thing. Now I must say a word about praying in church. There we must have set forms of prayer, such as will best suit all. God has taught us this from very old times: for the grand old Psalms, in which God's people have prayed and praised for near three thousand years, are all set forms. But, my dear children, the real danger is lest our set forms become empty forms. Forms of prayer are always do, for that, too, will help you; besides, it is the rule of your Church), do make the act a real one, by telling God of your sins, and earnestly seeking pardon for Christ's sake. So, too, with the Psalms and Hymns in which you sing God's praises. Never mind whether you have a good voice or ear, but sing and make melody in your heart unto the Lord. And then in the Prayers and Litany let your heart speak to God. It is hard, I know -oh! so hard for some, that they almost give it up in despair. Nay, try, my children. God will help you to pray better and better, if you go on trying. Very often it will be a very little you can do-just one single little prayer, earnestly prayed, in all the service. It makes one ashamed. Well, be like the poor woman in the crowd. She was very weak and very timid; she did not go and seize the Lord's hand, and say, 'I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.' She only stole up behind in the crowd and touched the hem of his garment. But He knew: He healed, He blessed her. CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. By the Author of Thoughts on the Holy Communion,' V. T seems very wonderful, mother, that after the visit to Jerusalem like cups: they are meant to be filled with The Footsteps of our Blessed Lord. the spirit of prayer. Then they will bring life and refreshment to the soul. But the form without the spirit can no more refresh the soul than a cup without water can refresh the body. So, again, I say, make your prayers in church real and true. We begin, you know, with confession of sin. That is right, for surely a child that has offended its father would so seek forgiveness before it asked for any new favours? But as you kneel down (and never be ashamed to kneel humbly on your knees in church: it will greatly help you to feel what you are doing), and as you say the words of the confession aloud (which I hope you we talked about last Sunday, we should be told nothing more of our blessed Lord's life for eighteen years. I have been searching the Gospels to see if there are any references to His life in those long years, and I can only find (besides what we have already spoken of, His subjection to His parents), that He "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke, ii. 52), that it was "His custom" to read the Scriptures in the synagogue every Sabbath-day (Luke, iv. 16), that He worked at Joseph's trade, because the Jews called Him "the carpenter" (Mark, vi. 3), and that they also said, "How knoweth this man letters (or as the margin has it, 'learning'), having never learned?"› 'Do you think that from these few scattered hints we can glean enough to enable us to find an example for ourselves to follow in His life through all those years ?' 'Yes, mother, I do; and if I had thought more about those thirty years at first, I don't think I should have said that His life was outwardly so unlike ours that I did not know how we could try to follow His example. For all those many years He must have lived a quiet, every-day life, just doing each day's duty as it came, and making every one love Him more and more, for we read, "He grew in favour with God and man."' 'Of course we may feel sure that what He said of Himself afterwards must have been true through all those years: "My Father hath not left me alone, because I do always those things that please him." The habits we find in Him during the last three years of constant prayer and communion with God must have been the same in all His earlier years, and we know that He was always in His place in the synagogue-the Jewish church-on the Sabbath-day. It does not seem to me so wonderful, Amy, that we are not told more of those thirty years as that the Saviour of the world should have waited all that time before He began to teach and preach openly. I suppose, however, that if we could at all realise the stu Try and think it out for yourself, dear.' Amy remained silent and in deep thought for a long while; at last she said, 'I find it very difficult to put into words the thoughts that come to me about it. It seems to me to say, how different our lives must look in the sight of God from what they do in the sight of men. Men often call people's lives wasted, if the powers they possess have no apparent scope of action. These years of our Lord's life seem to say that God's thoughts are not as our thoughts; that our part is to seek to do God's will from day to day, leaving results to Him; and that we can never know what He may be preparing us for.' 'True, Amy; we can, ndeed, never tell how these lives of ours may appear in the light of eternity; that is, the light in which God and the holy angels see things now, and in which we shall see them hereafter. You remember those lines of Keble's, 'Oft in life's stillest shade reclining, So long as we are striving with all our hearts to learn what is God's will for us, and to do it faithfully, no hour of our lives can be wasted or lost, or lived in vain for ourselves or others. We have each our place assigned to us in the great army that is fighting Christ's battles against sin and evil, and a post that seems to our short-sighted eyes a well-nigh useless one, may, if held faithfully, be seen hereafter to have been one of the greatest service and the utmost honour. Hereafter, doubtless, we shall know the full meaning of those thirty silent years of our Lord's life, and see how in them, not less than in those that followed, He was working out our salvation, destroying the works of the devil, glorifying His Father, and fulfilling the work that God gave Him to do. And meanwhile the thought of them may well shed a halo round the most uneventful life, and make us more than content that we ourselves, or those we love, should be unknown, or little esteemed among men. (To be continued.) How John Merrivale Chose his Wife. By E. M. L. Author of Rina Cliffe, 'Kingsford Harvest Home,' &c. &c. (Concluded from p. 180.) HAT do you think of Annie Scott for our under-maid's place?' asked cook a few days after her first arrival, quite ignoring the cold reception she had given her. 'I'll tell you what I think, John Merrivale,—she'll make a first-rate servant; she is as like what I was at her age as you can well imagine; she knows how to use a brush very near as well as I did, and she can almost give as good a finishing touch to the grate,-then her dress is so neat !' 'Very likely,' replied John, with a sly look at Mary Graves; 'but I never can see Annie with her sleeves tucked up to the elbow and a large holland apron and bib on, without a laugh; it's so comical to see a bit of a thing like she is turn out her work as well as a woman of forty. As to her dress, she reminds me of that little brown hazock out there on the lawn,-she's here and there, and you never hear her fly.'. Looking at Mrs. Green's heavy figure, it was rather a stretch of imagination to suppose that in that respect, also, Annie was the very type of herself thirty years ago! Tis to be hoped,' he said to himself, that Annie will not grow up altogether like cook in the matter of self-praise.' Still it was a handsome acknowledgment on the part of that experienced individual, and John felt from that moment there had been no failure on Annie's part-unwittingly as she played it-in the crucial test. Nevertheless, when he met her that day at the foot of the celebrated stairs, he could not resist asking her whether she was satisfied with her work, or whether she thought it might be improved. John began to poke the fire rather vigorously. '1 am afraid it is not quite as well done as Mrs. Green would like, but she is going to give me a hint about whitening boards. The corners, you see, are so dark-looking, I was obliged to take my pocket-knife to them.' 'I daresay. Did you find any bran?' he asked. Margaret was not bran-clean, you know.' Annie thought he must be laughing at her, and with a puzzled face she said,— 'I've heard of "bran-new," but I never heard of "bran-clean." I don't understand you, John; but I can't stay to talk now, because of my work.' 'That is quite true,' said John Merrivale, and his thoughts added, 'Yet a time will come, I fancy, when I shall have something to say to you that I shall want to be answered; for clear as the light I can see my picture again; and though I don't see a white sun-bonnet through that clematis, I see a pair of sweet, brown eyes -honest eyes too-and a bright, kind heart, looking through them... A nearer view of John's picture shows it was in truth a pleasant one, but it was not realised without a dark shadow first passing over it. A day had come when the Lodge-gates were no longer under old Susan's charge; a day when her old master himself came to open them, waiting there with head uncovered, while a little band of mourners, followed by all the servants from the Hall, passed out, carrying Susan to her last resting-place. A sweet smile lighted up Mr. Percy's quiet face, as he closed the gates after paying her this last honour, for he well knew that her Heavenly Master had opened wide the doors of the Eternal City for her faithful feet to enter, and that she would go out no more for ever. This autumn shadow had been followed by a hopeful spring, and now the full sunshine of summer's sweet beauty rests on the picture as John came cheerily down the avenue towards his home. The white-sanded door-step and shining knocker might bespeak no change to other eyes, but to John himself everything before him was graced with a fresh beauty. Even the row of pewter plates on the shelf-his inheritance from old Susan-shone more like silver, as they reflected twenty little bow windows embowered in clematis, while the two brazen bowls above them-old Susan's gift again-became new in their golden lustre, picturing the roses round the doorway, down to the very bees flying hither and thither among them. Then came the nearer view still as John stepped on to the dewy grass, and looked slyly through the casement. There was the white cloth laid, and the pink-edged cups, and the arm-chair-all invitingly ready. Ah! how many things he saw at a glance in that stolen moment from the large book lying on the table, with its blue marker, with his Sunday boots peeping at him from the corner with a polished smile, quite ignoring their former downfall. But the brightest part of that home-picture centred in one small figure standing by the fire-place, perhaps a quarter of an inch taller than when we first saw her, but the very same little woman, brown dress and blue ribbon included. Annie-Mrs. Merrivale now-was just taking one more fond look at the pink-edged cups and the frosted butter-dish, and the yellow muskplant in the middle of the table; while a resplendent metal teapot went through the process of warming, and while a large apron was tied on-the signal for toast-making and frying -when a well-known greeting from the doorway made her look up. 'Ah! here you are,' said Annie, with a welcoming smile, as John came in; and I've guessed the time so exactly, that when you have, washed your hands and fed the squirrel, breakfast will be ready to the very second.' John's answer was a look that Annie loved, but he laid his hand quietly on her busy fingers. ‘Stay, just a few minutes,' he said; ‘I have been thinking a great deal lately about the good little wife that I have been so blessed with, and about the old bargain that I made with myself. You remember it, for I told you as soon as we were married, and now I know that it was not the spotless stairs that took my fancy; no, nor the deft way you set about your work; it was the foundation that work was built on, Annie. I saw day by day that you did it all " as unto the Lord," and not "unto man ;" and so, my girl, I have been thinking over your wish, and we will begin our housekeeping, as you say, by taking the day's work to our Master in heaven to bless. You have put the books ready again, I see, sly little Annie ! You thought I had forgotten all about it.' |