So when the breath of slander, or the pressure of human injustice, comes so heavily on a man, as really to threaten loss of character, and destruction struction of his temporal interests, he seems forced to recognise the hand and voice of God through the veil of human agencies, and in time-honoured words to say-
When men of spite against me join,
They are the sword, the hand is thine.
But the smaller injustice, and fault-finding, which meets every one more or less in the daily intercourse of life-the overheard remark-the implied censure-too petty perhaps to be even spoken of-these daily-recurring sources of disquietude and unhappiness are not referred to God’s providence, nor considered as a part of his probation and discipline. Those thousand vexations which come upon us through the unreasonableness, the carelessness, the various constitutional failings or ill adaptedness of others to our peculiarities of character, from a very large item of the disquietudes of life, and yet how very few look beyond the human agent, and feel that these are trials coming from God. Yet it is true, in many cases, that these so-called minor vexations form the greater part, and, in some cases, the only discipline of life; and to those who do not view them as individually vidually ordered or permitted by God, and coming upon them by design, their affliction really “cometh of the dust,” and their trouble springs “out of the ground;” it is sanctified and relieved by no Divine presence and aid, but borne alone, and in a mere human spirit, and by mere human reliances; it acts on the mind as a constant diversion and hindrance, instead of moral discipline.
Hence, too, arises a coldness, and generality, and wandering of mind in prayer. The things that are on the heart, that are distracting the mind, that have filled the heart so full that there is no room for anything else, are, all considered too small and undignified to come within the pale of a prayer: and so, with a wandering mind and a distracted heart, the Christian offers up his prayer for things which he thinks he ought to want, and makes no mention of those which he really does want. He prays that God would pour out his Spirit on the heathen, and convert the world, and build up his kingdom everywhere, when perhaps a whole set of little anxieties and wants and vexations are so distracting his thoughts, that he hardly knows what he has been saying. A faithless servant is wasting his property, a careless or blundering workman has spoiled a lot of goods, a child is vexatious or unruly, a friend has made promises and failed to keep them, an acquaintance has made unjust or satirical remarks, some new furniture has been damaged or ruined by carelessness in the household; but all this trouble forms no subject matter for prayer, though there it is all the while lying like lead on the heart, and keeping it down so that it has no power to expand and take in anything else. But were God in Christ known and regarded as the soul’s familiar Friend; were every trouble of the heart, as it rises, breathed into His bosom; were it felt that there is not one of the smallest of life’s troubles that has not been permitted by Him, and permitted for specific good purpose to the soul, how much more heart-work would there be in prayer; how constant, how daily might it become, how it might settle and clear the atmosphere of the soul, how it might so dispose and lay away many anxieties which now take up their place there, that there might be room for the higher themes and considerations of religion!
Many sensitive and fastidious natures are worn away by the constant friction of what are called little troubles. Without any great affliction, they feel that all the flower and sweetness of their life is faded; their eye grows dim, their cheek care-worn, and their spirit loses hope and elasticity, and becomes bowed with premature age; and in the midst of tangible and physical comfort, they are restless and unhappy. The constant under-current of little cares and vexations, which is slowly wearing out the finer springs of life, is seen by no one; scarcely ever do they speak of these things to their nearest friends. Yet were there a friend, of a spirit so discerning as to feel and sympathize in all these things, how much of this repressed electric restlessness would pass off through such a sympathizing mind.
Yet among human friends this is all but impossible, for minds are so diverse that what is a trial and a care to one, is a matter of sport and amusement to another, and all the inner world breathed into a human ear, only excites a surprised or contemptuous pity. To whom then shall the soul turn-who will feel that to be affliction, which each spirit knows to be so? If the soul shut itself within itself, it becomes morbid; the fine chords of the mind and nerves, by constant wear, become jarring and discordant: hence fretfulness, discontent, and habitual irritability steal over the sincere Christian.
But to the Christian who really believes in the agency of God in the smallest events of life, confides in his love and makes his sympathy his refuge, the thousand minute cares and perplexities of life become each one a fine affiliating bond between the soul and its God. Christ is known, not by abstract definition, and by high-raised conceptions of the soul’s aspiring hours, but known as a man knoweth his friend; he is known by the hourly wants he supplies-known by every care with which he momentarily sympathises, every apprehension which relieves, every temptation which he enables us to surmount. We learn to know Christ as the infant child learns to know its mother and father, by all the helplessness and all the dependence which are incident to this commencement of our moral existence; and as we go on thus year by year, and find in every changing situation, in every reverse, in every trouble, from the lightest sorrow to those which wring our soul from its depths, that he is equally present, and that his gracious aid is equally adequate, our faith seems gradually almost to change to sight, and Christ’s sympathy, his love and care, seem to us more real than any other source of reliance; and multiplied cares and trials are only new avenues of acquaintance between us and Heaven.
Suppose, in some bright vision unfolding to our view, in tranquil evening or solemn midnight, the glorified form of some departed friend should appear to us with the announcement, “This year is to be to you one of special probation and discipline, with reference to perfecting you for a heavenly state. Weigh well and consider every incident of your daily life, for not one is to fall out by accident, but each one shall be a finished and indispensable link in a bright chain that is to draw you upward to the skies.”
With what new eyes should we now look on our daily lot! and if we found in it not a single change-the same old cares, the same perplexities, the same uninteresting drudgeries still-with what new meaning would every incident be invested, and with what other and sublimer spirit could we meet them! Yet, if announced by one rising from the dead with the visible glory of a spiritual world, this truth could be asserted no more clearly and distinctly than Jesus Christ has stated it already. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father-not one of them is forgotten by him; and we are of more value than many sparrows-yea, even the hairs of our head are all numbered. Not till belief in these declarations, in their most literal sense, becomes the calm and settled habit of the soul, is life ever redeemed from drudgery and dreary emptiness, and made full of interest, meaning, and Divine significance. Not till then do its grovelling wants, its wearing cares, its stinging vexations, become to us ministering spirits-each one, by a silent but certain agency, fitting us for a higher and perfect sphere.
HYMN.
NEARER, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
Though like a wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness comes over me,
My rest a stone,
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,-
Nearer to Thee!
There let my way appear
Steps unto heav’n;
All that Thou sendest me
In mercy giv’n;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to Thee,-
Nearer to
Thee!
A SCHOLAR’S ADVENTURES IN THE COUNTRY.
“IF we could only live in the country,” said my wife, “how much easier it would be to live.”
“And how much cheaper!” said I.
“To have a little place of our own, and rise our own things!” said my wife: “dear me! I am heart-sick when I think of the old place at home, and father’s great garden. What peaches and melons we used to have-what green peas and corn! Now one has to buy every cent’s worth of these things-and how they taste! Such wilted, miserable corn! Such peas! Then, if we lived in the country, we should have our own cow, and milk and cream in abundance-our own hens and chickens. We could have custard and ice cream every day!”
“To say nothing of the trees and flowers, and all that,” said I.
The result of this little domestic duet was that my wife and I began to ride about the city of — to look up some pretty interesting cottage where our visions of rural bliss might be realized. Country residences near the city we found to bear rather a high price; so that it was no easy matter to find a situation suitable to the length of our purse; till, at last, a judicious friend suggested a happy expedient-
“Borrow a few hundred,” he said, “and give your note-you can save enough very soon, to make the difference. When you raise everything you eat, you know it will make your salary go a wonderful deal further.”
“Certainly it will,” said I. “And what can be more beautiful than to buy places by the simple process of giving one’s note-’tis so neat, and handy, and convenient!”
“Why,” pursued my friend, “there is Mr. B., my next door neighbour-’tis enough to make one sick of life in the city to spend a week out on his farm. Such princely living as one gets; and he assures me that it costs him very little-scarce anything, perceptible, in fact!”
“Indeed,” said I, “few people can say that.”
“Why,” said my friend, “he has a couple of peach trees for every month, from June till frost, that furnish as many peaches as he and his wife and ten children can dispose of. And then he has grapes, apricots, &c.; and last year his wife sold fifty dollars worth from her strawberry patch, and had an abundance for the table besides. Out of the milk of only one cow they had butter enough to sell three or four pounds a week, besides abundance of milk and cream; and madam has the butter for her pocket money. This is the way country people manage.”
“Glorious!” thought I. And my wife and I could scarce sleep all night, for the brilliancy of our anticipations!
To be sure our delight was somewhat damped the next day by the coldness with which my good old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, who happened along at precisely this crisis, listened to our visions.
“You’ll find it pleasant, children, in the summer-time,” said the hard-fisted old man, twirling his blue checked pocket handkerchief; “but I’m sorry you’ve gone in debt for the land.”
“Oh! but we shall soon save that-it’s so much cheaper living in the country!” said both of us together.
“Well, as to that, I don’t think it is to city-bred folks.”
Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of Mr. B.’s peach trees, and Mrs. B.’s strawberries, butter, apricots, &c., &c.; to which the old gentleman listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved quietude of visage as quite provoked me, and gave me the worst possible opinion of his judgment. I was disappointed too; for, as he was reckoned one of the best practical farmers in the county, I had counted on an enthusiastic sympathy with all my agricultural designs.
“I tell you what, children,” he said, “a body can live in the country, as you say, amazin’ cheap; but, then, a body must know how”-and my uncle spread his pocket handkerchief thoughtfully out upon his knees, and shook his head gravely.
I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body, and wondered how I had always entertained so high an opinion of his sense.
“He is evidently getting old!” said I to my wife; “his judgment is not what it used to be.”
At all events, our place was bought, and we moved out, well pleased, the first morning in April, not at all remembering the ill savor of that day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a pretty cottage, about two miles from the city, with grounds that have been tastefully laid out. There was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders, and rose-bushes, with which my wife was especially pleased. There was a little green lot, strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove of trees at the end, where our cow was to be pastured.
The first week or two went on happily enough in getting our little new pet of a house into trimness and good order; for, as it had been long for sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs that had been left to amuse the leisure hours of the purchaser. Here a door-step had given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter hung loose, and wanted a hinge; abundance of glass needed setting; and, as to the painting and papering, there was no end to that; then my wife wanted a door cut here, to make our bed-room more convenient, and a china closet knocked up there, where no china closet before had been. We even ventured on throwing out a bay window from our sitting-room, because we had luckily lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it was an actual saving of money to employ him. And to be sure our darling little cottage did lift up its head wonderfully for all this garnishing and furbishing. I got up early every morning, and nailed up the rose-bushes, and my wife got up and watered the geraniums, and both flattered ourselves and each other on our early hours and thrifty habits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in Paradise, we found our little domain to ask more hands than ours to get it into shape. “So,” says I to my wife, “I will bring out a gardener when I come next time, and he shall, lay it out, and get it into order; and after that, I can easily keep it by the work of my leisure hours.”
Our gardener was a very sublime sort of a man-an Englishman, and, of course, used to laying out noblemen’s places, and we became as grass-hoppers in our own eyes, when he talked of Lord this and that’s estate, and began to question us about our carriage-drive and conservatory, and we could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations-merely to dress out the walks and lay out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes, turnips, beets, and carrots, was quite a descent for him. In fact, so strong were his aesthetic preferences, that he persuaded my wife to let him dig all the turf off from a green square opposite the bay window, and to lay it out into divers little triangles, resembling small pieces of pie, together with circles, mounds, and various other geometrical ornaments, the planning and planting of which soon engrossed my wife’s whole soul. The planting of the potatoes, beets, carrots, &c., was intrusted to a raw Irishman; for, as to me, to confess the truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree with me. It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous at first, and actually planted with my own hands two or three long rows of potatoes; after which I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder which lasted me a week. Stooping down to plant beets and radishes gave me a vertigo, so that I was obliged to content myself with a general superintendence of the garden; that is to say, I charged my Englishman to see that my Irishman did his duty properly, and then got on to my horse and rode to the city. But about one part of the matter I must say I was not remiss-and that is, in the purchase of seed and garden utensils. Not a day passed that I did not come home with my pockets stuffed with choice seeds, roots, &c., and the variety of my garden utensils was unequalled. There was not a pruning-hook of any pattern, not a hoe, rake, or spade, great or small, that I did not have specimens of; and flower seeds and bulbs were also forthcoming in liberal proportions. In fact, I had opened an account at a thriving seed store; for when a man is driving a business on a large scale, it is not always convenient to hand out the change for every little matter, and buying things on account is as neat and agreeable a mode of acquisition as paying bills with one’s note.
“You know we must have a cow,” said my wife, the morning of our second week. Our friend the gardener, who had now worked with us at t
he rate of two dollars a day for two weeks, was at hand in a moment in our emergency. We wanted to buy a cow, and he had one to sell-a wonderful cow, of a real English breed. He would not sell her for any money, except to oblige particular friends; but as we had patronized him, we should have her for forty dollars. How much we were obliged to him! The forty dollars were speedily forthcoming, and so also was the cow.
“What makes her shake her head in that way?” said my wife, apprehensively, as she observed the interesting beast making sundry demonstrations monstrations with her horns. “I hope she’s mild and gentle.”
The gardener fluently demonstrated that the animal was a pattern of all the softer graces, and that this head-shaking was merely a little nervous affection consequent on the embarrassment of a new position. We had faith to believe almost anything at this time, and therefore came from the barn-yard to the house as much satisfied with our purchase as Job with his three thousand camels and five hundred yoke of oxen. Her quondam master milked her for us the first evening, out of a delicate regard to her feelings as a stranger, and we fancied that we discerned forty dollars’ worth of excellence in the very quality of the milk.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 466