Read Ebook: Twilight stories by Shaw Catharine

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Ebook has 861 lines and 24653 words, and 18 pages

CHAP.

TWILIGHT STORIES.

A TICKET FOR EACH.

"COME along, Auntie! The tea will not be in for a few minutes, and the fire is bright and the curtains are drawn. Just sit down and give us a twilight talk. It is New Year's day, and of course we want something to help us on our way."

Their Aunt smiled. She had come to stay with them for a long visit. The four gathered round her knew that she had passed through deep trials, and they also knew that she had come out of them nearer to the Celestial City, like "Christian" from "The Slough of Despond."

They did not guess that their love and sympathy helped her very much too.

"Well!" she said, brightly, "I was thinking this morning about God's promises, and I made up my mind to take one each day this year to live upon!"

"How do you mean?" asked Rose.

"Every morning to take some distinct promise, or assurance, out of the Bible, and think about it whenever I could, and remind God of it whenever I was in any difficulty. I'm going to call it my ticket!"

"Your 'ticket,' Auntie?" said Oswald, affectionately. "I do not believe you want a ticket to get into God's presence. Is that what you mean?"

The others smiled, and Aunt Ruth laughed a little.

"Well--it's just as well to have a ticket! The other day, do you remember? I went to a large concert. Inside was light and music, and friends; outside was cold, dull weather, and policemen and hall-keepers jealously guarding the way.

"I was glad to have a ticket then, I can tell you; and it struck me this morning that there is nothing Satan likes better than to say, as those hall-keepers did: 'This is not the way! Where's your ticket?'"

"And how is that like God's promises?" said Tom, bluntly.

"Like this. In God's presence is light and warmth and music. Satan would keep us outside; but when we can say to him 'God said so,' he has not a word to answer, and is obliged to let us pass!"

"I see!" said Tom.

"Let us all try this year to have a promise, or an assurance, every morning. I am sure it will bring happiness."

"Have you got one for to-day?" asked Jean, shyly.

"Yes," said Aunt Ruth, looking up. "It is 'Certainly I will be with thee.'"

"That's a ticket to a very good seat!" said Oswald, with his eyes shining. "I think your 'tickets' are a good idea, Auntie. We'll each see if we can't get some for ourselves."

"But are the promises always applicable?" asked Rose.

"I think I may say I have always found them so," said Aunt Ruth, "for when by a promise we get into God's presence, it is wonderful what a feast He spreads for us, 'enough and to spare'; worth all the trouble of getting in."

"Is it easy to find promises?" asked Tom, "For I should never know where to look."

"You would soon get used to it, especially as there are quite 30,000 promises in the Bible."

"Are there, Auntie?"

"Yes. Did you never hear the story of the old woman who put T.P. on pretty nearly every page of her Bible? Some one asked her what T. P. meant, and she said, with great satisfaction--'T. P., Tried and Proved. I've tried and proved every one of those promises, and found God faithful!'"

"I like that!" said Oswald. "Now let's get a promise each for to-day!"

"How would you like to have the same as mine?" said Aunt Ruth, "And to-morrow you can each get a fresh one for yourselves?"

This met with great approval, and Jean wrote on a strip of paper and slipped it into her Bible--

"Certainly I will be with thee!"

WHAT THE SHEPHERD KNOWS.

AUNT RUTH sat in the chimney corner. It was a cold, snowy day, and the children had come in from a walk, and said it was bitter.

They gathered close to the fire, and all seemed inclined to stop there, rather than seek for employment or amusement.

"The fields looked so bleak," said Rose, warming her hands for the twentieth time. "We saw a shepherd leading home his sheep, Auntie!" said Jean.

"Did you? How interesting! Not driving them, then?"

"No, that was what I noticed and I thought you'd perhaps have a twilight talk over that?"

Jean smiled as she said it, and Aunt Ruth smiled too.

"So you are beginning to look-out for spiritual lessons from everyday things?"

"I like that sort of lesson," said Jean, "so much better than geography and history!"

"Ah! But we cannot properly learn the spiritual, unless we are in touch with Christ in the everyday things!"

"Can't we, Auntie?" asked Tom, soberly.

She shook her head. "Well," she said, "directly Jean told me she had seen a shepherd leading his sheep, I thought of one of my favourite texts."

"And that was?" asked Oswald.

"'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'"

"Children! The sheep hear; and He knows them, each one; and they follow; and He gives. There is a world of meaning in every one of those short sentences. Many children and grown-up people, too, hear, and follow, and forget the clause that comes between. Do you remember what that is?"

"'I know them,'" said Rose, gently. She had been learning the whole verse, and could repeat it perfectly.

"Yes--and what do you think they miss by forgetting that clause?"

The children did not know, so they looked up earnestly.

"They miss assurance. The first clause and the third belong to themselves, 'they hear, they follow'; but the second clause is all Christ's, 'I know them.' Here is safety and peace."

"Once there was a revival in a large school that I knew of, and one of the naughtiest girls was brought to Christ. Most of the mistresses thought it impossible that Lizzie could be really converted, and laughed much at a younger teacher, who believed that there really was a change in the girl. This young teacher at last was driven into a corner in defending Lizzie's conversion, and said, in desperation, 'Well--Christ knows.' Very soon after the holidays came, and the young mistress left the school."

"But at the end of a year, she paid her friends there a visit; and when she was hearing all the news, one of them said, 'You remember Lizzie, who was such a naughty girl? Well, she is totally changed. Instead of being the most tiresome, she is the brightest of all the little Christians!"

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