GRANDMA'S LESSON.
"They also serve, who only stand and wait."
"OH, dear! I do hope it will not rain tomorrow!" Lucy stood by the parlor window, drumming on the cleanly washed panes, and looking up at the sky. By the open fire, in her broad, straight-backed chair, sat Lucy's grandmother, a dear old lady, whose hands and feet, once so busy, were no longer shapely, but drawn by rheumatism, so that she moved about with difficulty, and could no longer even knit. But her face, sweet and peaceful, told the story of many a battle fought and won, and of a spirit resigned to God's will at length, willing even to "sit still" at his call.
"What had you planned for tomorrow, child?" she asked, after watching her a moment in silence.
"Oh! Lily and I were going to walk over to Winter Hill for checkerberries, grandmamma; and you see the rain would spoil it all. I never could see why it didn't rain nights, when everybody was asleep, and when nobody would be troubled by it, and be always pleasant daytimes."
"Perhaps because this world isn't arranged for our happiness alone, Lucy, child. That would be heaven you know," said her grandmother, softly.
"Then why did God make the world so beautiful, if he didn't want us to be happy, grandma?"
Lucy looked out through the window at the blue sky and the beds of gay flowers nodding in the passing wind, and thought what a lovely world it was.
"He does want us to be happy, dear, always.
Any one who goes about wearing a long face dishonors his goodness and love. Only he wants us to be happy with whatever he sends. When he cuts athwart our plans, it is to teach us the lesson we are so slow to learn, to yield our wills to his.
But he always has a reason, Lucy. There is love hidden away in everything, even though it takes us sometimes long years to find and know it."
"How did you ever learn to be resigned to his will, grandma, dear?" said Lucy, drawing a low stool to her side, with a tender pity in her voice.
"'It must be the hardest thing in the world to keep still."
"It was not all done in a moment, be sure, my child." And the smile of trust upon her beautiful, wrinkled face seemed like the sunshine after rain.
"Perhaps you will laugh, dear, when I tell you that a little dog taught me how to begin to trust God, and to be contented and happy. And, if we once see the way to go, we have only to follow the light, you know."
"A dog, grandmamma! Do tell me about it!"
"Well, one rainy day, long, long ago, as I sat in my chair by the window, looking out into the street, my gloomy face reflecting my reproachful, dissatisfied heart, I saw across the way a dog belonging to one of the neighbors. He was barking and scratching with his paws upon the door, demanding admittance. But no one seemed to hear him or come to let him in; and at last he stopped crying, and seated himself quietly upon the broad step, holding his head up in the air, saying as plainly as if he had spoken,—
"'Well! If I can't get in, I know what I can do.
I can sit down patiently in the rain, and wait until my master comes home.' And there he sat, until, a half-hour later, his master came, when, with joyful barks, his patient vigil over, the door opened, and he bounded in.
"There,' thought I, God has sent me a message. I have been murmuring and repining because trouble has fallen upon me, fighting against it, until I am, oh, so tired. Now, I mean to try giving up my will, and bearing my burden patiently; and by and by, when my dear Master comes, he will open the door of my heavenly home, and I shall go joyfully in, where there will be "no more pain, because the former things are passed away."'
"That was twenty long years ago, my child; but each day has brought the strength to bear and wait."
And taking a pencil and paper from her pocket, she drew a small cross upon it.
"See!" she said, "We will call the long piece God's will, and the short piece man's will. It is only when a man's will crosses God's will, that, the cross is made. When it is laid side by side with it, there is no longer any cross."
Marie Bell.