Chapter II

SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHURCH, AND THE CHILDREN WHO BOUGHT THE FONT.

I must tell you first about the Church where the children who bought the Font went to Sunday school. St. Luke’s we call it, and it stands on the corner where two streets cross each other, in a little village which we will call Carrollton. That is not its real name, you know, but I will call it that, and then go on to tell you how the church is built of stone, with a spire from which the paint has been worn off by time, and the rains which beat against it from the west. The window, too, on that side, has been broken by the wind, and boards are nailed across the top where the stained glass used to be. But the window will be mended in time; the old spire will be repainted; the ivy at the corner will reach higher and higher, until the tendrils will cling perhaps to the very roof; the fence will be built around that plot of grass, which looks so fresh this morning; and then the church will be as nice and neat as it was the day it was completed and consecrated to God. It is very pretty now inside, and the fine-toned organ in the gallery makes sweet music on a Sunday when they chant the “Gloria in Excelsis” and sing “Peace on earth, good-will to men.” That organ has played the Christmas songs which tell of a Saviour born, and the joyful Easter carols, which proclaim a Saviour risen. It has pealed a merry strain as bridal parties went up the aisle to the altar bedecked with flowers, and then its notes have been sad,—oh, so sad!—as strong men carried coffins up the aisle and laid them on the table. Two of them little coffins, with a dead boy in each,—boys who once came to the Sunday school, but who will never come again, or join their voices in the hymns the children sing and the prayers they say.

To the left of the chancel, looking toward the organ, is a little enclosure, or room where the singers used to sit, but which is now used for the infant class;—the nursery which feeds the larger Sunday school. It is nearly seven years since the class was first organized, and, during that time, there have been in it one hundred different children. Three of these are dead,—three little boys,—and they lie up in the quiet graveyard where the white stones show so prettily through the dark evergreens. Berkie was the first to die,—blue-eyed, pale-faced Berkie, who used to sit so quietly all through the Sunday school, with an earnest expression on his thoughtful face and in his great blue eyes, as if he were already looking away from this world into the one where he was going so soon. There is a picture on the wall before me of Berkie, with many other members of his class, and I never look at it without a sigh, as I recall the dear little boy who used to run so gladly to meet me, and listen so attentively to the stories I told him of Jesus; and then I think of that innumerable host of white-robed children

... “whose little feet,
Pacing life’s dark journey through,
Have safely reached the heavenly seat
They had ever kept in view.”

And I know Berkie is there with them, and I cannot wish him back, though his going from us made a sad vacancy in our little school, and left his parents’ hearts so desolate.

Children cannot be sorry long, neither is it right they should; and so the members of Berkie’s class, although they did not forget him, soon began to wear their cheerful faces again, and look forward to the Christmas festival, when the church was hung with garlands of green, and in the chancel was set up the young pine-tree, which, away in the marsh by the lake, had been growing year by year, and gathering strength in its young limbs to bear the many gifts hung upon it by parents, and teachers, and friends, when, on Christmas eve, they came together to keep the birthnight of the child born in Bethlehem’s manger more than eighteen hundred years ago. Children are always happy on such occasions, and it seems to me that the children of St. Luke’s, in Carrollton, are particularly so, judging from the eager joy which lights up their faces, and beams in their eyes when they hear their own names called, and go up the aisle to receive the expected gift. I wonder every church in the land does not have the Christmas trees, and thus give to the children pleasant remembrances of that day, without which we had indeed been shrouded in the deepest gloom! True, we do not know the exact date of Christ’s birth, but we know near enough, and children should be early taught that Christmas has a far deeper meaning than merely a day for festivity and mirth.

As far as possible the little ones of St. Luke’s were taught to understand why the day was kept; and that rosy, round-cheeked Fred did understand was proved by his saying to his mother, “I know what the Christmas-tree means. It is Jesus’ birthday party.”

Freddie had caught the spirit of the thing, if not its exact meaning; and as often as Christmas comes round he will remember the child Jesus, whose birth the church then commemorates.

The summer following Berkie’s death the infant Sunday school was unusually large, and every seat was full, while a few of the smaller boys sometimes sat upon the floor. There were some visitors in Carrollton Parish that summer,—Susie Ganson from Jersey City, Maggie Holmes from New York, Lena and Ira Stevens from Philadelphia, and Sammie Field from New Orleans,—and these were all in the class. Then there was another Susie and Maggie, with Louise and Maria, and Carrie, and Fanny, and Mary, and Cora, and Ida, and Dell, and Nellie, and Lizzie, and Lulu, and Jennie, and Geenie, and two Emmas. Then came the boys,—a host of them: five Willies, four Freddies, three Franks, three Georges, two Walters, two Johns, with Ezra, and Mason, and Eddie, and Charlie, and Hugh, and Hunter, and Polie, and Newton, and beautiful little Wallie,—the youngest of them all,—who presented the Easter offering last year, and whom we love so much because of his mother, who died ere he could remember more of her than the cold, white face which he patted with his dimpled hands, as he said to the weeping ones around, “That is my mamma.” Darling Wallie! God keep him in safety, and bring him at last to the home where his mother is waiting for him!

To say that these fifty children were always quiet and well-behaved would not be true; for sometimes, when the day was warm, and they were crowded more than usual, there was a pushing among the boys, a knocking together of boots and elbows, with a few wry faces made, and a few sly pinches given. Then, too, they sometimes whispered during prayers, and compared marbles and balls, and traded Jack-knives; while the girls thought sometimes of their new dresses, and the ribbons on their hats. Do any of the children who read this story play in Sunday school, and whisper to each other when they should be listening to what the teacher is saying? And do they know how displeasing this is to God, whose eyes are upon them everywhere, and who would have them reverence his house? I am sorry to say that there were a few children in the class who were very irregular in their attendance. The most trivial thing would keep them at home. The day was too hot or too cold,—or their new clothes were not done,—or they went out into the country to see their grandmother,—or they wandered off to some other Sunday school, where there was to be a festival or celebration, from which they hoped to be benefited. For this last the parents are especially to be censured. Better have some regular place, and stay there; for as a rolling stone gathers no moss, so no real good can come from going to different schools, and learning sometimes from one catechism, and sometimes from another, and sometimes from none at all.

One boy there is at St. Luke’s who deserves especial notice for his regular attendance. The day is very cold and stormy indeed which does not find him there; and neither worn-out shoes nor threadbare coat avail to keep him at home. He does not always have his lesson, and he loses more catechisms than I can tell; but he is _always there_; and, what is better yet, he brings other children with him. Six, in all, he has brought to the Sunday school, and we call him our little “recruiting officer.” He has a very high-sounding name,—“Napoleon Augustus,”—but we all know him as “Polie.”