Chapter XV: Different Motives

NO one admired Agnes Temple, no one praised her self-command: she was thought lazy because she had not eagerly rushed into an occupation in which she took no particular pleasure, and for which she knew that she would find plenty of time without neglecting more homely duties; she was thought jealous because she had simply spoken the truth. And yet on that day, Agnes had begun a nobler work than that of embroidering in purple and gold, and her offering was a far more acceptable one than that of which Dora was proud.

"What a busy, cheerful little party!" exclaimed Mrs. Temple, as she entered the study on the afternoon of that same day, and found all her children sitting together, sewing, cutting, gilding, and chatting merrily as they worked. "You remind me of the busy, happy scene outside Jerusalem, beheld every year when the Feast of Tabernacles was kept."

"What was the Feast of Tabernacles, mamma?" inquired Amy.

Lucius would have asked the same question, but he dared not speak at that moment lest his breath should blow away the sheet of gold leaf with which he was trying to cover his wires.

"The Feast of Tabernacles was a yearly festival held by the Israelites in remembrance of the time spent by their fathers in tabernacles or tents in the desert," replied their mother. "This was the most cheerful of all the feasts, and was kept in a remarkable manner. The people made booths for themselves of the branches of palm, willow, and other trees, and for seven days lived in these booths. There were processions, glad hosannas, and sounds of singing and mirth. The people enjoyed their out-of-door life, and blessed the Lord for His goodness in guiding the Israelites through the wilderness to the good land in which their children now dwelt."

"One could hardly keep such a feast in England," observed Agnes, glancing out of the window at the grey sky and the dripping trees, which were dimly reflected in the pools left by the morning's rain.

"I think that living in green leafy booths would be delightful in summer, even in England!" exclaimed Lucius, who had managed to fix his gold leaf. "I should have liked, had I been a Jew, to have kept the Feast of Tabernacles—better perhaps than to have helped to make this model Tabernacle," added the boy, who, after several hours of steady work, was beginning to feel rather tired. "I should much prefer hewing down branches, and doing the rough carpentering part of the business, to gilding these tiresome, fidgety wires, which I am sure to ungild again as soon as I attempt to fix them into their frame."

"What, you are weary of your work already!" exclaimed Dora, as she paused in her sewing to thread her needle.

"Not exactly weary of it now," answered Lucius, "but I guess that I shall be so long before this model is finished. It is all very well," he continued, taking up his knife to hack away at some stubborn pasteboard—"it is all very well to make pillars and curtains while the sky is cloudy, and the rain falls fast, and I am kept prisoner at home; but suppose that the rain should stop, and the sun shine out, and the weather become settled at last, wouldn't every one of us like running about in the fields all day, playing at cricket, or croquet, or rounders, better than measuring and cutting and—There! Snap goes my knife, my new knife!" And with a gesture of impatience the boy flung the unmanageable pasteboard down on the table.

There was much to justify the suspicion expressed by Lucius that the work so eagerly begun by the Temples would, before it could be finished, become a burden and tax upon the patience of all.

On the very next day began a season of warmth and sunshine, which did more to drive away coughs and restore vigour to late invalids than could all the skill of the doctor. Even Agnes was able to spend hours in the open air; and, except at meal-times, Lucius liked to be out all the day. His fidgety work, as he called it, could scarcely be done but indoors, and the boy found it a grievous task.

"But it would be a shame not to go on with the model now, after putting mamma to so much trouble and expense," observed Lucius one morning to Dora. "Besides, I engaged to do it, and no English boy must flinch back from keeping his word. The new knife which I bought yesterday is not to be compared to that which I so unluckily snapped over the pasteboard; but I must hack away steadily, and show a good example to that lazy puss Elsie, who since the fine weather began has not put another stitch into her Turkey-red curtains."

"She has stowed them away in her doll's cradle," observed Dora, laughing.

Mrs. Temple was not surprised to find that the making of the model now progressed more slowly; she was rather pleased to see the amount of perseverance shown by her children after the charm of novelty had worn off. Even the "lazy puss" drew her work from its hiding-place, and would sew—for five minutes at a time—"just to please dear mamma."

All the five Temples continued to work, when work had ceased to be an amusement; but they worked from different motives. Those which influenced Lucius—a manly, honourable boy—have been mentioned already, as well as the simple wish to please her mother which made Elsie prick her plump little finger under her Turkey-red cloth. But if we could glance into the hearts of the three other girls as they sit together industriously plying their needles, we should find an example of how the very same effect may be produced by different causes.

Amy had from the very first considered her humble work as something to be done for her Heavenly Master, and this sweet thought made her take pleasure in labour, which without it would have been wearisome indeed. It was this thought which made Amy put fine hemming and stitching into the long strips of white lawn which represented the linen curtains surrounding the court of the Tabernacle, and even unpick any portion which did not seem to her to be sewn neatly enough. Amy tried to give her best, her very best work, because she was giving it to the Lord, and some of the happiest hours which the little girl ever had known were spent over her tedious curtains.

"I cannot think, Amy, how you can go on so patiently with what is so tiresome, with no variety in it, and a kind of work which will not look striking when all is done," exclaimed Dora one day, as she unrolled some glittering gold thread from her reel.

Amy smiled as she glanced up at her sister's far more amusing occupation. "If I could have worked anything so pretty as the veil which you are making, I daresay that I should have liked it much better," she observed. "But I am pleased to do the plain work as well as I can, as the embroidery would have been far too difficult for me."

Amy's curtains might seem plain to the eyes of most people, but her mother looked upon them with special pleasure; for, as she said to herself, "they are embroidered all over with faith and love."

Agnes also made steady progress with her not very inviting work, though she took in it no great pleasure. Agnes regarded the sewing as a matter of duty, and therefore plied her needle in the same spirit as that in which she struggled to subdue her temper, and tried to put a bridle on her tongue. It was the work which had been given to her, and she would do it, without asking herself whether she liked it or not.

"This material, neither smooth nor pretty, is something like a type of me," thought Agnes, as she put the finishing stitch into one of her mohair curtains; "but the goat's hair had just as much its appointed place in the Tabernacle as loops of silver and sockets of gold. I shall never be as much liked and admired as Dora is—I may as well make up my mind to that—but if God help me by His grace, I too may lead a useful life, and be dear—at least to my mother."

And more and more dear was Agnes becoming to her mother, who watched with the keen eye of affection the struggle made by her eldest daughter against her besetting sins. Mrs. Temple guessed what it cost Agnes to bear a rough joke in silence, to lend pretty things which she feared that the borrower might spoil, to give up her own way, and to show no jealous anger when another was preferred before her.

"My girl's character is becoming stronger and nobler every day," thought Mrs. Temple; "I thank the Lord for my Agnes, for I am sure that it is His grace that is working in her heart. Agnes promises to grow up into a really valuable woman, one whom her mother can trust."

Mrs. Temple could not have said as much for her dearly loved Dora. She was perplexed and pained to feel that something—she knew not what it could be—seemed to have come between her and her bright, clever, and affectionate child. Dora, indeed, gave Mrs. Temple no cause to find fault with her conduct; her lessons were well learned, her temper was good, she was a favourite still with her brother and sisters; and yet her mother felt that there was a change in her Dora for which she could not account.

Mrs. Temple was wont to have little quiet conversations separately with each of her children at night; in these meetings they were able to open their hearts more freely to their mother than they could have done had a third person been present, and she could speak upon religious subjects in the way best suited to the character and age of each. These quiet moments spent alone with mamma had been greatly prized by all the children; but Dora could take pleasure in them no more, and her mother was conscious that such was the case.

The girl generally managed, only too easily, to forget all about her unrepented sin when the remembrance of it was not forced upon her now half-deadened conscience; but when her mother sat by her bedside and softly talked to her about heaven, Dora grew uneasy in spirit. She did not like to be reminded of the holy God whose law she had broken—what pleasure could the knowledge of His truth bring to one who was conscious of unrepented falsehood? The return of Sundays, nay, even the hour for family prayer, were never welcome to Dora. When she repeated texts or hymns, as the rest of the family did, she had the wretched consciousness that she was acting a hypocrite's part, and taking God's name in vain. Dora's life was becoming one long act of deceit. She was secretly ashamed of herself for appearing so much better than she in reality was.

"But my work—my beautiful work—my work for the poor—I'll make up for what I've done wrong by taking extra pains with that!" thought Dora.

And so the poor girl usually succeeded in winning much praise from others, and in deceiving her own sinful heart, only too willing to be thus deceived.