IT was Saturday evening; Louie and the other children were at the dining-room at Marine Villa; it was a pleasant room, with a long French window that opened on to verandah, and beyond that there was a nice slope of lawn before you reached the hedge that shut the garden off from the high road. Many happy hours the children spent in the garden, but now it was evening, and on Saturday evenings, except in very bright summer weather, they played in the dining-room; every other evening of the week they spent in the drawing-room, but on Saturday evenings they always played together. Louie's evenings at present were not very long ones, for she was almost the youngest of the party, but she managed to get a good deal of play out of a short time, for she was a merry little girl, and I don't think, until this Saturday evening, she had ever felt a care or even a sorrow which had lasted a whole hour, though she had heard of sorrow, even in her short life, as who in this world has not? But seeing others in sorrow is a very different thing from being in it one's self, and hearing of care and trouble is very different from being actually yourself under its cold dark shadow.
But what shadow could find its way into that pleasant room, and, all uninvited, cast its chill over Louie's light childish heart?
In the midst of the play, the dining-room door was gently opened, and the children saw their nurse standing there; something in the look of her face hushed them at once, and they gathered round her with wondering expectation. She answered the looks: "Yes; something very sad has happened; poor Hunt's little grandchild is dead, just dead a few minutes ago; Hunt has been down and told us."
Hunt was the gardener. Besides the lawn and flower borders in front of the house, there was a long garden which sloped up a steep hill behind the house; the nursery window looked out upon this garden, and from that window the tall old man could be constantly seen at his work; at the very top of the garden was the little house where Hunt lived, and where, as long as Louie could remember, his grandchild had lived, but where now that little child had just died.
I don't know whether the children had known this little child, or whether they ever went into the house which stood at the top of the steep garden, but they were very grave when nurse had told her news and they did not feel inclined for any more play; so they all went up to the drawing-room, and there was only time for a little more quiet talk about Hunt and his grandchild before they were sent for, one by one, to go to bed.
Louie went very gravely away when her turn came, and all the time she was preparing for bed her mind was very busy with a crowd of new and unexpected thoughts which had come into it; the blind was drawn over the nursery window, but still Louie could not help looking at it a great deal, and could not help, though it was just what she did not wish to do, thinking how very little distance there was between her nursery and the room where the little child had died scarcely an hour before. She was glad when, at last, she was quietly laid down in bed, for she wanted to think about, and to try and answer the questions which her mind kept asking, over and over again. What had become of Hunt's little grandchild? Could no one have kept that little child from dying? Supposing it were Louie herself who died! What would become of her? Could no one keep her from dying? Was Death there, so near to her? Might she, like the gardener's little child, die at any moment? and then—oh! what would become of her? All these questions went round and round in Louie's poor little mind, and her mind knew not what to answer; her heart was full of fear and sorrow, and that heart could find nothing in itself to give comfort, so its poor little owner turned about in her bed, and thought, and questioned, and thought again; the only thing that came at last, as a kind of answer, to her mind was a dim remembrance of some lines she had heard about "the cold dark grave." This was no comfort, so at last Louie tried to think of all the care and love that was around her in her home, and to feel a hope that all that care would keep her from dying, and so, with this little hope, she got more restful and fell asleep.
Oh! how different was Louie's comfort and Louie's rest from that of another little girl I have heard of: she had a sorrowful question in her heart one night, and she tossed restlessly in bed, as Louie had done, and with something of the same fears, but she did not fall asleep, as Louie did, with a wretched little bit of comfort gathered from her own poor heart. This little girl did not keep all her thoughts to herself and answer them again with other thoughts, still her own; no, she sat up in bed, at last, when her heart was so full of fear and sorrow that she could hold it no more, and she told out all that was in her heart to the Lord Jesus; all the fear and all the sorrow; and she got a sweet answer of peace from Him, for He was looking down all the time in tender pity and love. That same Jesus was looking down at Louie too, and would have answered all her questions, and would have given her a sweet answer of peace; He would have let her go to sleep with a rest of His own giving, and that could never be lost, if only she had told Him all that was in her heart. It is a sad thing to try and answer for ourselves the questions that arise in our hearts, or to try and find comfort for ourselves for the sorrow that assail those hearts: it is a blessed thing to tell out all the questions and all the sorrows to God, for “God is love."
Perhaps you are ready to ask why God, who is love, allowed poor little Louie's heart to be shadowed with so dark a cloud that night; why He allowed such a little child to feel so much trouble and to be kept awake with so many strange sad questions.
Ah, it was all love!
How many children lie down, night after night, in snug beds and there, after a few minutes, fall asleep; and a few hours later, when they are fast asleep, how often a dear mother comes into the room where the little ones are, to take a "good night" look at them: she treads softly, and shades the light with her hand that she may not disturb them, and it is love that makes her thus careful. But supposing the house where the little sleepers lay was on fire, and that thus they, though all unconscious of danger, were every moment drawing nearer a terrible death! Ah! then the same love which before was so careful not to disturb them would hasten to rouse them; the parents would run into the room, they would call aloud to the children, they would shake them, anything rather than leave them to sleep on in danger. The children might cry at the sudden disturbance or, half asleep, might wish to lie down again, but love would not allow this, it would arouse them again and again, and would not suffer them to rest until it had brought them to a place of safety.
So Louie, though she seemed a light-hearted child, was in danger, as every child is who is contented with its own little hopes and joys, and whose heart has never felt its need, and never sought and found the Savior Jesus. But Love would not leave Louey to sleep in the place of danger, and so it had begun, that night, to arouse her.