IT was a cold First of January, and Jacob Brown was cross. He couldn’t afford much fire, nor a warmer coat, nor anything hot for dinner; so he sat at work — he was a shoemaker — and growled most heartily.
Just then a knock at the room-door startled him, and he had scarcely time to clear his brow before a customer came in, closely followed by Jacob’s wife.
“Good morning, Mr. Brown,” said the stranger, courteously.
“Mornin’ t’ye, ma’am,” returned the shoemaker — for the newcomer was well dressed. “Madge, dust a chair, and shut the door behind you.”
As Mrs. Brown obeyed, the lady smiled, for she saw that Jacob was a character. The cobbler saw the smile, and admired it greatly — it was so kind, so sunny, and beautiful — one that would have increased the brightness even of a palace―one such as Jacob Brown but rarely saw. Nor did the excellent order which she gave him make the industrious shoemaker think less of his customer. Five village children were to be booted immediately, that they might begin the New Year by going to school; and old Mark Dobson was to have a pair of shoes.
“You can do all this in a fortnight?” asked the stranger, when she had explained that she was on a visit at the squire’s, and might soon have to leave the neighborhood; “you will not disappoint me if you can avoid it?”
Jacob said “No,” and looked as if he meant what he was saying; but, finding that his customer still lingered, he added, very firmly, “They’ll be done! If ever I promise anything, I always do it.”
“If you can,” suggested the lady.
“I never promise what I can’t,” said Jacob; “I know how long things take, and I just calc’late; and then, in course, it’s ready by the time.”
“But sickness may come,” said the visitor. “We are never sure of health, my good friend, are we? This New Year’s morning finds us in full vigor — the next may see snow fall upon our graves. Before a fortnight has gone by, the strong man may be wasted, helpless, dying. ‘We know not,’ any of us, ‘what a day may bring forth.’ Do you think of these things sometimes?”
The shoemaker looked displeased. “don’t know as I do.”
“Then you must allow me to say that you are most unwise. You know that eating, drinking, getting money, and spending it, ought not to be the business of your life, and yet you do not think. You know that another hour may find you in eternity, and yet you do not think. Ah! my friend, stop and think!”
“I don’t know how,” said Jacob, who found it impossible to resist her kindly tone; “you see I ain’t no scholar, and I can’t see the harm of saying I shall finish them shoes and boots in a fortnight, certain.”
The lady took a Bible from her pocket. “May I not read to you a little, Mr. Brown?”
“Of course, ma’am, if you wish; but I don’t suppose I shall understand it, nor Madge neither,” said the shoemaker. “We never had much learning’ when we was small, and it’s too late to begin now-a-days.”
“I do not know,” said Mrs. Hastings, smiling; “I have kept school for older people than you; and as to the few verses I shall read, although you cannot feel them without the teaching of God’s Spirit, you cannot help understanding them, if you try.
“ ‘Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.’”
The shoemaker and his wife sat very still; it was long since the Bible had been read to them, still longer since they had listened seriously. But now a blessing was upon the reading, and the words came home — home to their very hearts. For years death had been near them, carrying off one neighbor after another, but they had never taken warning by the fate of their fellow-mortals; for years they had known others resolve and plan — only to find that God’s nay was decisive, but they had gone on planning and resolving without one thought of Him. And on that New Year’s morning they had risen without one doubt that they should live to see the latest day of the three hundred and sixty-five — without one fear of change, and death and judgment. But as their friend read on, their consciences awoke, and the heart’s cry of one at least was — “What must I do to be saved?”
On finding that her hearers were impressed, Mrs. Hastings turned to the twenty-seventh of Matthew, and read the story of the death of Jesus, repeating at its close a little hymn that went, as Jacob said, “to his very heart.”
“Yonder — amazing sight! — I see
Th’ incarnate Son of God,
Expiring on the accursed tree
In agony and blood.
Behold a purple torrent run
Down from His hands and head;
The crimson tide puts out the sun;
His groans awake the dead.
The trembling earth, the darkened sky,
Proclaim the truth aloud;
And, with the amazed centurion, cry,
‘This is the Son of God!’
So great, so vast a sacrifice
May well my hope revive:
If God’s own Son thus bleeds and dies,
The sinner sure may live.”
t was enough. The message was from God, and God’s own Spirit brought it home with power. Mrs. Hastings came no more to Jacob’s cottage; the sudden illness of her husband called her home that very day. She did not return again; but she wrote often, preaching “Christ crucified.” And the squire’s lady, who paid for the boots and shoes when they were finished, not only discovered that the shoemaker was changed in heart, but had much reason to hope that his wife also would have “A Happy New Year.”