MORE LESSONS FROM NATURE
JAMES AND MARY NOW CONSIDERED themselves at home in their little cottage, and settled themselves there to work busily. They got it made comfortable, with a few indispensable articles of furniture, and they refused any longer to receive from the good farmer and his wife anything except what they really earned and paid for.
Mary was delighted to have once more the feeling of home and tried to make their small dwelling as like their dear old home as possible.
While James worked at his baskets she was busy with her needle, and their time passed pleasantly. They often spent their evenings with the good farmer and his wife, who were always glad to see them. In the long winter evenings, all the people employed on the farm sometimes collected round the farmer's pleasant fireside, and listened with eager delight to James's amusing stories and improving conversation. These winter evenings were long remembered with pleasure by many of the party.
Near the farm there was a large garden and orchard, which had been much neglected. The good farmer and his wife did not understand these matters, they were too busy with the necessary labor in their fields.
James undertook the care of them. In autumn he prepared the ground, and in the first days of spring, as soon as the snow disappeared, he and Mary were busy from morning to night. He laid out the garden anew, the walks were once more bordered with box, and the beds were divided in regular order and separated by well-graveled walks. From the neighboring town they managed to procure seeds and roots such as they had had in the dear old garden at Eichbourg. The garden soon bloomed with a magnificence and profusion of flowers such as had never been seen before in this wild and secluded place, and it gave a bright and smiling aspect to the whole valley, while the orchard, pruned by James's skillful hand, blossomed so beautifully as to promise a crop such as had never been seen in it before.
The blessing of God was upon all that good old James undertook. As Pharaoh's household prospered under Joseph's care, so all seemed to prosper when this child of God was the laborer. He rejoiced in seeing all thriving round him, and he seemed to feel that the old times had come back again. He was as busy as before in teaching his daughter the lessons inscribed on the flowers; not the same as before, for something new seemed to be sent to him with every new spring. There is no sameness in the voices of nature; they are ever varying and ever new.
In the early spring, Mary wished to bring him her usual offering of early violets. She carefully searched the woods and hedges and brought him her first bunch with a face beaming with joy.
"Well," said her father, "he who seeks finds; but," added he, "it is worthy of notice that the sweet violet is often to be found among thorns. Under thorn hedges you may often seek for it, and find it. There is a great teaching in this. There is no situation in life so thorny and so miserable that we may not find blessings under the thorns if we look carefully for them.
"Who could have believed that, after all our wanderings, we should find such rest and peace in this solitary cottage, in the middle of this lonely wood? Trust in God, dear Mary, and in every situation, however desolate it may seem at first, He will send you blessings hid among the thorns."
The wife of one of the neighboring villagers came one day to buy flax at the farm and brought her little boy with her. While she was choosing the flax, and settling the price of it with the farmer's wife, the child escaped through the open door into the garden. Forgetful of the protecting thorns, he flew eagerly to seize the roses that were growing near the entrance. In his rude and eager grasp, the delicate flowers were torn and crushed, and his hands and arms were cruelly scratched by the thorns. His cries brought his mother and the farmer's wife to the garden, where they were soon followed by James and Mary, all alarmed by the unusual outcry. They found the child standing with bleeding hands near the rosebush, trampling on the scattered rose leaves at his feet, and wishing that he had strength to destroy the bush which had hurt him so much.
"It is often so with children of larger growth," said James. "They grasp at forbidden pleasures, which fall to pieces and vanish in their hands, leaving sharp thorns and a cruel sting behind. Even lawful pleasures, if seized too eagerly, perish in our grasp; and we are then ready to blame anything rather than our own too great impetuosity. God teaches us to be 'temperate in all things'; to 'use the world as not abusing it,' because the fashion of this world passeth away, remembering that there is no unmingled happiness there. Almost every pleasure has its attendant thorn. Only in the garden above shall we find the thornless rose."
One beautiful summer morning Mary called her father to look at her lilies in full blow. The flowers were very beautiful, but as the garden had been long neglected, all Mary's care had not been able to subdue the weeds. The bad seed had been so long allowed to fall into the ground, that the thorns and thistles sprung up much faster than she was able to pluck them up. Her beautiful lilies were indeed lilies among thorns.
"Do you remember, my dear Mary," said James, "that the Church is compared in the Bible to a 'lily among thorns' (Song of Sol. 2:22As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. (Song of Solomon 2:2))? Christ himself is likened to a lily, because of His purity, as the lily is of a spotless white; and because of His humility, as the lily is often found growing in lowly and humble places. His Church is like Him, as it is made up of true believers, and they all, in humble measure, are made like their glorious Master.
"By Adam's fall, man lost the image of God in which he was originally made; but in Christ, the second Adam, men are renewed in 'knowledge after the image of him that created them' (Col. 3:1010And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (Colossians 3:10)). And having the image of God once more created in them in the new birth, they become, in humble degree, like Christ. He is like a lily among thorns; so are His Church and people, in some measure, pure in an ungodly world, rising upright like the straight stem of the lily through the crooked and twisted and disordered mass around them, tending ever upwards, and reflecting the rays of the Son of Righteousness, as the flowers of the lily reflect the sun on their pure white blossoms. The bright lily has no kindred with the thorns. It is evidently a plant of a different kind altogether; and one day God will transplant His lily to bloom in the garden where thorns are unknown.
"All fine plants," James continued on, "have a natural tendency to rise upwards, and to turn to the light. In this respect we should learn a lesson from them. The soul of man, formed to soar upwards, should not grovel on the earth and should ever turn to the light, shed abundantly from the Son of Righteousness, the light of life (John 1:44In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)), life-giving and life-preserving" (John 8:1212Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12)).
One day James was transplanting young plants into a bed prepared for them, while Mary, a little further on, was preparing for him by clearing the ground from weeds.
"This double work," said James, "is an emblem of that which ought to be the daily work of our lives—striving to uproot from our minds the evil habits which are natural to them and to implant the graces which are not natural. And as now our work would not prosper unless God sent the gracious influences of the sun, and the rain, and the dew to make the young plants flourish, so neither can heavenly graces flourish in the soul unless watered by the dew of God's grace, and cherished by the gracious influences of His Spirit."
James was digging a part of the garden which had been long neglected. It was hard, and trodden down, and unfit for sowing seeds, because there was no "deepness of earth." He dug it deep, broke the clods, and turned them up to the surface to be crumbled by the hard frost.
"Just in this way," said he to Mary, "does God work upon hardened souls. They must be deeply pierced by sufferings and by convictions of sin; they must be exposed to the frosts of adversity, to soften their natural hardness, and to prepare the soil to receive the good seed. If the seed is sown without this preparation on the hardened soil, it has no deepness in it, and it soon withers; but after this deep digging, this severe exposure, it is no longer hard. The good seed takes root, and, blessed by God, bears abundant fruit."
The orchard had been as much neglected as the garden, and the trees required a great deal of pruning. They had all gone to leaf, and James had to use the knife very freely. He cut off all the green leafy branches which never blossomed, and left only the shoots likely to be fruit-bearing.
"See," said he to Mary, "here is the illustration of the verse John 15:22Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. (John 15:2), 'Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.' When there are the green leafy branches of profession and abundance of leaves, but no fruit, then God uses the pruning knife. He cuts away and cuts down, if need be, almost to the ground; and after this pruning, the soul, chastened and improved, begins to bring forth acceptable fruit."
James and Mary spent three years very happily at the Pine Farm. In the autumn of the third year James's strength began visibly to decline. As the season advanced his weakness and illness increased. By the time that the summer flowers had almost disappeared, and the white, yellow, and purple chrysanthemums were almost the last ornament of the garden, James was feeling seriously ill. He struggled on, however, and strove to work as long as he could, but he felt his strength daily diminishing, and he tried to prepare poor Mary for the affliction that he saw she must have to endure. His remarks on the flowers now often led to the idea of death, and the season helped to give his lessons more and more this cast of thought. His words made Mary feel sad, she scarcely knew why.
One day she was attempting to gather her last autumn rose; but though she touched it very gently, it fell to pieces in her hand.
"Just such is man," said James, "in spring, bright and vigorous; in autumn, frail and weak. Yet in God's people this is only true of their bodies, and that only in this world: they will one day be raised up to unfading youth and beauty in heaven."
About this time James was one day busy in pulling the best apples from a tree which was bending to the ground with its load of beautiful fruit, although the leaves were withering. James said sadly, "The autumn wind is whistling through the withered leaves of the tree as it is playing through the scanty locks of my gray hair. I am in the autumn of life, dear Mary; and if you are spared you will also be so at a future time. Strive, and labor, and pray, that when your autumn comes you may be found bearing fruit as abundantly as this tree—fruit which may be acceptable to the great Husbandman."
When Mary was sowing seeds for the following spring, James said to her, "Thus will our bodies be one day sown in the earth—sown in corruption, to be raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body; sown alone a poor miserable grain, planted to die, yet springing again to life, renewed in beauty, a thousandfold brighter and better than before.
"The day may not be far distant, my child, when you shall see my body thus laid in earth. But grieve not, my dear Mary, weep not; death is but the gateway to heaven, the passage to endless life, the preparation for immortality. The Savior has conquered death and the grave, and we may gladly unite in the triumphant words of the apostle, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Cor. 15:55-5755O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 56The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55‑57))."
While Mary listened to her father, her heart was too full for words. A sad foreboding seized her mind. She felt that James was trying to prepare her for his own death—a glorious change for him but an unspeakable loss to her—a loss that seemed too great to be realized. She dared not suffer her mind to dwell upon it, for it would have unfitted her for her daily duties.