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The Deaf Shoemaker
NERO; OR, CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
I would not enter on my list of friends(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,Yet wanting sensibility,) the manWho needlessly sets foot upon a worm.Cowper’s Task.About fifty years after the birth of Christ there lived a Roman Emperor whose name was Nero. He was one of the most cruel and unmerciful men whose lives are recorded in history. He put to death many of the noblest citizens of Rome upon the very slightest and most unfounded charges. The most bloody and brutal act of his life was the persecution of the Christians in and about the city of Rome. He set fire to the city in order that he might enjoy the pleasure of seeing a conflagration similar to that of a great city which had been destroyed many years before. To silence the report of his having set fire to the city, the base Nero laid the guilt of it upon the new sect of Christians, whose numbers were rapidly increasing in every part of the empire. The death of these poor harmless Christians was aggravated with sport; “for they were either covered with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by devouring dogs, or fastened to crosses, or wrapped up in combustible garments, that when the daylight failed they might serve, like torches, to illuminate the darkness of the night.”
He not only inflicted upon them every manner of torture and suffering which his wicked and depraved mind could invent, but he also took a great delight in seeing the poor innocent creatures suffer. Sometimes he drove a chariot among the sufferers, and at others he stood among them as a spectator of scenes which would make the coldest heart melt with sympathy, and the eye of the most unfeeling shed tears of sorrow.
Such was the character of one of the most cruel and merciless wretches that ever lived. And to what thing do you suppose, dear reader, his cruelty may be attributed? To the great delight which he took, when a child, in inflicting pain on the harmless and inoffensive little insect. It was his delight to extract from it cries of sorrow, and to tread upon the worm in order that he might witness its painful writhings. As he was in childhood, so was he when he became a man. As in childhood he caught the fly and pierced its body through with pointed instruments, so in manhood did he cause his fellow-man to suffer every pain which his corrupt heart could wish, or his sinful mind invent.
Whenever I see a little boy or a little girl catching flies and pulling their legs and wings off, or piercing their bodies, I always think there will be a second Nero, if that disposition is not changed by God, or a check put upon it by some kind friend.
Children, be kind to every thing around you, particularly the dumb brute. Do not throw stones at the harmless little sparrow, or the pretty little snow-bird. Life is as precious to them as it is to you. Doubtless they have feelings of love and tenderness for each other, and why do you wish to destroy their happiness? Even if they had ever wronged you, it would be your duty to return good for evil; and how much more is it your duty not to injure them, since they have never harmed you in the least. It always pains me very much to see a little boy throwing stones at every cow, horse, or hog that passes along within striking distance of him. Oh how unkind! How unlike Him who went about doing good!
I once saw a boy throw a stone at a beautiful young horse. He did it thoughtlessly, and did not intend hurting the animal; but the stone struck it in the eye and destroyed its sight forever.
Dear reader, if you had seen the agony and heard the screams of suffering which that one stone caused that harmless horse, I am sure you would never throw another stone at a bird or beast as long as you live. The boy, when he saw the pain which he had caused the innocent colt, went off and wept most bitterly; and I am certain, learned a most instructive lesson. Children,
“Let love through all your actions run,And all your deeds be kind.”“Sweet it is to see a childTender, merciful, and mild;Ever ready to performActs of mercy to a worm;Grieving that the world should beThus a scene of misery;Scene in which the creatures groanFor transgressions not their own.“If the creatures must be slainThankless sinners to sustain;Such a child, methinks, will cry,‘Treat them gently when they die;Spare them while they yield their breath;Double not the pains of death;Strike them not at such a time,God accounts the stroke a crime.’“God is love, and never canLove or bless a cruel man;Mercy rules in every breastWhere His Spirit deigns to rest;We ourselves to mercy oweOur escape from endless woe;And the merciless in mindShall themselves no mercy find.”SPARE THE INSECT“Oh, turn that little foot aside,Nor crush beneath its treadThe smallest insect of the earth,That looks to God for bread.“If He who made the universeLooks down in kindest love,To shape an humble thing like this,From His high throne above —“Why shouldst thou, then, in wantonness,That creature’s life destroy?Or give a pang to any thingThat He has made for joy?“My child, begin in little thingsTo act the gentle part;For God will turn His love awayFrom every cruel heart.”THE RAILROAD
“For we are sojourners, as were all our fathers.” – BibleThe cars were crowded. In one corner sat the grey-haired grandfather; by his side, the gay, thoughtless maiden; farther on, the youthful aspirant after the world’s honors; and at his elbow, the stern, thinking business man, intently engaged in reading the morning’s Prices Current, thinking only of Profit and Loss, and the rise and fall of articles for which he trafficked, forgetting, not the almighty dollar, but his immortal soul.
We started. On and on the fire-breathing iron horse drew us along: – now hurrying around the sweeping curves; now ascending some steep acclivity; now rattling through dark, dungeon-like tunnels; anon speeding with almost lightning rapidity over the smoothly laid track.
None seemed to fear. All was happiness and joy. One was thinking of the joyful welcome that awaited him at his happy home; another of the pleasure he expected to meet with from the friends of his childhood, from whom he had been separated many a long year; others were perfectly indifferent – no trouble to cloud their brows, no care to harass their hearts – gazing, with countenances of delight, on the fair fields of nature which stretched out before them, the mirror-like lake, or the cloud-capped mountain that lifted its proud head far above the bustle and confusion of the world.
None thought of danger. None thought that the next moment might find them a mass of bruised and mangled corpses, or struggling for life amid the waves of some roaring river. The engineer was at his post; the conductor would see that no harm should befall them.
My young friends, as I sat in that crowded car, many were the thoughts that rose in my mind. I thought this life was but a railroad; we the passengers. Some of us are thoughtful and considerate; many gay and inconsiderate. The railroad of life has many curves, to avoid the current of sin, or the pit of destruction; many a high acclivity of difficulty; many a dark, lonely tunnel of doubt and uncertainty; many a deep cut of affliction, from which the light of God’s countenance seems entirely withdrawn. The route lies along the flower-dressed meadows of happiness, and through the dark, dismal morasses of poverty and want. At one moment all is beauty, loveliness and grandeur; at another, the clouds of God’s wrath gather thick and heavy around us. Some of us are journeying to our heavenly home; others, far from that home, in search of what the world calls enjoyment, but, like the apples of Sodom, bitterness and remorse.
My young friends, if Christ be our engineer and God our conductor, we need fear no evil. All will be well; our journey safe and pleasant: and we shall safely reach a glorious home in Heaven, and there spend an eternity of blissful happiness in the company of the loved and lost who have traveled this road, and reached, without any collision or accident, its termination.
THE SPIRITUAL RAILWAY“The line to heaven by Christ was made;With heavenly truths the rails are laid;From earth to heaven the line extends;To life eternal – there it ends.“Repentance is the station then,Where passengers are taken in;No fees for them are there to pay,For Jesus is Himself the way.“The Bible is the engineer,It points the way to heaven so clear;Through tunnels dark and dreary here,It does the way to glory steer.“God’s love – the fire, His truth the steamWhich drives the engine and the train;All you who would to glory ride,Must come to Christ – in Him abide.“In the first, second, and third class,Repentance, faith, and holiness,You must the way to glory gain,Or you with Christ can never reign.“Come, then, poor sinners, now’s the time,At any place along the line;If you repent and turn from sin,The train will stop and take you in.”A TRUE SKETCH
“Let us be patient! These severe afflictionsNot from the ground arise,But oftentimes celestial benedictionsAssume this dark disguise.”Longfellow.A venerable minister of Christ left his home one bright, beautiful Sabbath morning, for the house of God. He was riding a restless, fiery mountain colt, but had no fears of his ability to manage him, as he had been raised from early childhood, as it were, on a horse’s back, and feared the wildest animal as little as he did a playful kitten.
He had gone but a short distance on his way, when the horse, becoming frightened, made a sudden leap, and threw his rider headlong against the projecting points of a large rock lying near the roadside. The rock entered his skull, and in a few moments that aged father in Israel breathed his last, with no kind friend near to whisper words of consolation in his dying ear, or wipe the sweat of death from his patriarchal brow.
The anxious congregation waited long and impatiently for the appearance of their much-loved pastor, but he came not. His spirit had winged its way to that bright, happy land,
“Where congregations ne’er break up,And Sabbaths have no end.”A portion of the congregation determined to find out the cause of his long, unusual delay, and accordingly set out along his accustomed road. After travelling several miles, what was their surprise and sorrow to find their grey-haired shepherd, who had so long and so cheerfully led them “beside the still waters, and through the green pastures,” who had taken the lambs of the flock in his bosom, and protected their tender little feet from the thorns which strew the pathway of childhood, lying stretched on the cold ground, a lifeless corpse. Many were the tears that moistened the noble brow of this man of God; bitter were the throbbings of stricken hearts that stood around the body of him who, Sabbath after Sabbath, had broken to them the Bread of Life.
There anxiously kneels at the side of her sainted father a little girl, whom they have failed to notice. What is she doing there? Come, gather closely around this scene, children, and look at one of your number. She heard the clattering of the horse’s feet as he hurried wildly from the spot where lay his lifeless corpse; she hastened quickly towards the church and reached her father only in time to hear the death-rattle in his throat, and see his brains all scattered over the ground. What does she do? She gathers them up, places them once more in his skull, and with her little hands endeavors to hold the shattered fragments together. But it is too late now. Dear, loving little Mary can’t recall the spirit of her departed parent back to earth; and the sorrowing members of that shepherdless flock bear her away to a home, around whose bright fireside and at whose morning and evening altar shall never again be heard the voice of one whom none knew but to love.
My young friends, I have witnessed and heard of many touching scenes, but for child-like innocence, and tender, loving affection, this surpasses them all.
I now leave you to learn the many lessons of affection and love this hasty sketch teaches, and hope you will not throw the book carelessly aside, and forget all about it; but think if you love your parents as fatherless little Mary loved hers.
THE SPIRIT OF THE DEPARTEDI know thou art gone to thy home of rest;Then why should my soul be sad?I know thou art gone where the weary are blest,And the mourner looks up and is glad;Where Love has put off, in the land of its birth,The stain it had gathered in this,And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth,Lies asleep on the bosom of bliss.Hervey.“THE LAST NIGHT OF THE SEASON.”
“Hasten, O sinner, to return,And stay not for to-morrow’s sun,For fear thy lamp should cease to burnBefore the needful work is done.”“The Last Night of the Season,” stood forth in bold prominence from mammoth posters at every prominent place in the city.
“The Last Night of the Season” headed an advertisement in every daily paper.
“The Last Night of the Season,” was echoed by thousands of handbills.
“The Last Night of the Season,” lingered on the lips of nearly every passer-by.
At night, thronging crowds, with hurried step and anxious heart, pressed earnestly into the accustomed entrance – then too narrow to admit the greatly increased numbers – of a large and brilliantly illumined building.
Do you know, breathed in quick succession from one to another, it is “The Last Night of the Season?”
Fellow traveller to the bar of God, “I have somewhat to say unto thee.”
Has not this sentence already gone, like an arrow, to your heart? Do you not feel that perhaps you have seen the last night of the season of salvation?
Oh! it is an awful thought. Yet, thanks be to God, there is still another opportunity of being saved. I now present you that opportunity. Will you, can you, refuse? It may be the last night of the season. God only knows.
“Delay not, delay not, O sinner, to come,For mercy still lingers and calls thee to-day,Her voice is not heard in the vale of the tomb;Her message unheeded will soon pass away.”Fathers, mothers, friends, relatives, brothers, sisters, those that love you tenderly, dearly, Christian ministers, the writer of this little article, all join in the earnest entreaty, “Come to Jesus!”
He is a precious Saviour.
He is a loving Saviour.
He is a willing Saviour.
He is an able Saviour.
Then, will you not come and cast your burden upon Him?
He has never turned away one soul.
The thief on the cross, – poor, weeping Peter – Mary Magdalene, with her seven devils, – all found Him such a Saviour as I have described.
Young man, in the morning of life, you whose brow no cloud of sorrow has ever darkened, will you not come to that Saviour?
Young lady, will you not come to that Saviour? Will you, whose sex was the last at the cross, the first at the sepulchre, stay away from that Saviour? The daughters of Jerusalem found Him an all-sufficient Saviour, and will you not come, like Mary, and
“ – fall at His feet,And the story repeat,And the lover of sinners adore?”MARY AT JESUS’ FEETTo hear the Saviour’s wordThe gentle Mary came;Low at His feet she sat and heardSweet mention of her name.She chose the better part,The one bright pearl she found:May we, with Mary’s constant heart,In Mary’s grace abound.Like her, we look above,To learn our Saviour’s will;The droppings of His lips we love,And would His word fulfil.Speak, as to Mary ThouDidst speak in Galilee;Call us by name, our hearts shall bow,And melting, flow to Thee.E. M. C.HUGH MILLER AND THE PRECIPICE
“Heaven above and hell below,Pleasure, pain, and joy and woe,Repeat the words in accents slow,Stop and think!”The celebrated Hugh Miller, when a boy, was in the habit of scaling giddy precipices, either in search of some peculiar specimen of rock, or some unknown species of bird.
On one occasion he saw a raven’s nest far above the ground, snugly fixed on a very high cliff, which had never been scaled by the foot of man. From below it was a matter of impossibility to reach it, for it was more than a hundred feet above the level of the sea. He therefore determined to make an attempt from above. Creeping carefully along, now holding by some protruding rock, now clinging to some slender shrub, he at last found himself within six or eight feet of the desired prize. There he stopped and hesitated. Beneath, the raging surf roamed and boiled. One misstep would launch him into eternity.
His foot was stretched out to take the first step, when he observed, as the sun burst suddenly from behind a cloud, the light glisten on a smooth surface of chlorite, slippery as glass. He at once saw the consequences of such an attempt, retraced his steps, and was, in God’s providence, spared to exert an influence for good, the extent of which will never be fully known.
Reader, have you ever attempted to perform some act which no one else was able to accomplish, and been on the very brink of destruction, when the Sun of Righteousness shone on your pathway and revealed to your darkened understanding the imminent danger of your position?
Young man, you that are anxious to write your name high above that of your fellow-man, beware how you step. The ocean of a never-ending eternity is roaring beneath you. You, perhaps, do not see your danger, yet it is there. If you are seeking only the riches of this world, which perish with their using, and endeavoring to do what no one else has done, pray that God will show you the peril of your position, retrace your steps, and remember the sad end of him “who layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12: 21.
The sequel to this little sketch is very, very heart-rending.
Not long after the above occurrence a youth named Mackay made a similar attempt; paused even for a longer time; then trusting himself to the treacherous chlorite, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong over the precipice. His head striking violently against a projecting rock, his brains were scattered over a space of ten or twelve square yards in extent.
The rock doubtless yet remains – a lasting monument of the sinful folly of man.
A FEW SHORT YEARS – AND THEN. —“A few short years – and thenOur young hearts may be reftOf every hope, and find no gleamOf childhood’s sunshine left!“A few short years – and then,Impatient of its bliss,The weary soul shall seek on highA better home than this!“A few short years – and thenThe dream of life will beLike shadows of a morning cloud,In its reality!“A few short years – and thenThe idols loved the bestWill pass in all their pride away,As sinks the sun to rest!”THE HOME OF ST. PAUL
I never left the place that knew me,And may never know me more,Where the cords of kindness drew me,And gladdened me of yore, —But my secret soul has smarted,With a feeling full of gloom,For the days that are departed,And the place I called my home.Tupper.Who is there that can stand beside the simple stone which marks the birthplace of George Washington, or enter that plain cottage in the slashes of Hanover, or walk the halls of Monticello, and not feel arising in his bosom feelings of pleasure and delight? Such feelings are natural; and I hope, dear reader, you will ever cherish them for the memory of such men as Washington, Jefferson, Clay, and the host of others who have done so much for our common country. If we love to visit the birthplaces and homes of men who have preferred death to bondage, how much greater must be the love with which we look upon the home of him who suffered and bled and died for the liberty of the soul from the powerful bondage of sin and Satan – the home of Saul of Tarsus, the scholar of Gamaliel.
That Tarsus was the birthplace of Saul is not very certain, as no one informs us of the fact; but one thing is certain, it was there he spent the hours of his childhood, there he was taught to reverence God’s Word, and there his tender mind received those impressions of love to God and his fellow-man, which followed him throughout his interesting and eventful life.
Tarsus, at the time of Saul’s residence, was one of the largest cities in Asia Minor. It was beautifully situated on the river Cydnus, in the midst of a most fertile and picturesque valley, and was the capital of Cilicia. On the one side a lofty peak of the Taurus mountains lifted its hoary head, and stood like a sentinel, to watch over and protect the city which lay in such calm quietude at its base; on the other lay the lovely valley of the Cydnus, interspersed with beautiful groves of palm trees and luxuriant gardens, through the midst of which the silver stream wound its way till it was lost in the Mediterranean sea. Over this plain, happy cottages were scattered like stars in the blue canopy of heaven. Above the city, about a mile distant, were the falls of the Cydnus, whose sullen roar added no little to the grandeur of the scenery. Such was the nature of the country in which the youthful Saul spent the days of his childhood and youth. Tarsus, as Saul himself says, was “no mean city.” It was no less remarkable for the beauty of its situation, than as a seat of learning and wide-spread commerce.
There is something about the word Home, which in itself is pleasant. How delightful is it to him upon whose locks have fallen the snows of many winters, and whose brow has been furrowed by the hand of time, to look back to the home and friends of his childhood! Every thing about the old homestead is interesting to him. Here, surrounded by kind friends and dear relatives, he spent the happiest hours of his life. Every spot has some attraction. In one he once was rescued from danger; in another he used to indulge in those sportive games which afford so much pleasure to the young beginner of life’s journey; beside some murmuring stream he often strayed, and stole the nimble trout from its crystal home, or rested his weary limbs beneath the wide-extending branches of the aged oak which overhung the gushing spring.
Such, doubtless, were the feelings with which the great “Apostle of the Gentiles,” when his mind was “burdened with the care of all the churches,” visited his native city. And now how changed! An English writer thus describes the present condition of that once prosperous city: “It is now a Turkish town, greatly decayed, but still of some relative importance, and carrying on a somewhat active commerce. The population is about 6,000.” – However the works of man may have decayed in and around Tarsus, yet the works of God remain almost unaltered. – “The rich harvests of corn still grow luxuriantly after the rains in spring; the same tents of goats’ hair are still seen covering the plain in busy harvest. The same sunset lingers on the pointed summits. The same shadows gather in the deep ravines. The water-falls of the Cydnus still break over the same rocks.”
Who would not like to visit a city once hallowed by the presence of one of the greatest and best of men?
THE WANDERER’S RETURNI left my home in childhood,The beautiful green spot,Where I used to sport among the leaves,Around my native cot.My heart was full of happinessAmong the woods and hills,And I heard the voice of hope and loveSing gayly in the rills.Each lawn and sunny meadow,Each tree and flower was dear —And I left them full of sadness,With childhood’s flowing tear.And after years of roamingI sought again the scene —I stood within the cottage door,And looked upon the green; —But my heart within me died away —For time had trod the lawn,And change had passed o’er field and cot,And those I loved were gone!The earth was full of beauty,There was balm upon the air,But the feelings of my childhoodI found no longer there.C. W. Thompson.