A New England Girlhood [16]
my father's ninth child and seventh daughter--were baptized at one time. My two half-sisters were then grown-up young women. My mother had told us that the minister would be speaking directly to us, and that we must pay close attention to what he said. I felt that it was an important event, and I wished to do exactly what the minister desired of me. I listened eagerly while he read the chapter and the hymn. The latter was one of my favorites:--
"See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands;"
and the chapter was the third of St. Matthew, containing the story of our Lord's baptism. I could not make out any special message for us, until be came to the words, "Whose fan is in his hand."
That must be it! I looked anxiously at my sisters, to see if they had brought their fans. It was warm weather, and I had taken a little one of my own to meeting. Believing that I was following a direct instruction, I clasped my fan to my bosom and held it there as we walked up the aisle, and during the ceremony, wondering why the others did not do so, too. The baby in my mother's arms--Octavia, the eighth daughter--shocked me by crying a little, but I tried to behave the better on that account.
It all seemed very solemn and mysterious to me. I knew from my father's and mother's absorbed manner then, and when we returned from church, that it was something exceedingly important to Them--something that they wished us neither to talk about nor to forget.
I never did forget it. There remained within me a sweet, haunting feeling of having come near the "gentle Shepherd" of the hymn, who was calling the lambs to his side. The chapter had ended with the echo of a voice from heaven, and with the glimpse of a descending Dove. And the water-drops on my forehead, were they not from that "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal," that made music through those lovely verses in the last chapter of the good Book?
I am glad that I have always remembered that day of family consecration. As I look back, it seems as if the horizons of heaven and earth met and were blended then. And who can tell whether the fragrance of that day's atmosphere may not enter into the freshness of some new childhood in the life which is to come?
III.
THE HYMN-BOOK.
ALMOST the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns. Committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing. I followed my mother about with the hymn-book ("Watts' and Select"), reading or repeating them to her, while she was busy with her baking or ironing, and she was always a willing listener. She was fond of devotional reading, but had little time for it, and it pleased her to know that so small a child as I really cared for the hymns she loved.
I learned most of them at meeting. I was told to listen to the minister; but as I did not understand a word he was saying, I gave it up, and took refuge in the hymn-book, with the conscientious purpose of trying to sit still. I turned the leaves over as noiselessly as possible, to avoid the dreaded reproof of my mother's keen blue eyes; and sometimes I learned two or three hymns in a forenoon or an afternoon. Finding it so easy, I thought I would begin at the beginning, and learn the whole. There were about a thousand of them included in the Psalms, the First, Second, and Third Books, and the Select Hymns. But I had learned to read before I had any knowledge of counting up numbers, and so was blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of my undertaking. I did not, I think, change my resolution because there were so many, but because, little as I was, I discovered that there were hymns and hymns. Some of them were so prosy that the words would not stay in my memory at all, so I concluded that I would learn only those I liked.
I had various reasons for my preferences. With some, I was caught by a melodious echo, or a sonorous ring; with others by the hint of a picture, or a story, or by some sacred suggestion that attracted me, I knew not why. Of some I was fond just because I misunderstood them; and of these I made a free version in my mind,
"See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands;"
and the chapter was the third of St. Matthew, containing the story of our Lord's baptism. I could not make out any special message for us, until be came to the words, "Whose fan is in his hand."
That must be it! I looked anxiously at my sisters, to see if they had brought their fans. It was warm weather, and I had taken a little one of my own to meeting. Believing that I was following a direct instruction, I clasped my fan to my bosom and held it there as we walked up the aisle, and during the ceremony, wondering why the others did not do so, too. The baby in my mother's arms--Octavia, the eighth daughter--shocked me by crying a little, but I tried to behave the better on that account.
It all seemed very solemn and mysterious to me. I knew from my father's and mother's absorbed manner then, and when we returned from church, that it was something exceedingly important to Them--something that they wished us neither to talk about nor to forget.
I never did forget it. There remained within me a sweet, haunting feeling of having come near the "gentle Shepherd" of the hymn, who was calling the lambs to his side. The chapter had ended with the echo of a voice from heaven, and with the glimpse of a descending Dove. And the water-drops on my forehead, were they not from that "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal," that made music through those lovely verses in the last chapter of the good Book?
I am glad that I have always remembered that day of family consecration. As I look back, it seems as if the horizons of heaven and earth met and were blended then. And who can tell whether the fragrance of that day's atmosphere may not enter into the freshness of some new childhood in the life which is to come?
III.
THE HYMN-BOOK.
ALMOST the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns. Committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing. I followed my mother about with the hymn-book ("Watts' and Select"), reading or repeating them to her, while she was busy with her baking or ironing, and she was always a willing listener. She was fond of devotional reading, but had little time for it, and it pleased her to know that so small a child as I really cared for the hymns she loved.
I learned most of them at meeting. I was told to listen to the minister; but as I did not understand a word he was saying, I gave it up, and took refuge in the hymn-book, with the conscientious purpose of trying to sit still. I turned the leaves over as noiselessly as possible, to avoid the dreaded reproof of my mother's keen blue eyes; and sometimes I learned two or three hymns in a forenoon or an afternoon. Finding it so easy, I thought I would begin at the beginning, and learn the whole. There were about a thousand of them included in the Psalms, the First, Second, and Third Books, and the Select Hymns. But I had learned to read before I had any knowledge of counting up numbers, and so was blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of my undertaking. I did not, I think, change my resolution because there were so many, but because, little as I was, I discovered that there were hymns and hymns. Some of them were so prosy that the words would not stay in my memory at all, so I concluded that I would learn only those I liked.
I had various reasons for my preferences. With some, I was caught by a melodious echo, or a sonorous ring; with others by the hint of a picture, or a story, or by some sacred suggestion that attracted me, I knew not why. Of some I was fond just because I misunderstood them; and of these I made a free version in my mind,