THE PAWNBROKER'S WIFE.

"Just speak my name sometimes, will you, in your prayers ?'"

You have heard of Margaret Mason and her Cuckoo Clock, and how she died in peace. You have heard too how the wife

of the Pawnbroker took back to her the things Margaret's poor drunken husband had pawned.

It would seem as if the whole village had turned out to attend Margaret Mason's funeral. There was a controversy between eight elderly people and eight children, as to who should bear her coffin to the grave. The minister decided in favour of the old folks: so the children went before, singing, with their young sweet voices-

"Sister, thou art gone before us,

And thy happy soul hath flown

Where tears are wiped from every eye,
And sorrow is unknown:

From the burden of the flesh,

And from care and sin released,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.”

Every one mourned for her as for a friend. Margaret, though poor woman, and very reserved in speaking, both of her own affairs and of those of others, was as important a person in her sphere as a duchess is in her's. If there was a sick neighbour to nurse, or a restless child to soothe, or a stubborn one to manage, or a baby expected, or a mourner to be comforted, there this hard-working woman might be found, with a step as quiet, a hand as gentle, and a voice as subdued, as if she had been nurtured in the palace of a queen. No wonder, therefore, that the tears which fell on the day of her burial were tears of true sorrow, flowing fresh from the heart.

But there was one mourner standing apart from the rest, who seemed almost bowed down with grief. No one seemed to notice her. She was a woman advanced in years, and had certainly come from a distance, and on foot; for her shoes were powdered with the white dust of the road, and she looked way-worn and tired.

When the funeral had dispersed, the stranger still lingered near the grave. And when it was filled up, and the hillock smoothed, she took a young rose-tree from beneath her cloak, and planted it on the grave. With a quickened step she then passed down the village, stopped for an instant at the gate of

THE PAWNBROKER'S WIFE.

Margaret's little garden, plucked a sprig of sweet-briar and a flower which our villagers call the "everlasting," but which Margaret herself always used to call "the lasting flower," (because, as she said, no flowers are everlasting but those of heaven), then tucked up her gown, as if in preparation for another long walk, and turned away.

"Dear me!" exclaimed one of the old people, "if that isn't Mrs. Stainton, the pawnbroker's wife, who used to live at the end of the village. Why, it must be well nigh five-and-twenty years since she and her husband left the place."

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Nay, nay," said another elderly person, "it isn't she. Sally Stainton was a hard, grinding woman, and never had a tear to spare for the living or for the dead."

I heard no more, for I had hastened to overtake the wayfarer. "We are strangers to each other," I said, "but we are fellow-mourners to-day. You must go home with me to rest yourself and have a cup of tea.”

She hesitated a little at first, but was soon persuaded to accompany me.

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Are you a relation of Mrs. Mason's?"

"No maʼam; at least not that sort of kin which you mean, though, in heaven, I believe, it will come out that we are very nearly related;" and the woman wept like a child. "I believe," she continued, "that it is owing to the prayers of that dear saint, whose coffin has been put into the grave this afternoon, that my soul was ever snatched from the wrath to come, and brought to Christ."

Margaret herself would have told you," said I, "that the praise is due, not to her prayers, but to the saving grace of God. However, I believe we mean the same thing. There are no contradictions in the Bible; and we are there told that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." | After tea, Mrs. Stainton entered into a fuller narrative. "Late one evening," she said, "long after the shop was closed, Frank Mason (Margaret's unworthy husband) came to our side-door, with a bundle of wearing apparel to put into pawn. At first I refused to have anything to say to him out of business hours; but he said he was going next day to a race, and must have money, on any terms, for betting on one of the running horses. So my greediness of gain prevailed, as usual. I advanced the money and took the things, rejoicing it my profitable bargain. In those days my heart was as hard as

THE PAWNBROKER'S WIFE.

flint. Yet, when I turned over the well-worn and carefullymended clothes, that cloak which had faced so many a storm, those shoes which had trodden so many a rough mile in duty's path, those coarse petticoats always tidy, yet worn so threadbare, somehow my heart misgave me. When I slept I dreamed of the patient, long-suffering wife; when I awoke I thought but of her. I tried to fight it out with conscience, but it would not do. So I rose earlier than usual, tied up the clothes in a bundle, and hurried with them and some breakfast to the cottage. Hearing Margaret Mason's voice, I waited and listened for a minute at the window. I expected to hear reproaches and complainings; but the words I heard were these: Forgive him, Lord; lay not this fault to his charge. Thou who clothest the lilies, wilt thou not much more clothe me also? Thou knowest that I have need of these things. Yet, though the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither there be fruit on the vine, I will rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation.' I heard no more; but after giving Margaret the things I hardly knew how it was-but something within prompted me to say, as I was turning away, 'Mrs. Mason, just speak my name sometimes, will you, in your prayers?' Till that hour I had never cared for prayer, and felt no reverence for it, and no need.

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"I shall never forget that walk home. 'What is it?' said I to myself, that makes her to differ so from me? If I were in her place I should either be storming with rage or sulking in despair. But there she is, praying for the forgiveness of the man who has so cruelly wronged her. She talks to the great God as to a friend, and calls him the God of her salvation. I know nothing about the God of this christian woman. Oh, Margaret, Margaret! would I were like you, with all your griefs and all your wrongs.'

"As I drew near home the sun was shining on the three gilded balls, the pawnbroker's sign. They looked hideous in my sight. Their sparkle seemed to cut me to the heart. For the first time in my life, the thought shot through me that we were thriving on the wants and woes of others—that the very bread we ate was moistened with the tears of the poor. I went up stairs into an old lumber-room, and there I sat down by myself. There was a weight upon my heart which seemed crushing it to powder. I groaned aloud, though I hardly knew what I wanted. Presently I said to myself, I wonder if I can

THE PAWNBROKER'S WIFE.

pray; but no words would come. At last I fairly smote upon my breast, and cried (at hap-hazard like) 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner! I knew afterwards, but not for a good while, that God, by his Holy Spirit, had put those words into my heart; though I believe I had not heard them since I was at a Sunday school. Well: I rummaged out the only Bible we held in pawn (for we scarcely ever took Bibles), and turned over its leaves. I was as ignorant as a baby where to find the places. You will hardly believe it, but I searched all through | Genesis to try to find that story about the publican, from which I had drawn my first prayer.

"Ah! for a good while, I do assure you, it was uphill work. But God did not let me slide back again into my old ways. He hedged me in with the terrors of the law 'as with hewn stones,' and would not let me get out till he had shown me a 'door of hope:' and that 'door was Jesus Christ.

"But, in the meantime, God had been teaching me, in his word and by his Spirit, that I must not expect peace of mind while I continued to carry on a business in which we ground down the faces of the poor, and oppressed the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Could I expect my own soul's burden to roll away while I was daily heaping burdens on the heavy laden? Nay, nay, that would never do. So I implored Davie (that's my husband) to give up the pawn-shop, whatever it might cost us. At first he flew into a passion, and declared that he was not going to be 'hen-pecked' out of a good business by any woman. So, then, God showed me that my place was to wait a bit, and be patient, and to put the difficulty into Christ's own blessed hands; and so to shape my own conduct, and watch over my temper (a new undertaking for the like of me), that Davie might see that the law of the Lord is a rule of love and kindness.

Well, to make a long story short, Davie presently hated the business as much as I. He was never a hard-hearted man, and used to be kept up to the mark by my own covetousness and firmness of purpose. It was the happiest day of my life when I saw Davie take a ladder, and climb up, and knock away those three golden balls which had once been the glory of my covetous heart, but had now become its torment.*

* It seems that this man and his wife had taken advantage of the poverty of others to benefit themselves, and hence the reproaches of their conscience. Many others of that trade do so too, but it would be very untrue and unjust to say that all of them do. They did right to give it up if it was a temptation to them to do wrong.

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"We left the place, and settled in W., where my husband had a few relations who might help us, we thought, into some honest calling. But though God always supplied our need, we have never abounded in this world's good things. He was minded, you see, to show us that they who would follow Jesus must cheerfully take up the cross and deny themselves. The sweetest of God's blessings are not in outward things, but in spiritual; and the best and brightest of his promises are not for earth but for heaven. He has taught us, at the same time, that the roughest road with Christ is pleasanter than the smoothest without him; and that a dinner of herbs sweetened by the love of Jesus, is better than a stalled ox with hatred to his law. I would not exchange one hard-working hour of these times for all the pleasures that could be put together, out of all the years of our former abundance.

"But there was still one desire, one little prayer, which used to slip in, like a whisper, between the soul's requests, and this was that I might see Margaret Mason's face once again, and tell her of the happy change. I could not afford the journey; so I put it off from year to year, always hoping that the time would come. Now and then I sent her a little token of love, some flower seeds, a silk kerchief, or a few yards of black 'love ribbon.' It was all I could afford; and she never knew from whom it came. I thought I would tell her all when we met. I had hoarded five shillings, and fixed to come soon. But the Lord has sent for her, you see. She was

wanted in heaven. So she never knew, on earth, that her prayers for the pawnbroker's wife had been heard and answered. And yet I think she knows all about it, in that place where 'there is joy over one sinner that repenteth.'"

So ends the tale of the Pawnbroker's Wife. She was right. Those who are now in heaven hear of what is doing on earth. There can be little doubt of that. If those bright ministering spirits tell their fellow-angels of the conversion of one sinner that repenteth so as to cause joy in heaven, it is only reasonable to suppose that they also tell the glad news to those who were once on earth but are now perfect before God, and especially would those benevolent beings rejoice to tell the relatives and friends of the new-born soul, that the chorus of praise might be raised in louder and loftier strains to the Lamb that was slain, and who redeemed us to God by his blood!