The rocky island, and other similitudesWilberforce, Samuel
Religion
The rocky island, and other similitudes
Wilberforce, Samuel
Allegories; Children's stories, English; Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Short stories
Hard work they had to get at all along it when they had passed the gates.
All the stream of people seemed now to be setting against them. The
idlers jested upon their strange dress; and if they did but try to
traffic for their lord, the rude children of the town would gather round
them, and hoot, and cry: so that they could not manage to carry on any
trade at all.
Then, as I watched them, I saw that some who had been the loudest in
talking of what they should do when they were tried, were now the first
to give up altogether making any head at all against the crowd of that
city. They packed up what goods they might have, and began to think only
of looking about them, and following the crowd, and pleasing themselves,
like any of the men around them. Then I looked after some of these, and
I saw that one of them was led on by the crowd to a place in the town
where there was a great show. Outside of it were men in many-coloured
dresses, who blew with trumpets, and jested, and cried aloud, and begged
all to come in and see the strange sights which were stored within.
Now when the servant came to this place, he watched one and another go
in, until at last he also longed to go in and see the sights which were
to be gazed on within. So he went to the door, and the porter asked him
for money; but when he drew out his purse, and the porter saw that his
money belonged to some strange place, and was quite unlike the coin used
in that town, he only laughed at it, and said it was good for nothing
there, and bid him "stand back." So as he turned away, the porter saw
the rich bundle on his back, and then he spoke to him in another tone,
and he said, "I will let you in, if you like to give me that bundle of
goods." Then for a moment the servant was checked. He thought of his
lord and of the reckoning, and he remembered the words, "As good stewards
of the manifold grace of God;" and he had almost determined to turn back,
and to fight his way to the market-place, and to trade for his lord, let
it cost him what it might;--but just at the moment there was a great
burst of the showman's trumpets; and he heard the people shouting for joy
within; and so he forgot all but his great desire, and slipping off the
bundle from his shoulders, he put it into the hands of the porter, and
passed in, and I saw him no more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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