Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of CreationPridham, Caroline
Religion
Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation
Pridham, Caroline
Creation -- Juvenile literature
It was on a beautiful Monday morning, in the bright June weather, that the
scholars belonging to a large Sunday-school in Ireland were travelling with
their teachers and friends from the town where they lived to spend the day
at a lovely place by the seaside. How proud and happy they were, all these
boys and girls, as they marched through the town waving their flags and
singing, and how much they had to say about the grand time they were going
to have! You may be sure they liked a long holiday out of doors, with games
and races, and buns and oranges, as much as you do, and so they got into
the train in high glee.
But that train never reached the lovely place at the seaside. Before it
had gone very far on its way there was a dreadful accident; some of the
carriages were crushed and broken, as if they had been matchboxes, and
many of those bright boys and girls were killed all in a moment--the short
voyage of their life was over; oh, how soon! By-and-by some doctors came
hurrying to the place where the ruined train lay, and began to look about
to find those who might not be dead, only hurt. It was a sad sight they
saw, and one they can never forget. While they were busy, giving help here
and there, someone noticed two little ones, sitting on the green bank,
beside the wreck of the train. A doctor went up to see if they were hurt.
No, they were picking the daisies which grew among the grass; they were too
young to understand what a dreadful thing had happened.
"Were you in the train, my dears?" said the kind doctor.
"Yes," said a little girl of six years old, "we were in the train, and she
was too," and she pointed to where another child lay quite still upon the
grass; not picking daisies--no, she could not speak or move, she was dead.
Put your finger on your wrist, and keep very still for a moment. Listen.
You feel something, do you not? Something alive, and it goes beat, beat;
one, two, three, like the ticking of a watch. As long as you live, that
tick, tick will go on; but for this little girl it had stopped, because her
heart had ceased to beat. When the doctor put his hand upon her wrist, he
could feel nothing moving there. "She is quite dead," he said, as he took
her body up from the grass that it might be carried back to her home, the
home which she had left that morning, so happy and gay.
At the Sunday-school these children had been taught about the "wondrous,
glorious Saviour," of whom you sometimes sing, and we may believe that the
spirit of this dear child, redeemed to God by the precious blood of Christ,
went straight from that wrecked train to spend its long for ever with the
One who had loved her and given Himself for her; and that God, who takes
care of the poor little body which was laid low in the grave with many a
sad tear, will raise it in glory, one day, when "death is swallowed up in
victory."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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