What Norman Saw in the WestOlin, Julia M. (Julia Matilda)
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What Norman Saw in the West
Olin, Julia M. (Julia Matilda)
Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction
The Sabbath dawned clear and beautiful, bringing refreshing breezes
after the intense heat of the past fortnight. After the morning service
in the Methodist church Mrs. Lester stayed to the Bible class led by the
minister. The lesson was the eighth chapter of Romans, and it was
interesting to see two old men, with spectacles, bending earnestly over
one book, and talking over the meaning of the passage. The members of
the class were all men and women, and there was a very free interchange
of thought, as they looked into the Scriptures of truth. One face
especially attracted Mrs. Lester’s attention. It was a youthful face,
rather large, very fair, with light hair, blue eyes, and regular
features, not beautiful, but with a sweet, heavenly expression on the
high brow, and in the untroubled eye. In the class-meeting that followed
the Bible class, she spoke calmly, but with an unfaltering trust, of her
love to the Saviour, as being the master-passion of her soul; that she
loved God supremely, and found him to be a satisfying portion. Her
father, who led the class, spoke to her, with tears in his eyes, of the
time when her decrepit form would put on immortality, and would shine
with glorious beauty; when she would know no weary hours of pain, but
would dwell in the land where the inhabitants shall no more say, I am
sick, but where all tears shall be wiped away.
Yes, that sweet face was the face of a cripple. Her form was shrunken
and withered, and her limbs had never carried her whithersoever she
would. Her father took her into his arms at the close of the service,
her limbs hanging limp and as if without life, and carried her to the
little wagon in which he had drawn her to church. Mrs. Lester asked her
if she was not tired with the long service.
“O no,” she said; she would like to stay there till the evening
prayer-meeting at five o’clock.
It was not very often she could go to the house of God. She felt with
David, “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a
doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of
wickedness.” O how she loved the house of God, the place where his honor
dwelleth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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