Christmas Intluences.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 242, 21 December 1877, Page 1

Christmas Influences.

{Continued from -page 4 of Supplement.) who was alive. 11l usage and poverty had done their work, and the woman seemed older now than the sister who had watched over her infancy. In the early days of her unhappiness and disappointment Jeanne bad been appealed to, but Jeanne had repulsed the appeal. As Marie had chosen happiness independently of her, she must meet misfortune without her aid. She had been ungrateful for a life time given up to her, and she had met with.no more than her reward. The jealousy and anger of lov<t bjurned in the woman's breast, and the obstinacy of her nature enabled her to sustain it. Her conscience, indeed, smote her, but she quieted it as best she might. Marie had no true claim upon her. She had chosen another protector, acting upon the undoubted right she had to do so, and she herself therefore was not bound to interfere. She owed charity to all men, but not to one more than another. She wished her sister no evil, but only good. If it came in her way to confer a benefit upon her she would gladly do so, as upon any one else, but she was not called on to put herself out in the matter. She had said she would have no more to do with her, and she must abide by her word. During all these five years she had never seen her, and the short answers she gave to those who spoke of her soon brought her neighbours to understand that the subject was one to be avoided by them if they would not displease.

On the afternoon of this Christmas-eve of which we write, Marie was in her horne — a room on the fifth story of a poor house in a poor street. Every thing about her spoke of poverty : the furniture was scanty, thei-p were indeed hardly any articles that could lay claim to the name — a table and a few chairs of the coarsest make, and some common vessels for cooking or for meals, made up nearly all that was to be seen. Although the day was frosty and cold, there was no fire, and the woman now and then paused in her needle-work that she might rub her thin hands into sufficient -warmth to admit of her continuing her task. In a corner of the room, upon a poor looking mattress that was laid upon the floor, and wrapped in a woollen shawl — the only comfortable seeming thing in the place — a little child was lying asleep. It was at least well the little thing could slumber tranquilly ajnonst the wretchedness in which it lay. The round, fair limbs could not have lain more easily on a bed of down, nor could the placid countenance more peacefully have veiled the ineffable mystery that was hidden there. The face was'a sweet one, dimpled, and well featured. One tiny hand was hidden beneath the head under which an arm was stretched, and the other lay palm upwards and half closed, displaying -the fairy-like fiagers in their tender pliancy It seems hardly a "superstition that suggests that the smile of a sleeping baby is caused by the whispers of the angels, who hold communion with the soul so purely shrined. It is not difficlut to believe anything beautiful that can be imagined as to what is taking place in the mind that wears so sweet an outward covering. Since life has not presented phantasmagoria, that may pass across the brain in dreams, what is there that takes place there ? But who can make answer truly ? That which is so near to us is still far away. That which seems so familiar is still as mysterious and removed as if it lay at the centre of a world unknown. Nay, still more mysterious, for why do we not understand our very selves, and why are the secrets of our own being thus hidden from us ?

But Marie was hastening her task ; it was work which she had engaged to complete by a certain hour on this afternoon, and but a short time remained to finish it and carry it to her employer. She I ned a scanty living now by working at the needle, for her worthI — 6\ husband had crowned bis course of ill usajre of her by deserting h*,A It was about a year since he had left her. He had gone she knew not where ; he had not even waited until the child to whom she was about to give birth was born ; in her sorest need he had gone away, and left her to struggle with the world alone as best she might. And yet in her constancy the poor woman regretted him. Despite his ill-usage, despite his selfishness, the poverty he had inflicted upon heri — for he had soon squandered the money she had brought to him as her portion — and the evils which even to her had become ere long apparent in his character, her true woman's heart clinging to the last to that around which its young love and confidence had been twined had grieved for his absence. Even though he had continued to abuse her, she could have suffered his presence with comparative contentment. The loneliness at first seemed more than she could bear, but the little child came, and, although it brought additional anxiety, it brought also consolation. Marie finished her task, and, folding up the garment she had made, took her child in her arms and went out. She carried the work to her employer, and having received her payment, she turned her face once more towards her comfortless home. But as she went through the streets she felt that there was coming upon her an attack of illness to wliich of late she had been subject. A sharp pain it was that darted through her side, and made her weak and faint ; if it came on in the street she must have fallen down amongst the feet of the passers-by, and therefore she looked around for a place in which to rest until the agony had subsided. She found that she was

close to the door of one of the churches of the town, and she went in and knelt down at the base of a pillar with her head bowed upon the back of a chair that stood close by. Here she awaited the passing of the spasm. Sorrow and privation had indeed done their work. ' The woman was affected by a mortal illness, whose end generally comes with suddenness : but her hour had not yet arrived.

In the church there was the dim light that is so favourable to reflection. It was a .Gothic building, erected in the ages of faith, when men felt that it was a privilege to record their gratitude to God in noble monuments like this — monuments of holiness in a world that hears so many that testify to guilt ; for is not the whole world filled with such ? Is it not itself, indeed, a monument of man's guilt and of the mercy of - God ? Are not the mountains and valleys, the plains and seas, and rivers, all monuments of men and of nations, whose very name it may he las perished from the reading of all but the Eternal Eye ? It reads the records they contain, and although they may have been lost to the sight of men, none of them shall fade from off the earth until all has been declared and answered for. Nay, do we not, each one of us, inscribe such monuments of our own being, and are they not written by us even in the lives of others, condemning or pleading for us in the sight of Heaven 1 Let us rest assured that the home in which peace has been disturbed where we have restored peace, the sorrowful comforted, the needy succoured, are for us as lasting monuments in the All- Seeing Eye as even such a church as that we write of would fall short of being. Through the stained windows the, early setting sun of winter was, sending its beams, casting amongst the ancient arches, and on the flags beneath, worn by the feet of pious generations, the reflections of many colours, but all too weakly to cause a glare throughout the lofty aisles. At one of the side altars the creche was being prepared for the Christmas, and Marie, recovered after a little from her bitter throes, staid for a time watching the arrangement of the figures that represented the actors in the great scene at Bethlehem. The place favoured reflection, as we have said, and, while the woman looked on, her thoughts strayed back to former Christmas times spent in the tranquility of her early home. One image after another of her happy girlhood passed before her, and as she dwelt amongst their memories, the miseries of the present were for the time forgotten. Her father's doating love for her — f or she had been as the core of the old man's heart, — her sister's motherly care — all came upon her and filled her with a strong yearning to see once more the familiar place. What if she were to go and beg Jeanne to forgive her at last, or, if that might not be, at least to take pity on her little child.

The morn jvas about to dawn when every little child must exhale a fresh "beauty from the recollections inseparably bound up in it. Jeanne, she knew, was not insensible to such recollections, and the mother thought that amongst all little children hers was the most fitted to recall the associations of the day — she -would try once more ; she would take her little one and go and lay it down in the early hours of the morning before the day had dawned at her sister's door, Jeanne would find it when she returned from kneeling before the creche, and surely then she would not reject it. She felt that to obtain for her little one so trusty a Mend she could sacrifice herself, she could even give up her one treasure to save it from suffering and sorrow. Her poor preparations were soon made. An hour later and she set out. The way was not very far, it was hut a few leagues, but yet it took her deep into the night ere she reached her native parish. She was obliged to rest frequently by the road side or in the cottages of the peasantry, to many of whom she was known, and who gave her now and then a little milk for her child. The path to the old home lay by the place where the crucifix stood, and there we have seen her arrive some time after the last of those who went to attend the midnight Mass had passed by. You will have gathered by this time that the contest which had arisen in Jeanne's breast that night before the crib had been between her determination to abide by her resentment against her sister, and the relenting that had suggested itself to her, as she knelt there with the emblems of the great forgiveness before her. Some chord had been touched, some remembrance of former times, when the sister she had so loved had been by her side. She hardened herself at first, and strove to crush down from her heart the tenderness that was rising up there, but the influences of the place were too strong for her, shewas in that presence in whioh thoughts of pardon must be uppermost in the minds of all the faithful. His image was there before her, too, pleading for all who err. Who had been so deeply offended as He ? Whose love had been so spurned? And yet there He was, not terrible as an avenger, but a little child, the most helpless and tenderest of all things, stretching out His soft baby hands to all the world. Shedding from them, as the weapons of His warfare, grace and healing. His helplessness appealed to the love of all men. It called all men to His feet, and it pleaded with them for His sake to forgive and be at peace with one another. It pleaded especially for the little children, and called on all to love and cherish them as His emblems ; and had she not received Marie first into her arms as a little child, was she not always as her own dear little one 1 And now there was another as well as she, one depending on her who was so tender arid so helpless. The obstinacy of her nature was broken through at last, in the appointed hour. The grace of pardoning was given to her anfl the -weight that had oppressed her was lifted, from off her spirit, She

rose up from her knees and went out of the church resolved to seek her sister and be reconciled to her.

Meantime many of the people who had left the church before Jeanne, in returning to their homes had passed the crucifix of which \ve have written. A woman was kneeling there with her head bowed in front of her upon her hands, and, as they saluted the sacred image or knelt a moment at its feet, she did not move. Yet no one tarried sufficiently long to notice that she had been in the attitude of prayer, and motionless there for an unusual length of time, considering the hour and the temperature of the night. On reaching the outside of the church, .Jeanne found there a |neighbour named Toinette Guyon, who had been much attached to Jtarie, and wlio had persisted in pleading her cause when every one else had given it up. Her dwelling stood close to that of Jeanne Bizet, and she was waiting to accompany the latter home. " Toinette," said Jeanne, "you will go with me to-morrow to the town. lain going to look for my poor Marie." " It is the good God that has put it into your heart, Jeanne." " Yes, the good God and His blessed Mother. I tried to keep it ont, Toinette, but the little Child was too strong for me to-night. I have been bard and cruel, and resisted Him these four Christmases, but to-night He conquered. But why did she not come to me ? It was one thing to send by others — but why did she not come herself 1 In my worst hour Ido not think I could "have driven her from my door, but now I will go and bring her home. My poor little one ; they tell me she has suffered terribly, but I also have not lived in peace."

"We will go together, Jeanne, and find her, you and I. It will be a joyful Christmas for us all. It was but last night we were talking of you both, my mother and I, and wondering whether you would ever relent. You know I wanted her to come to me last summer, but she was then hoping her husband would return, and refused to leave the town. I have not seen her since. They tell me she does work for Guillemet, and that her baby is so pretty."' The women walked along conversing in this manner, for now that Jeanne had broken the ice of her st ra resolution, the subject was one on which she hardly seemed capable of saying or hearing enough ; and they were talking busily when they reached the crucifix. The woman was yet kneeling there : she had not stirred all the time from the one posture. The moon was slrinins: brightly as before, but had there been less light the quick eyes of Jeanne would have recognised her sister's unmistakeable form. She knew the turn of her head and shoulders too well not to perceive at once to whom they belonged, and the position in which Marie knelt was one peculiar to her when she was at prayer. With an exclamation of surprise Jeanne hastened to the side of the kneeling figure, and placing a hand upon her shoulder called her by her name. "There was no answer, and she stooped down towards where her sister's face lay hidden in her hands. With a wild scream she started back ; the face and hands were cold as the stones on which they leaned. Marie had gone to a better home than even that which now Jeanne would have given her life to offer to her. The summons had come while she knelt thus in prayer — perhaps she had felt that it was to be so when she laid her baby down beneath the cross, — and the story of her life was told. Very tenderly did the heart-broken woman, Jeanne, take her in her arms now there upon the ground, pressing her to her bosom as if hoping against hope that she might restore warmth to the worn anl ice-cold frame. It was a piteous sight to see her in her great remorse, caressing the corpse as if it had been the little child that she hal nursed so tenderly in her girlhood. The poor worn corpse in which was seen so little that recalled the loveliness that had been so cruelly destroyed in the living woman. She seemed to have forgotten for the moment the realities about her. To remonstrance and persuasion she turned a deaf ear ; or rather did not appear to know what was meant by them. They could not get her. to relax her hold of the dead body, and they were unwilling to unloose by violence her clasping arms. At last one of the women, of whom many were now gathered around, bethought her of the baby. It had been found — the living emblem of the Saviour's birth lying beneath the inanimate emblem of His death — at the foot of the cross, where its mother had laid it down ; and now they brought it and placed it between the living and the dead. The device succeeded — Jeanne looked for a moment intently into the the tiny face, the face with its soft, indefinable baby-charms, that whoever does not perceive and acknowledge the influence of fails in laying hold of one of the most purifying mediums on carth — charms that exhale a sweetness as of a flower culled in Eden, and which bring before us a vision of the primal innocence. Jeanne looked for a moment at the little creature, and then she seemed to come to her recollection. She stooped and kissed the brow of the dead woman tßeirly, and allowing the body to be removed from her arms s^hjtook the little one to her bosom. Poor Marie's piteous ruse, although not fully accomplished, had been successful. The woman returned to her home in the early hours of that Christinas day, older, if seemed, by many years, than she had been on setting out. She came there broken to some extent in spirit, but in heart more sound, and the little child, who had been sent to her by Him who "was once the Babe of Bethlehem, found her care tempered with the gentleness and patience that should ever accompany the lives of those who kneel in faith and pray before the crib.