Occupation of the cottages-Fireside conversation—Family
prayer-Sabbath observance-Striking incidents—Prayer meeting—Wonderful answer
to prayer.
Saunders was by trade a wright, and had a small plot of
ground attached to his cottage, which afforded grazing for two or three
cows, and it was to them that Barbara and her daughters chiefly attended.
The produce of their little dairy was disposed of to the cottagers who had
barely a hut and a small garden at the back of it. The people generally
wrought in the fields, as the neighbouring farmers and proprietors had need
of them. Their labours yielded them but small profit; they fed on the
humblest fare, and were clothed in the most homely attire. Their fuel for
the winter season was prepared in the summer months, and consisted chiefly
of wood and peats. The peats were dug in the mountain mosses, and spread out
to dry in the sun, and then brought down, in what is called "sliding cars,"
to the cottages, and piled up in a huge stack at the end of the house, dry,
and hard like bricks. And the scroggy wood in the vicinity, with which the
valley abounded, afforded an abundance of withered branches and decayed
stumps of trees, which, when mingled with the peats on the hearth, produced
a blazing fire, which lighted up the interior, in a dusky day or in a dark
winter night, like the sun at high noon. The gathering around the hearth in
the long and chilly winter evenings, to enjoy the genial warmth, and to
indulge in the social crack, was generally of a somewhat animated
description. The tales of other times were circulated, and stirring
incidents were rehearsed, that had been handed down from father to son. It
was in this way that ancient traditions were preserved, and even
stereotyped, on the popular memory, till they became ineffaceable, and their
accuracy of recital indelible. Hence the precision with which old tales have
been transmitted to us from remote times, without almost a single deviation
in the narrative, so that their truthfulness can scarcely be questioned.
The tales, however, on which our men of the glen chiefly
dwelt were the traditionary stories of the persecuting days. A. goodly
proportion of the cottars of the glen were lineally descended from a
covenanting ancestry, whose memory they warmly cherished, and the incidents
of whose lives, which befel in those dismal times, when the peasant was
hunted from his hearth by a ruffian soldiery, who visited every glen and
nook, and haunt in the solitary wilds, they retailed with enthusiasm, and
brooded over them till their hearts were fired with such a holy and
patriotic zeal, that they were ready to seal, with even their own blood, the
truths for which their fathers died. Hence the piety of the cottages, and
more particularly of those of which Saundars was the patriarch. Of his
cottage it may well be said, "the church that is in thy house." Family
worship was a standing ordinance with Saunders. In the morning, the first
thing was to convene the household for devotion, and a fervent prayer,
preceded by reading a portion of the Scriptures, and praise, ascended to the
sanctuary on high through the Great Intercessor, and the same was repeated
in the evening. Saunders used to say that a family without domestic worship
was like a house without a roof. The only mistake into which Saunders fell
in this dutiful exercise, was an undue length in his prayers. The good man,
in the ardour of his spirit, forgot himself, and sometimes to such an
extent, that the household were ready to fall asleep on their knees. The
exercise, in some cases, became rather a drudgery than a lively and spirited
duty. This excess on the part of Saunders, however, was at length corrected.
A pious friend of his, on a visit to the cottage, observed the mistake, and
remonstrated with the good man on the obvious impropriety of the thing, and
showed the danger there was of leading a whole family circle into sin,
through wandering thoughts and weariness, and even slumbering in the
devotional act which should be regarded as a cheerful duty rather than an
irksome task. The worthy man saw his error and felt thankful, so that in
praying in his family, and at sick-beds, he became doubly acceptable.
A great man has said, "nobody
knows how much the devil is served by long prayers in the family and in the
church." The truth is, that those who practise long prayers in public,
preach rather than pray, and indulge more in a sort of addresses than in
direct petition and supplication, and thus they pray the spirit of devotion
out of the hearts of their hearers altogether. In secret prayer the case is
entirely different. To this we can set no limits. Here a man is alone with
God, and he may continue for hours, if he is so disposed, in pouring out his
desires before the throne of grace with all thankfulness.
The keeping of the Sabbath was a matter of strict
observance by the household of old Saunders. The peasantry throughout the
district were generally observant of the sacred day, as far as abstinence
from working and idle amusements were concerned. Their church-going
tendencies, too, were creditable to them, and those who wonned in the
distant glens and moorlands, seldom absented themselves from the house of
prayer. In the fine days of summer, men and women, in their best attire, and
barefooted, came tripping lightly along the moors, and over the mosses and
tortuous footpaths, in groups, to worship with the multitudes wŁo
forgathered in the house of God. True, all were not so disposed: many deemed
the Sabbath a weariness, and said, When will it be over? and preferred
sauntering in the open fields, or gossiping from house to house, and though
many striking incidents occurred sufficient to deter the most thoughtless
from a breach of the holy day of rest, yet not a few went on following their
own pleasure on that day. The incidents which befel in the craggy lin,
though they deterred the careless for a season, were ere long forgotten. The
incidents were these:—A few careless youths had agreed to spend a Sabbath in
the lin. They stole away unknown to their parents, and scrambling among the
rocks, in the precipitous sides of the gorge, one of them missed his footing
and fell from crag to crag, till he reached the bottom, and lay dead. A
second, moving with precarious footing among shingly stones, had his leg
broken; and the third, climbing a tree, whose branches projected far over
the steep face of the escapement, was entangled among the branches, and,
losing his balance, was suspended by his clothes right over the hideous
descent, till he was rescued from imminent destruction by a person
incidentally passing by. These were pointed lessons, and lessons of fearful
import to all, the Divine providence bearing testimony, with something like
unmistakeable precision, against the sin of Sabbath breaking.
Saunders was a strict Sabbatarian, and in this he was
seconded by not a few of the pious households around him. There were not a
few who were like-minded with him, and who combined in their witness-bearing
against the desecration of the I^rd's-day. No worldly thing was permitted on
that day—the whole time was spent in the public and private exercise of
God's worship, except so much as was occupied in the works of necessity and
mercy.
There was one thing that uniformly characterised the
Sabbath evenings in the glen, and that was the holding of a prayer meeting
in one or other of the cottages. To this meeting all the pious people
gathered, and others, led by their example, frequently met with them. These
meetings were Bethels for God's presence, and the souls of not a few were
amply refreshed, and a spirit of devotion and religiousness was maintained
among the people generally, which, otherwise, might have been extinguished,
or at least brought to a very low ebb. Not a few were known to be brought to
the Saviour in these meetings—backsliders were reclaimed, and the careless
were overawed.
In those days books were scarce, and religious
information was but scantily diffused. In our times the case is different,
abundance of religious periodicals are in constant circulation, and we have
advantages unknown to our forefathers. The books in common use in the rural
cottages of those days were, such as Boston's Fourfold State, Guthrie's
Christian's Great Interest, Brooks' Apples of Gold, the Marrow of Modern
Divinity, the Pilgrim's Progress, and others of a kindred stamp, all which
were eagerly devoured by the thinking portion of the community. Some of the
volumes in use in those times—the identical volumes, dingy with smoke, and
well thumbed by the painful readers—are still in existence; but their chief
reading was the Holy Bible. This was to them the Book of books, the Divine
Spirit revealing to them its sacred import, and leading them to the faith of
it.
We have said that Saunders was a man of prayer. Secret
devotion was his delight, and he had many remarkable answers to his
supplications, an instance of which we may here give. On one occasion his
house was broken into, and all the money which he had locked in his drawers
was stolen. This happened on a sacramental Sabbath, when the whole household
was at church. The thief watched his opportunity, having concealed himself
among the underwood in the vicinity of the cottage, and when all was quiet,
he crept from his hiding-place and entered by a little window on the back
part of the house. The sum which he pilfered was considerable, and had been
accumulated by industry and economy through sundry careful years. Who had
done the deed could not be ascertained, and in process of time the thing was
entirely forgotten. It happened many a long day after this, that the
kind-hearted Saunders had become surety for a certain sum in behalf of a
friend of his—a truly worthy man, whose circumstances had become
embarrassed, and in order to help him out of his difficulty, Saunders
adhibited his name to a document for the sum required. He fully believed,
and so did his friend, that before the time the sum could be demanded, the
amount would be made up, and payment made without trouble to any one. The
case, however, turned out otherwise ; and the creditor, who was a stern and
gripping person, intimated to honest Saunders that payment must be made
promptly, and on the precise day and hour when the thing became due.
Saunders now saw that he was a ruined man, everything that he had would be
seized— cows, and pigs, and furniture, the implements of his trade, and all
the timber and deals in his workshop, all must go together, for all would be
required to implement the obligation. The worthy man was much distressed,
and Barbara remembered the case of poor Eppie. There was none to whom they
could apply for help, the sum was no trifle, and the creditor was
relentless. The family were in great perplexity, but Saunders was a man of
prayer, and had already obtained many seasonable answers to his
supplications, for he had the fullest confidence in the hearer of prayer;
and so, as they were one evening sitting a mournful group around the hearth,
and brooding over their mishap, the venerable saint, with a load of care on
his heart, remarked, that now was the time to make application to the God
who had fed them all their life long, and whose were the gold and the
silver, and the cattle on a thousand hills, and to ask him, in earnestness
and faith, to extricate them from their difficulties. God, he said, had ways
and means to bring about the thing desired, of which we have no conception.
"Aye," said Barbara, "we have no other door at which we can at present knock
but His, and to that door let us go in one company; He feeds the ravens when
they cry, and how much more them that trust in Him." The family then, fell
on their knees, and Saunders, as the head of it, simply, and in confidence,
asked the Lord to deliver them, and at the same time leaving the matter
entirely in His hands. They rose refreshed and comforted.
"I know not how it comes,''
said Barbara, "but somehow I feel as confident that an answer shall follow
our prayers as if we had it at this moment. 'All things are possible with
God.'" "Yes," added Saunders, "it will come, but I greatly wonder how? " The
minds of the household were soothed, and they retired to rest, and slept
calmly under the beneficent care of the great Father of all. It was now
exactly eight days till the time of payment, and hour after hour passed, and
day after day, but no help appeared. The last night came, and yet no
response. "I begin to fear," said Marion, the eldest daughter, a
sweet-tempered and pious young woman— "I fear," she timidly said, "that
deliverance may not be forthcoming, and that it may be the will of our
Heavenly-Father that we shall have to undergo this trial of being rouped out
of house and hald, and if it shall be so, let us not repine, but acquiesce
in the blessed will of Him who does all things well; for we may rest assured
that all will work together for our good." "Yes," replied her mother, whose
heart was full; "yes, and let us now remember that we are not like our
forefathers of the bygone generation, who were driven by a persecuting
soldiery from their homes, and scattered abroad over the deserts, without a
place to lay their heads; and let this also be our comfort, that we are not
driven from our sweet home for any ill deed of ours."
In this way did they
converse, expecting that, on the morrow by mid-day, if succour did not
arrive, they would be expelled from their little cottage, and be bereft of
all that they possessed. They slept again, and morning dawned. The rising
sun gilded the mountain tops with glorious light, and the sweet warblers in
the dells carolled their song of praise, and all nature was glad. The family
engaged in their morning devotions, and just as the prayer was ended—a
prayer full of confidence in God—a gentle knocking was heard at the door.
Saunders rose from his knees, and lifting the latch, there stood a tall
swarthy man with somewhat of an agreeable aspect. "You," said he, "are
Saunders Gray." "I am," replied Saunders; "come in, and rest a
little." "I cannot," replied the stranger, rather timidly; "but I would
speak with you for a moment; you, of course, know nothing about me." "No,"
said Saunders," "I do not know you." "No matter," said the man, "only I hare
a communication to make, which I request you, in a particular manner, to
keep secret, otherwise it may go hard with me. Will you promise, then, to
keep my secret?" "I will," said Saunders. "Then," added the man, "do you
remember the housebreaking that occurred here many years ago, and how all
your money was pilfered? Now, I am the man that did that deed, and I am now
come to restore what I so wickedly took away. I have been prosperous in the
world, but no thanks to the theft. I now give back the money, and double the
sum for the injury I did to a virtuous household, and the sin I committed
against God. The Lord has in mercy opened my eyes to perceive my sinful
conduct, and has led me in penitence to that Saviour whose blood cleanseth
from all sin. For a long time past I had frequently thought of coming to
seek you, and to make what reparation I might for the heavy damage I did
you; but it was not till Wednesday evening last week, that I fully
determined to take this journey, and to take it at some risk, for I could
not rest. I live many long miles from this, but a prompting within impelled
me to set out at any risk; and I am happy that I have found you alive, and
to place in your hands the sum that is justly your own. I ask your
forgiveness, and the forgiveness of the God whose commandment I have
broken." "O how wonderful is all this!" exclaimed the grateful Saunders;
"truly He to whom we make our supplications is the hearer of prayer;" and
then he explained the whole matter to the stranger, and how he had prayed at
such an hour with his family, and which, it now appeared, was the very day
and hour on which the man felt the irrepressible prompting to make an
instantaneous restitution to the poor cottager whom he had so grievously
wronged. Saunders took the man to his hut, and gave him hospitable
entertainment and wise instruction, and then he retired as secretly as he
came.
But this was not the whole of
Saunders' good fortune on this same day—for as he was trudging along with a
light heart to meet the creditor in the neighbouring town of Say-na-whair,
where the matter was to be settled, he encountered an old acquaintance, a
farmer once in the district, for whom Saunders had, in the way of his
occupation, made ploughs, and carts, and harrows, and other agricultural
implements, but who had become bankrupt, owing Saunders a good sum of money.
This event had occurred a number of years before, when the composition
offered was ten shillings a pound, and a legal discharge granted. This man
had retired to another part of the country, where he had met with much
success in business, and, being an honest man, whose conscience was not
satisfied with a merely legal discharge, he had now returned to pay in full
all his obligations to his old neighbours, and to Saunders among the rest.
Our worthy wright was now comparatively rich, and this in answer to his
prayers! The obligation was fully discharged.
