Difference between revisions of "The Kind Providence"

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"Behind a frowning providence

God hides a smiling face!"

"I feel, sometimes, well-near discouraged, Mrs. Clement, about this matter. I have already tried three schools for my little boy and girl, but have felt myself compelled to take them away from each, successively. And for the reason, that I could distinctly perceive a change passing upon their dispositions that was not for good. This is no doubt owing, in a degree, to their contact with other children. But I am convinced that such contact would prove beneficial, were the teacher who has charge of them possessed of the true wisdomof one in so important a station. I am not disposed to attach blame to the teachers with whom my children have been placed. No doubt they performed their duties to the best of their ability. But the lack of a true perception of their duties, is what I cannot but regret."

"And few indeed, Mrs. Van Wyck," replied the lady to whom the above had been addressed, in the course of a conversation, "have a true perception of these duties. Yet how important it is, that the minds of young children should receive, in their first development, a right direction.

"I have had a painful consciousness of this fact, Mrs. Clement; and it is the more painful under the reflection that it will be impossible, in transferring them for a time to the care of others, to secure the wise and judicious influence I desire."

"I believe," Mrs. Clement remarked, after sitting silent for some moments, "that if there is any one thing more than another for which I am, by nature, better fitted, it is for the management of young children; and if I were compelled to follow any pursuit for a living, it would be that of keeping a school for little boys and girls. And I would have none who were over eight or nine years of age. After that period, boys especially, should be placed under the care of a judicious master."

"I wish — no, I cannot wish that either; for it would be a selfish and cruel wish."

"Wish what, Mrs. Van Wyck?"

"I was going to say, without a moment's reflection, that I wished you might be compelled to keep such a school."

"I certainly cannot join in the desire. At my age, and with my habits, such a change would be an exceedingly painful one."

"It would, indeed, Mrs. Clement."

"I sometimes wish that I had half a dozen children around me, that I might observe the effects produced on their minds by a contact with the world, full of wonders to them, and guide their thoughts aright. I am often very lonesome, and grow tired of myself. For, you know, I have nothing to do. But I cannot turn school-mistress now. That would be a strange employment for a lady, with a clear income of five or six thousand dollars per annum."

"Not so strange, really, as the world might think," Mrs. Van Wyck said to herself.

About a week after this conversation occurred, a friend came to see Mrs. Clement. He was a man in business, and had always interested himself for her ever since her husband's death. In fact, he advised her in all matters relating to her property, and his advice was always taken.

"I have been thinking a good deal, lately, about your affairs, Mrs. Clement," said he; "and have made up my mind that the best thing you can possibly do, is to sell all your houses and lots at once, and invest the entire proceeds in the United States Bank stock. Property is now high, and yours will bring the very best prices, if offered at this time. But there is no telling how long present rates will be maintained. On the contrary, United States Bank stock is the safest and surest investment in the country, and the dividends are always large. Stocks are also the best kind of property for a woman to have. There is no trouble and loss from bad tenants. No painful necessity from distresses. No loss in repairs — nor the constant attention to insurance, taxes, and other matters that are not only troublesome, but constitute a very heavy drawback upon the annual income. All that is required is to go every six months, when dividends are declared, and receive your dues."

"You certainly know best, Mr. Stevens," was the old lady's reply. "Much better, of course, than I can know. If you really think the investment a safe one, I see no objection to its being made; and to tell the truth, these matters of rents, and repairs, and taxes, and insurance, etc. are a great annoyance to me."

"Safe, Mrs. Clement! why, I would as soon trust the United States Bank, as the Government itself! Its stock is one hundred and fifteen now, and those who have money to place at interest are seeking eagerly to obtain it."

"Well, I am willing to be governed by you in the matter. If you see best, you may make arrangements to throw all my real estate into the market, and, with the proceeds, purchase for me shares in this excellent institution."

Acting, as he supposed, for the true interests of the widow, now considerably advanced in years, Mr. Stevens sold off, as rapidly as possible, and at good prices, the whole of a fair estate that had been left to her on the death of her husband. The proceeds amounted to about one hundred thousand dollars, and were all immediately invested in the stock of the bank just mentioned.

Not long after this event, occurred that unsuccessful effort at resumption of specie payments by all the Philadelphia banks; which was sustained for only a few weeks, during which period millions of dollars in gold and silver were drawn out and transmitted to New York. Then came the shock of another suspension, the cause of which was mainly charged upon the United States Bank. Suspicions of her solvency began to circulate through the country, uttered in low, ominous whispers. Then her stock began slowly to decline. Day after day it fell, and continued to fall steadily until it reached its par value. How many a widow's heart trembled as her little all melted thus slowly away, like ice in the warm sunshine. A thrill of alarm passed through the whole country, as the stock, after lingering briefly at one hundred, fell to ninety-eight — then to ninety-seven, ninety-six, and so on downward.

Still there was hope that it would go up again; and few were willing to sell, and meet the heavy loss that would be the consequence.

"Had I not better let it go at ninety?" Mrs. Clement said, in a concerned tone, to her friend Mr. Stevens, when the stock had fallen to that amount. "I shall still have enough left for all my needs."

"Oh, no, not on any account, Mrs. Clement. The stock must certainly rise again. I have a large amount invested in it, and I would not sell my shares at even the par value. These are times of doubt, and fear, and strong trial. But we shall pass through them. So don't be alarmed, Mrs. Clement, all will come right again."

"I hope so, Mr. Stevens."

"I know so," was the positive reply.

Well. I will still confide in your judgment, Mr. Stevens. I have never yet had cause to question it."

"You may rest with perfect safety."

Still the stock continued to fall, slowly, but surely, from day to day; and there was little hope of any more dividends for a long time to come. In spite of all Mr. Stevens' efforts to assure Mrs. Clement, she still felt greatly troubled — nor could he, after a time, conceal the deep concern which he himself began to experience.

"I did it all for the best," he said to her one day, when his own fears had become so strong, that they could not be disguised.

"I am sure of that, Mr. Stevens; and I do not blame you. But do you not think I had better sell now?"

"At fifty dollars a share, when you paid one hundred and sixteen! Oh, no, Mrs. Clement. That will never do! It would be throwing away more than fifty thousand dollars in a single moment. The stock certainly must go up."

"I would rather sell, Mr. Stevens."

"Wait a little longer. I cannot bear that you should submit to such a terrible loss."

Thus persuaded, Mrs. Clement consented to delay day after day and week after week, until, with the hundreds who had been vainly hoping to see a rise in the stock, she was startled by the announcement that the bank had closed its doors.

This event swept her entire property from Mrs. Clement! The shock was such, as, for a time, almost to paralyze her energies of mind. From a condition of liberal affluence — she was suddenly reduced almost to a state of dependence. For a time she held on to her stock, in the vain hope that it would rise, and, finally, sold for six thousand — what had cost one hundred thousand dollars. But, unfortunately, as it seemed, even this small sum could not be retained, as there were some claims due by her, which had not been closed at the time her investment in stocks had been made, and which she had expected to liquidate mainly by the dividends that were expected to accrue. When these were paid off, she had scarcely five hundred dollars left.

Having known, all her life, no condition but one of affluence — to be left, at the age of fifty, almost alone in the world, and in poverty, was a trial of no light character. But Mrs. Clement was a woman of a decided cast of mind, and had been, at one time in her life, eminently useful in her sphere. But as years passed on, her enervating habits of lifegradually enfeebled the activities that had once been exercised for good to others, and she sank into a condition of ease and indolence.

"I am too old now," she would sometimes say, "to engage in these schemes of active benevolence. I must give place to younger people. At my age, repose is necessary."

Still she was not happy in her inactivity, nor did she feel altogether satisfied in thus voluntarily ceasing to be engaged in positive uses to others. She felt that she was living in vain.

But the shock that her whole moral nature sustained in the loss of her property, aroused the slumbering energies of a mind yet unenfeebled.

"What shall I do?" was a question often asked, and the answer long pondered.

About three weeks after she had closed up her business, and settled down in the certainty that she was worth only about five hundred dollars, instead of one hundred thousand — her friend Mrs. Van Wyck called in to see her.

"How do you find yourself today, Mrs. Clement?" she asked, in a kind and sympathizing tone.

"Really, Mrs. Van Wyck, I can hardly tell how I am. My mind seems like a sea that has recently been vexed by a great storm — the ground-swell is still heavy, and comes, at times, with powerful shocks. But I am trying to bear up like a woman and a Christian. Our gender, it is said, though weak and fragile in the sunshine, can brave the tempest with even more than man's firmness. It may be. But not in our own strength, can we do it. We must look up to the Strong for strength. Up, then, to Him who bore our sorrows, and is acquainted with our grief, I am endeavoring to look with patient confidence."

"And you will not, I am sure, look in vain, Mrs. Clement."

"I humbly hope not. The question with me now, is — what shall I do? I must do something, of course, or I cannot live — for I am resolved not to be an idle, moping dependant on anyone. I feel younger, by many years, than I did a twelvemonth ago, and fully able to perform my part. What an utter blank my life has been, Mrs. Van Wyck, for the last few years! I have added nothing to the common stock of good. To others, I left the business of performing uses, content to fold my hands in unproductive ease. But I can do so no longer. Whether I am willing or not, I must enter the arena of life as an active participator. I wish to receive, and, in turn, I must give to others."

"I am glad, my friend," Mrs. Van Wyck replied, "that you can look thus calmly through this distressing event, and extract sweets from bitterness. It is a wise Providence which rules the events of life, and happy shall we be, if we can see and acknowledge the Divine hand in what is adverse, as well as in what is prosperous."

"Thus have I felt," Mrs. Clement said. "But the trial is hard, indeed, for one of habits like mine, to acknowledge with submission, the divine hand which sweeps away all earthly dependence."

"Truly it must be! But only in that feeling, can there be any happiness."

"Of that I am fully convinced. And my daily, indeed almost my hourly effort is, to subdue a murmuring and repining spirit."

A pause ensued, when the visitor said —

"Have you yet, Mrs. Clement, been able to decide upon what you will do?"

"Indeed, I have not. I have about five hundred dollars left, and with this I might open a little dry goods and trimming store, and readily support myself. But, somehow or other, I have a most unconquerable reluctance to doing so. Not that I would feel above it — for I believe that I have fully subdued that feeling — but the place does not seem the one suited for me. I might take a few boarders, but I have an aversion to doing that, and it would, besides, involve a high rent and many heavy expenses, and might result in my falling into debt — a condition that I think of with feelings allied to horror. I wish you would suggest something — for something I must do."

"I can think of but one thing, Mrs. Clement, but I am afraid you are almost too old for that."

"Name it."

"How would you like to open a select school for young children? I have two, whom I should be happy to see under your judicious care — and I will engage to get you just as many more as you want, and at a good price for tuition. How does that strike you?"

"Strange that I should not have thought of it myself!" Mrs. Clement said, in a low, musing tone, falling into a state of mental abstraction, from which she at length aroused with a deep inspiration.

"You have suggested the very thing for me, Mrs. Van Wyck," she said. "It will not be irksome nor laborious. I love children, and seem to have an intuition of what will please and at the same time instruct them. It may seem strange to you, but I feel a delight, already, enkindling in my heart at the thought of being surrounded with children. Most earnestly do I thank you for the suggestion."

In the course of a week, arrangements were made for receiving a number of children, and Mrs. Clement's school was opened, with about twelve little boys and girls, each of whom had often met her before, and loved her for her uniform kind attentions to them. Her natural love of children went out in an affectionate interest toward her young scholars, and was felt by them; and while there was in her mind the delight of imparting instruction, there was in their minds a reciprocal delight in receiving. She did not seem to them a school mistress, requiring an arbitrary obedience, but a kind mother, who loved them, and in obeying whom, they found an unalloyed pleasure.

"Well, Jane, how do you like your new schoolmistress?" asked Mr. Van Wyck of his little girl, taking her on his knee one evening on her return from school.

"Mrs. Clement isn't any school-mistress, father," the child replied, in a half offended tone.

"Then what is she, my dear?"

"I don't know what to call her, father. But she isn't like the school-mistresses that we have been to. She is never cross, but always speaks so soft and good to us. Oh, I would not do anything that was wrong, for the world."

"Why would you not, my child?" asked the father.

"Because it would make Mrs. Clement feel so bad. When any of the children do wrong, she does not get angry and scold, but seems so sorry, and tells them about their Father in Heaven who sees all that they do, and who cannot love anything in them that is disobedient."

The heart of the father was moved. "Does she always tell the children about their Father in Heaven, when they do wrong?" he asked.

"Not always."

"What does she say to them, then?"

"Sometimes she does not say anything to them, but only looks them right in the face, as if she felt very sorry."

"And then they cease to do wrong?"

"Oh, yes. There are no little boys and girls in the school who will act bad, for a long time, after she has looked at them for doing wrong."

"You all love her very much, do you not?"

"Yes, father, all of us. And we are so glad that she lets us come to her. We like to go to school now. Sarah Armon, our minister's little girl, you know, says that Mrs. Clement's school is like a little Heaven."

"Indeed!"

"Yes."

"And why does she say so?"

"Because we all love one another, and Mrs. Clement loves us all. And then, when we come in the morning, before school opens, she takes the Bible and reads some of the beautiful verses in it to us."

"She does?"

"Oh, yes. About little children and Heaven, and being good."

"And does she always do that?"

"She always does now. But the first few days she did not do it. We were not so good then, nor did we love her so much, nor did she seem so kind and affectionate to us."

"Sarah Armon was right, my child. Your school is like a little Heaven, and Mrs. Clement is your good angel, for she loves you, and tries to do you good. I am glad to hear you say that you love her."

"Oh, I do love her, father, and we all love her very much," was the child's earnest response.

"How do you like your new employment, Mrs. Clement?" asked her friend Mrs. Van Wyck, a few evenings after the above conversation had occurred between her husband and child.

The moisture dimmed the eyes of the old lady as she replied, in an earnest tone —

"I can hardly tell why it is, Mrs. Van Wyck, but I never felt so much delight in the performance of anything in my life, as I do in teaching these children. For the first day or two, it did seem a little irksome, but that passed away as I lifted up my thoughts and asked a blessing from above on my efforts to teach children. Since then, I cannot express the delight I experience whenever I am in the effort to impart some good or true things to the little ones who have been committed to my charge."

"But do not the evils of their natures sometimes become manifest, especially in the form of disobedience to you, or unkindness to each other?"

"Yes, sometimes, of course. But to meet these, I first look into my own heart to see that I am not angry, and put away all that is not of love to them, and then my words and manner seem instantly to subdue them, even while I speak in the mildest possible tone."

"You seem really happier, Mrs. Clement, than you did before your great change in external circumstances," Mrs. Van Wyck said, after a pause, in which she was endeavoring to keep down the rising emotions of her heart.

"Far happier, my dear friend. It is said that the happiness of the angels in Heaven consists in the delight of doing good, and I can believe it; for something of a corresponding delight is mine while engaged in trying to do good to the children under my care — a delight so far above any merely selfish delight, that it is, in comparison with the other, inexpressible. What I thought the greatest evil which could have befallen me — I believe is going to prove my greatest blessing. How wise are the dispensations of a good Providence!"

Years have passed since Mrs. Clement parted with the almost worthless representatives of a handsome fortune. She is still engaged in keeping a small school for children, to whom her ministrations are indeed a blessing. A few days ago, in conversation with a friend, she said —

"I cannot but see and acknowledge the hand of a Divine Providence, ever active for the good of his creatures, in the recent events of my life. My friend, Mr. Stevens, who acted for me with a sincere desire for my good — of this I have never had a doubt — induced me to sell all my property and invest the proceeds in United States Bank stock, only a very short time before the institution began to lose its hold on the public confidence. I might have sold when the first shock came, and had a handsome property left; or I could have sold, and wished to sell at various points of the stock's depression, but was overruled, until the proceeds of the sale, when it was made, were barely enough to pay off a few unsettled claims against me. Had it not been that I was, in consequence, driven into active usefulness — I would have wasted the rest of my days in indolence and ease; nor would I have been, in any degree, so cheerful and happy as I now am. Thus, I am really elevated in my internal and true condition, and am actively engaged in doing good.

"I have thought much on the subject of divine Providence, of late. How remarkable it is, that all the various uses in society are made to go on by a kind of necessity, acting upon the selfishness of individuals! All employments which result in benefits to the whole are prosecuted, not for the good of the whole, but from a desire to benefit self; and thousands are kept poor, as the only condition in which they will be active. But how happy a social condition it would be, were all engaged in the performance of general uses from a feeling of regard and love to the whole! Under such a condition of things, individual benefit would be the certain result; for, even now, he who renders the greatest good to the whole —generally receives the largest return.

"As for myself, I believe that my peculiar use lies in teaching the young, and I have been driven into it. Had I remained rich, I could not have been induced to enter into such an employment; but now that I have been forced into it, I find a delight in its performance that I did not imagine I could feel in any act of use to others. And of how much more importance that some twenty, or perhaps more than a hundred children, should receive judicious early instruction, should have good seed sown in their minds — than that a single individual should be protected in the possession of wealth, which only prevented her from filling her true place of usefulness in society!"

Who will say that Mrs. Clement did not reason fairly?