The Home Missionary

VOL. LXVIII

APRIL, 1896

No. 12

ROBBIE

BY MRS. JOSEPH WARD, OF YANKTON, SOUTH DAKOTA

TERE, Missy W-, look. Here are fwee pennies! Some other peoples may want to build schurches."

And dear little Robbie extended a fat little hand, scarcely large enough to keep three pennies from slipping through the slits between his fingers, or from rolling off from the tiny palm, as he came tumbling in his eagerness to bestow the gift of precious pennies, just as I came in from a walk.

He had been waiting for me. I hardly think he would have landed the pennies at all, had not those same chubby fingers been sticky-oh, so sticky-with the candy he had just been devouring.

It seems that Robbie had received a nickel from one of his numerous admirers, for he was a bright, "cute" little fellow; and because he had a loving little heart inside that small roundabout of his, he made friends by the wholesale. And now, if you will take the trouble to think of it, Robbie had accomplished a wonderful thing that particular Saturday afternoon, for he had been to the little country store and spent two cents for the candy he dearly loved, and had eaten, too, and which had so besmeared the rosy, round face and plastered the chubby hands, and he had reserved three cents to give, for the noble use already stated, to "Missy W, who pweeches at my schurch." Robbie's giving could not be explained simply as a matter of conscience, although that conscience was a fresh, new one, scarcely more than three years from the hand of its Maker.

Robbie had a way of saying, in moments of sweet confidential chatter

ing with his "dear, best mamma," when she asked, "Whom do you love, Robbie?" "Oh, I loves my Jesus and my schurch-and-my dearie mamma!"

So, knowing Robbie well, one could not help concluding that it was love which inspired him to give gifts, to help with his wee strength, or to share nobly with others. Love always works that way, and will always enable one to accomplish Robbie's remarkable feat in benevolent giving,

which, succinctly stated for grown-ups, is: "Money for missions in excess of money spent on self."

Dear, precious little Robbie! I seem to see him now, as he came to me with his royal gift to missions that Saturday afternoon, his great, generous soul shining out of those large, luminous blue eyes. (Alas for his mother! he is singing with the angels now.)

What a pretty, bashful way he had of bending his brown head, and casting down those glorious eyes veiled with long lashes; and then giving you a sidelong glance to see whether you were pleased with him or not.

Then the eyes flared upon you a wide-open glance that was perfectly bewitching, and off he would skip as happy as could be, if you looked pleased, scarcely waiting to hear words of surprise and pleasure and the "Thank you, Robbie, oh, thank you!" sure to follow. Robbie was always doing these pleasant little things. "It was his nature to."

Those precious pennies for Home Missions! "Some other peoples may want to build schurches." It is the very marrow and pith of the Gospel you are preaching to me in memory to-day, with your rosy lips and lovelit eyes. When you received some good thing you ran quickly to share it with those who had it not; and your way, O Robbie, was always to give away the largest share.

The special event that had made so marked an impression on Robbie, and led up to this munificent giving, was the building of a little church, after the coming of a Home Missionary to labor in that God-forsaken. town where Robbie lived. And, O joy! his father became the first convert, and his mother, who was already a Christian, became the "happiest little woman alive." And both entered with heart and soul into the work of helping to regenerate the town and the people.

Like other towns possessed by the devil, there were plenty of signs with the big letters S A LO O N, but never a sign of a church spire in any direction. There had never been any church services in town. There never had been any Sunday. Now there were church services and a Sunday-school, and books and songs and papers and bright picture cards for the little ones.

But meetings had been held quite long enough in dance-halls and depots, and the town was going to have a real church building for its own. It was a moment of intense excitement when this news was given out. Even the hardened old grogshop sinners were not wholly indifferent in the midst of the general agitation. They knew well enough that there was something better for their children than a saloon education. The blessedest best thing about our home missionary work is the way it gets. hold of the children, who are ever the chief hope in all our endeavors to better the world.

One of the most touching things about the building of this church was its effect upon the children. It was a picnic every day for hosts of these little ones. They were always playing about it and within it, watching the builders. It was a wonder that the workmen were so patient with them. But they were quiet, respectful, well-behaved. This was a remarkable state of things, for everybody knows that children are proverbially "always in the way." But when in the vicinity of this church a spell of goodness seemed to come over them all, even the most unruly. They said to each other, "This is our church, you know; haven't we given our own pennies to help build it? To be sure we have."

And right here was to be the place for their beautiful new Sundayschool.

They were always gathering ends of boards and blocks and building their endless block houses on the ground near by, and even within the sacred inclosure. At sight of these little ones one was reminded of the Psalmist's "sparrow that had "found an house, and the swallow a place to build her nest, even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts." In this happy way these crowds of children spent the play time of those long summer months; playing, chattering, hopping in and out, singing like flocks of busy, happy little town sparrows. With a great expectancy and open-eyed wonder these dear children watched the grand, palatial structure as it grew and grew up-up into the blue of the summer sky. Some children there were who did not know what such a thing as a church was like, and stared and waited quite curiously and longingly to see.

As the building grew day by day, it was afterward found that some of the older inhabitants had such visions of their own days of innocent childhood and youth, with memories of church-going and Christian homes and pious parents, as sent them to their knees in an agony of shame and remorse. This resulted in some cases in a downright good, honest repentance; and so the church began to "preach" long before a bell was in its spire, or a minister in its pulpit.

Most pathetic of all was the way a venerable old Christian couple, stranded on these prairies far away from their Eastern home and "sanctuary privileges," would mount the attic stair of their little dwelling (which, being on a rise of land, though miles away, commanded a wide view of the country), and with field glass in hand would each take a turn at the window, and report to the other progress in the building of the church day by day. It was, "Ah, wife, they're getting the roof on to-day." And the wife's invariable rejoinder at every new statement was a "Praise the Lord!" Or it was, "The chimneys are building;" or Husband, do you hear?-as sure as you live they're putting on a steeple." Now it was, "They're painting the church; it's a fine color." And so the remarks had gone on to the end of the chapter, till one day a farmer, on his way home from selling his wheat in town, stopped at the door to tell the old couple that the new church was "finished inside and out." Whereat these worthy people went to the ever-open family Bible, their comfort and anchor on that great sea of prairie, as on the tempestuous sea of life, and reading with great emotion the 137th and 84th psalms, they knelt and returned thanks to God.

But perhaps no one in all that town or country was quite so satisfied and happy as was our dear Robbie. He appropriated that little church, and gloried in his possession. It was "my schurch" from the first. Isn't you coming to my schurch?" he asked everybody he saw. He

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pointed a fat little forefinger to call the attention of strangers to its beautiful proportions-an entirely superfluous proceeding, for it was the most noticeable building in all the town to a person entering by wagon or railroad train, and no country editor was needed to inform anybody that the new church was "truly an ornament to the town." There was nothing that could keep our Robbie from church services on the Sabbath. Though he sat on seats that were so high that his short legs dangled down, it did not seem to be a weariness to the boy, whose sweet face in God's house bore the rapt expression of the little child angels in the picture of the Sistine Madonna. Sometimes, however, he slipped down. and walked about noiselessly, still with that same happy, rapt expression.

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Many happy weeks went by. For parents and child the most of their good times" centered about the beautiful new church. Then came to the community that always dreaded disease, diphtheria. Robbie was among the first stricken. The illness was short and decisive. There was scarcely any hope in Robbie's case from the first. It was terrible— that isolation from friends who otherwise might have rendered such comforting service in the sick-room. What could Robbie's parents have done-what could many a family have done, but for the services of "the Great Physician," who comes at call, and whose reputation as a healer of all human ailments and heart-maladies was beginning to be much bruited about in that community since the little church began to be? Nothing but the name of Jesus had the least power to make Robbie willing to submit to the painful applications and remedies so necessary in the But this adorable Name made Robbie such a patient, brave little man! Saturday night came. A sunset sky of brightness and glory foretold the Sabbath peace. Robbie, who had grown rapidly worse, roused from the appalling stupor; but it was the flaring up of the flame before the "light of the home" went out. "Mamma, what day is this?" he asked. His broken-hearted mother, hardly able to control her voice, spoke in the old, soothing mother-tones. "It is Saturday, dear Robbie." Then, with a beautiful smile and a great content, he whispered, as his mother bent low to hear, "To-morrow, Sabbath day, go to my schurch."

case.

As the Sabbath bell was ringing little Robbie was dressed in his “Sunday suit," but no eager little feet would take him again along the wellworn path to the earthly temple of God-for he had gone to that city of which "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple."

The father himself bore the little coffin down the winding stairway, and they carried the precious body away into God's beautiful green country, where, in a grove of tall cottonwoods, they laid Robbie's body in its small earth bed. His sorrowing mother said: "Oh, we wouldn't