The One Moss-Rose | Page 9

in my hand.
"Write it down, Aggie," said the invalid, "exactly as I have told you;" and having said this, James Courtenay dropped off into a doze again.
Some days intervened between this reference to what had passed and the next conversation upon the subject, in which James Courtenay told Aggie--who had to listen much against her will--what he thought about this wonderful dream.
"I know the meaning of that dream," said James Courtenay to his nurse. "I do not want any one to explain it to me; I can tell all about it. The meaning is, that I must become a changed boy, or I shall never go to heaven when I die; and all the good things which I have here are not to be compared with those which are to be had there. What Jacob said was, that all these things are fading, and I must seek for what is better than anything here.
"Aggie," said James Courtenay, "you often think I am asleep when I am not; and you think I scarcely have my mind about me yet, when I lie so long quite still, looking away into the blue sky: but I am thinking; I am always thinking, and very often I am praying--asking forgiveness for the past, and hoping that I shall be changed for the future."
"But we can't do much by hoping," said Aggie, "and we can't do anything by ourselves."
"I mean to do more than hope," said James Courtenay; "I mean to try."
"And you mean, I trust, to ask God's Spirit to help you?" said Aggie.
"Yes, every day," said James. "He helped Jacob, and he'll help me; and I hope to be yet where Jacob is now."
"Ay, he helps the poor," said Aggie, "and he'll help the rich. Jacob had his trials, and you'll have yours; and perhaps yours are the hardest, so far as going to heaven is concerned; for the rich have a temptation in every acre of land and in every guinea they have. Our Lord says that ''tis hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"
For many days James Courtenay thus pondered and prayed, with Aggie as his chief companion and instructor, and at length he was able to leave his room. But he was a different James Courtenay from the one who had entered that room some months before. The young squire was still pale and thin; but this was not the chief change observable in him,--he was silent and thoughtful in his manner, and gentle and kind to every one around. The loud voice which once rang so imperiously and impatiently through the corridors was now heard no more; the hand was not lifted to strike, and often gratitude was expressed for any attention that was shown. The servants looked at each other and wondered; they could scarcely hope that such a change would last; and when their young master returned to full health and strength, they quite expected the old state of things to return again. But they were mistaken. The change in James Courtenay was a real one; it was founded on something more substantial than the transient feelings of illness,--he was changed in his heart.
And very soon he learnt by experience the happiness which true religion brings with it. Instead of being served unwillingly by the servants around, every one was anxious to please him; and he almost wondered at times whether these could be the servants with whom he had lived all his life. They now, indeed, gave a service of love; and a service of love is as different from a service of mere duty as day is from night.
Wherever the young squire had most displayed his passionate temper, there he made a point of going, for the sake of speaking kindly, and undoing so far as he could the evil he had already done. He kept ever in mind what he had heard from Jacob Dobbin in his dream,--that there was not only a Saviour by whom alone he could be saved from his sins, but also that there was a road on which it was necessary to walk; a road which ran through daily life; a road on which loving deeds were to be done, and loving words spoken;--the road of obedience to the mind of Christ. James Courtenay well knew that obedience could not save him; but he well knew also that obedience was required from such as were saved by pure grace.
* * * * *
Altered as James Courtenay undoubtedly was, and earnest as he felt to become different to what he had been in olden time, he could not shake off from his mind the sad memory of the past. His mind was continually brooding upon poor little Dobbin's death, and upon the share which he