Tired Church Members | Page 9

Freischutz; and one who was there remembers well how hard the little hands grasped the edge of the box, and how impossible it was to win the young eyes round, even by a vision of sugarplums. To the end of her life, I fancy, she will see now and then a picture out of that fairyland. Next day Miriam entreated earnestly to have the pleasure over again; strengthening her plea with this remarkable promise, that if she might go once more, she would never do anything wrong again as long as she lived! Her father paced up and down the room with a grave smile upon his lips, the little suppliant following with eager feet, ever renewing her request, and he answering little; for the matter was beyond her ken. But he was a Christian who kept off the Debatable land; and where his foot might not enter, he would not send his child. Had he not himself dedicated her to be the Lord's? She never went again. Never to the theatre; never again to any such place, until long afterwards; and with that going he had nothing to do.
Miriam had grown up, had become a Christian and a happy one; and as yet no "flatterer" had beguiled her off upon the "Enchanted Ground." But at last the temptation came, in a very specious way.
There was a new Prima Donna at the opera house that winter; a young, pretty woman, working hard (it was said) to support her mother; and Miriam, going daily to see dear friends at the same hotel, often heard the singing and practising that went on in the Prima Donna's rooms. And Miriam was very fond of music, and had been able to hear very little that was really good; and now in a moment one thing took possession of her; she must go to the opera!--Tickets too costly, and no one to take her, made the thing look impossible on the one side; and on the other--there was her Christian name and promise. Of course it was wrong for Christians to go!--she knew that. Yet for the time, nothing seemed tangible or real but this; go she must! And so from week to week this fever of desire grew and increased, fed from time to time by those snatches of song that floated through the great hall of the hotel.
At last one day her friends said (knowing nothing of all this), "Miriam, you must go with us to an undress rehearsal. We have got tickets, and you must go." Then beginning to answer the objections they expected--"It is only undress," they said; "the house half lighted, and the actors not in costume. Anybody might go,--and you must."--"It's a very moral opera," began another. "Of course we would never take you to see anything else."
Miriam was too ignorant of the world and its theatres to fairly understand all these advantages,--indeed I fancy longing made such a din in her ears that she paid but little attention. For a while she withstood--then desire rose up like a whirlwind and carried all before it. They had tickets for that very night,--her friends, said one morning,--a ticket for her also--and an escort. She yielded and went. Went first to take tea with her friends, on the way; and I have heard her speak of the thrilling, pent-up excitement of that hour or two before it was time to set out:--Excitement that made her as still as a mouse, and the careless chatter of her friends incomprehensible!--that made cake into plain bread and butter, and bread and butter into--chips, for all she knew. Whether the excitement was all pleasure I doubt if she could tell; yet if you think Miriam knew she was doing wrong, you would be mistaken. Perhaps it was with her, in the tumult of longing, as Fenelon says: "O how rare it is to find a soul still enough to hear God speak!" Or perhaps the Lord, in his wisdom, chose this time to let her set her own lesson. I can only vouch for the dream in which she sat at tea, and walked along the street, and entered the Opera House; glad to get out into the starlight, almost awe-struck to find herself at last within those walls.
The rehearsal was very "undress" indeed. The house, not half lighted, had yet fewer spectators than jets of gas,--a handful of shadowy figures, hid away by twos and threes in the dim boxes; which were almost too dark for the reading of libretti. However eyes were young, and the party put their heads together and began to study out the coming opera, and so get a taste of the pleasure beforehand. Until--Well, as I said, Miriam was young and ignorant of the World, but a woman's instincts