Matins

“ And on that night [9] in which the king intended to lay hands on Matthew, Matthew saw Jesus saying to him: I am with thee always to save thee, Matthew; be strong, and be a man.
And the blessed Matthew, having awoke, and sealed himself over all the body, rose up at dawn, and proceeded into the church; and having bent his knees, prayed earnestly. Then the bishop having come, and the clergy, they stood in common in prayer, glorifying God. And after they had ended the prayer, the bishop Plato said: Peace to thee, Matthew, apostle of Christ! And the blessed Matthew said to him: Peace to you! ”

“ He does nothing but brood, brood, brood, sitting of a heap all day in that chair!"
"A month since his father died now," said Mattie, musing.
"To the very day, Mattie."
"He goes to church—you read the Bible to him?" asked Mr. Gray, suddenly.
"He can't go by hisself—he's not very handy with his blindness, like those who have been brought up to it with a dog and a tin mug," said Ann in reply; "but let's hope he'll get used to it, and find it a comfort to him, sir." ”

“ The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.
A king?—Nay, queen!
For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne
When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;
Gentle and mild,
Yet with no dread of any revolution,
And fearing not a land unreconciled,
And unafraid of treason.
In her dark hair
Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;
And in her glance is known
The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;
And in her bosom's strainings
Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown. ”

“ And if he be not happy then, it will not be our fault."
"I hope not!"
"Hope not," said her father; "do you think we may fail in the attempt?"
"If we be not careful. We must remember that he is weak and requires support—that he is blind, and cannot escape us if we weary him too much."
"Oh! I see—I see," he said, a little aggrieved; "you are afraid that I shall tire him with the Word of God. Mattie, he's not exactly a Christian man yet, and I should certainly like to make him one. There will be plenty of time for preaching the truth unto him." ”

“ She had doubted his love for her until that day when Mattie came to draw her into the old vortex, and then her faith in him came back, and life took fairer colours—she knew not wherefore, save that the reflex of that day's brightness might have shone upon her from the distance. For it was a bright day for both these old lovers; Mattie had augured well that one explanation—a few words, true and gentle, that scarcely stood for explanation even—would be sufficient, and disperse all clouds that had hung heavily above them. ”

“ God is at much trouble with us, but he never weighs material expense against spiritual gain to one of his creatures. The whole universe existed for Mattie. There is more than that that the Father has not spared. And no human fault, the smallest, is overcome, save by the bringing in of true, grand things. A sense of the infinite and the near, the far yet impending, rebuked the conceit of Mattie to the very core, and without her knowing why or how. She clung to Lucy as a child would cling, and as, all through her illness, she had never clung before. ”

“ Mattie was at work at the fireside; she had taken to dress-making again, amongst a new connection of chapel-goers introduced by her father, and Mr. Gray was busy at his lithography. He was working hard into the night, doing extra work, in order that he might have all the next week free for a preaching expedition amongst the colliers, and he did not turn from his work to express his opinion; on the contrary, bent more earnestly over it.
"It's no good hoping, my dear, I have made up my mind; he hasn't acted fairly by you—he hasn't made atonement—I must talk to him presently." ”

“ Matthews was preaching so mightily did the power of the Lord descend upon the little congregation that several began to weep and cry aloud for mercy, some in Mohawk, some in English, and others in Chippeway. The Great Spirit who understands all languages heard and answered the poor Indian's cry, and many were made to rejoice under a sense of the pardoning love of God. My heart was made very thankful to see some of my own relations turn to the Lord. ”

“ Oh! to be comfortably out of the world, and a burden to no one!"
"Sir," said Mattie, earnestly, "a blessing to some. Don't you remember when you were stronger, being a blessing to me—you, my first friend! And don't you know that you're a blessing to that good son of yours, and that he thinks so, and loves you as he ought to do? ”

“ A face older than its possessor's years; at times a grave face, more often, despite its pallor, a bright one—lit-up with the cheerful thoughts, which a mind at ease naturally gives to it.
Neatly, if humbly dressed—working with a rapidity and regularity that would have done credit to a stitching machine—evidently at home there in that back-parlour, to which her dark wistful eyes had been so often directed, in the old days; this is the Mattie of our prologue—the stray, diverted from the dark course it was taking, by the hand of John Wesden. ”

“ A poor woman, with her morsel of barm, kneading it up among three measures of meal, in some coarse earthenware pan, stands to Him as representing the whole process of His work in the world. Matthew brings together in this chapter a series of seven parables of the kingdom, possibly spoken at different times, and gathered here into a sequence and series, just as he has done with the great procession of miracles that follows the Sermon on the Mount, and just as, perhaps, he has done with that sermon itself. ”

“ Mattie did not reply; that was a matter for future consideration.
"I never allow anything to be kept from me," he said sharply; "I shall be a hard father, rely upon it. I allow nothing for prevarication, and I spare no sin or weakness, however plausible may be the excuse which the sinner offers. I—how dreadfully askew everything is on this mantel-piece!" he added suddenly, putting the few ornaments thereon at regular distances from each other; "I shall not be a kind father—I know I shan't! The mountains are not harder to move than I am—you're not frightened at me, Mattie?" ”

“ I fancied that I might do good by an effort—there is no doing good without one—and I made the attempt. When I was rewarded by my first convert, Mattie, that was my encouragement," he said, rising with the earnestness of his topic, sitting down again, and flinging his arms wildly about; "that was my incentive to go on, to save fresh souls from the danger, to struggle in the by-ways of life, for the light which the evil one would for ever shut from us. And I was rewarded for the effort; I have done good; I have spent the last sixteen years of my life in the good cause!" ”

“ And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?
For when could death be more desired by us
(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)
Than when the night
Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain? ”

“ But throughout his long career as guardian of his master, he had been never known to lose patience with him. Even mothers become vexed exceedingly with undutiful children; but this care of Mat for his worthless master exceeded even that of a mother for her child. Exceeded? Nay, we will say equalled.
It was somewhat rare in the slave States for servants to meet for religious purposes; insurrection might brood under such a cover. Mat, however, was so well known and so universally esteemed in his neighborhood, that he was allowed to hold his prayer-meetings every Sunday night. ”

“ She was a girl, too, whom a little contented; one who could live on a little, and make shift—terrible shift—when luck run against her; above all, her tempters, the Watts, Simes', and others, festering amongst the Kent Street courts, were cruel and hard with her, and she kept out of their way so long as it was possible.
Given the same monotony of existence for a few more years, and Mattie would have become a tramp perhaps, oscillating from fair to fair, race-course to race-course, losing true feeling, modesty, heart and soul, at every step. ”

“ Oh! sir, I know all about you—what should I do alone in the world, if I didn't think of those who saved me when I was young?"
"And what are you doing?"
"Getting my living by needlework, by artificial flower making, or by anything that's honest which falls in my way. I keep at work, and hunt about for work, and there are some good people, I find, who take pity upon those situated like myself. I'm not afraid, sir, of doing well!"
"Glad to hear it, Mattie."
Mattie motioned Ann Packet to retire. ”

“ But they had manifestations of their own, no doubt, and perhaps I should come across some record of them, although they had worked out their [124] philosophy before the days when one could simply seize a pencil and write upon a roll of wall-paper facts dictated by one’s “control.”
Mattie and the New Captain had had no opportunity to be influenced by the great mass of post-war spiritualistic literature. The fragments from which they formed their code were bits of gold for which they had to wash many cold streams of Calvinistic thought. They must have gloated over each discovery like misers. ”

“ A very quiet man, a man more than ordinarily cautious, hard to please, and still harder to rouse.
In shutting up his shop that night, he had caught one or two fragments of the dialogue, and he knew more certainly than his wife that Mattie was being tempted back to the old life. Of that life he knew everything; he had learned it piece by piece without affecting to take an interest in the matter; he even knew that Mattie had long taken a fancy—an odd fancy—to his daughter, that she often inquired about her, and her boarding-school, of Ann Packet, domestic to the house of Wesden. ”

“ There was an anxious silence; then the father's and daughter's eyes met.
"I think that I'll run into the City now," he suggested, feebly. He scarcely liked to leave his daughter at this juncture; but he knew her strength, her power to explain, and her wish that he should go. It did not seem natural that he should leave her with that strange young man, and, after he had risen to withdraw, he hesitated again.
He went slowly into the shop, and Mattie followed him. ”

“ There, at the threshold of the Gospel, we see the true relation of science and religion.
"Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before." All honour to these wise men for bending low in presence of the Holy Child; and thanks be to God for allowing His servant Matthew to give us a glimpse of a scene so beautiful, so touching, so suggestive of pure and high and holy thought and feeling. ”

“ Matico, ma-tē′ko, n. a Peruvian shrub, used in medicine as a styptic and astringent.
Matin, mat′in, adj. morning: used in the morning.—n. in pl. the daily morning service of the Church of England: one of the seven canonical hours, usually sung between midnight and daybreak.—adj. Mat′inal.—n. Matinée (mat-i-nā′) , a musical entertainment or reception held in the day-time, usually in the afternoon: a woman's dress for wear in the forenoon or before dinner. ”

“ It is a selfish globe on which we are spinning, and it is natural to think deeply—think altogether, perhaps—of our loves, our successes, our chances of fame, fortune, happiness, rather than of other people's. For the reason that it has been our lot to drop upon an exception to this rule—as near an exception as this rule sans exception will allow—do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections, and think her story—approaching its turbulent stage—worth the telling. ”

“ You've people to love you, and take care on you—you shan't be lonely, and you shall get over all your disappintments and be as happy as the day is long. It isn't for you, Mattie, to fret yourself to death because a little trouble's come, and you can't shake it off yet—you'll show 'em that you've never been a fretting, and that you've got a consolation yet, that their goings on can't take away! ”

“ The joy the old brown earth has, when the rain
Comes, and the earth is glad that it has come:
That ecstasy
The buds have, when the worn snow sets them free,
The sea's delight when storm-time has returned. ”

“ Mattie was not looking pretty well; on the contrary, very pale and thin, as though anxiety, or hard work, or both, had been her portion since she had left Great Suffolk Street. She was dressed in black, very neatly dressed, and possibly the dark trappings had some effect in increasing the pallor of her countenance.
"We thought that we had lost you for good, Mattie."
"Was it likely, sir, that I was going to lose sight of all those who had been kind to me?"
"You're not looking very well," he said.
"Ah! we musn't judge by people's looks," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I'm well enough, thank God! ”

“ Oh! Mattie gal, you'll come and see me at St. Tummas's?"
"Ann Packet," said Mattie gravely, "this won't do. You're getting your old horrors again, and you're full of fancies, and your ankles are not half so bad as you think they are. I know what you want."
"What?"
"A good shaking," laughed Mattie, "that's all."
"Oh! you unnat'ral child!"
"Well, the unnat'ral child will ask Mr. Wesden if she may keep out of the shop to-night, and bring a book down-stairs to read to you, over your needlework. But if you don't work I shan't read, Ann—is it a bargain?" ”