الفصل الفصل 25 · 第25章

. Three or four years after the birth of her daughter, Christina had had

one more child. She had never been strong since she married, and had a

presentiment that she should not survive this last confinement. She

accordingly wrote the following letter, which was to be given, as she

endorsed upon it, to her sons when Ernest was sixteen years old. It

reached him on his mother’s death many years later, for it was the baby

who died now, and not Christina. It was found among papers which she

had repeatedly and carefully arranged, with the seal already broken.

This, I am afraid, shows that Christina had read it and thought it too

creditable to be destroyed when the occasion that had called it forth

had gone by. It is as follows—

“BATTERSBY, _March_ 15th, 1841.

“My Two Dear Boys,—When this is put into your hands will you try to

bring to mind the mother whom you lost in your childhood, and whom, I

fear, you will almost have forgotten? You, Ernest, will remember her

best, for you are past five years old, and the many, many times that

she has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums and told you

stories, and our happy Sunday evenings will not quite have passed from

your mind, and you, Joey, though only four, will perhaps recollect some

of these things. My dear, dear boys, for the sake of that mother who

loved you very dearly—and for the sake of your own happiness for ever

and ever—attend to and try to remember, and from time to time read over

again the last words she can ever speak to you. When I think about

leaving you all, two things press heavily upon me: one, your father’s

sorrow (for you, my darlings, after missing me a little while, will

soon forget your loss), the other, the everlasting welfare of my

children. I know how long and deep the former will be, and I know that

he will look to his children to be almost his only earthly comfort. You

know (for I am certain that it will have been so), how he has devoted

his life to you and taught you and laboured to lead you to all that is

right and good. Oh, then, be sure that you _are_ his comforts. Let him

find you obedient, affectionate and attentive to his wishes, upright,

self-denying and diligent; let him never blush for or grieve over the

sins and follies of those who owe him such a debt of gratitude, and

whose first duty it is to study his happiness. You have both of you a

name which must not be disgraced, a father and a grandfather of whom to

show yourselves worthy; your respectability and well-doing in life rest

mainly with yourselves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and

well-doing, and compared with which they are as nothing, your eternal

happiness rests with yourselves. You know your duty, but snares and

temptations from without beset you, and the nearer you approach to

manhood the more strongly will you feel this. With God’s help, with

God’s word, and with humble hearts you will stand in spite of

everything, but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first,

and applying to the second, should you learn to trust in yourselves, or

to the advice and example of too many around you, you will, you must

fall. Oh, ‘let God be true and every man a liar.’ He says you cannot

serve Him and Mammon. He says that strait is the gate that leads to

eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; they will tell you

that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences—that this

and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary. The thing

_cannot be_; for in a hundred and a hundred places He tells you so—look

to your Bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true—and if not,

oh, ‘halt not between two opinions,’ if God is the Lord follow Him;

only be strong and of a good courage, and He will never leave you nor

forsake you. Remember, there is not in the Bible one law for the rich,

and one for the poor—one for the educated and one for the ignorant. To

_all_ there is but one thing needful. _All_ are to be living to God and

their fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. _All_ must seek first

the Kingdom of God and His righteousness—must _deny themselves_, be

pure and chaste and charitable in the fullest and widest sense—all,

‘forgetting those things that are behind,’ must ‘press forward towards

the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God.’

“And now I will add but two things more. Be true through life to each

other, love as only brothers should do, strengthen, warn, encourage one

another, and let who will be against you, let each feel that in his

brother he has a firm and faithful friend who will be so to the end;

and, oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; without mother or

sisters she will doubly need her brothers’ love and tenderness and

confidence. I am certain she will seek them, and will love you and try

to make you happy; be sure then that you do not fail her, and remember,

that were she to lose her father and remain unmarried, she would doubly

need protectors. To you, then, I especially commend her. Oh! my three

darling children, be true to each other, your Father, and your God. May

He guide and bless you, and grant that in a better and happier world I

and mine may meet again.—Your most affectionate mother,

CHRISTINA PONTIFEX.”

From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that most mothers

write letters like this shortly before their confinements, and that

fifty per cent. keep them afterwards, as Christina did.