CHAPTER VII.

IT was some weeks afterwards that I heard from Alice herself the rest of the story.

On that Sabbath afternoon she had been bustling about her room making ready for the evening service, singing snatches of sacred song, with no more thought of the words than had the wood robin just then singing his evening song. "I never thought words," she vehemently told me; "they had always seemed to me like so much necessary machinery on which to exhibit the tune."

While she fluttered from bureau to dressing table, then loitered a moment by the open window trilling her song, from the open window of the next house, separated from her only by a narrow passage way, came a voice, distinct and tremulous with earnestness. It took but a moment to realize that it was Auntie Barber at prayer.

"And I heard her pray for me," said Alice, her voice awe-stricken as she told of it. "You never heard such a prayer! At least, I never have. I was not used to hearing people pray for me. And she asked the Lord to get me ready to sing with the angels. Think how that must have made me feel! I, who had never thought about angels, and was afraid to die, and afraid to hear about death! But she prayed more than that. She asked God to let me sing for some soul that night; sing it a song that would make it want Christ for a friend. Think of it; I sing for a soul! It frightened me. I turned from that window feeling all white and faint. I thought I could not sing at all, and yet I must. But I cannot describe to you what an evening it was. I could not get away from that prayer. It seemed to float all about me. Try as I would, I could not put it aside. What if Auntie Barber's prayer should be answered, and I should sing some soul into peace with God, and there was I, afraid of Him! But that last hymn just stabbed me. Standing up there, all alone, and singing those awful words:

"'Take my voice, and let me sing 'Always, only for my King.'

"It seemed to me that I mocked Him with the words; that I had always been mocking Him, and I was afraid. I had just found out that it was a fearful thing to be able to sing. You remember that I called out to Auntie Barber as she passed, and went away with her? But I said hardly anything to her that I meant to. I began: 'O, Auntie Barber, you don't know me. You think I sing for God, but I don't. I've been mocking Him with just words all my life, and I am frightened, frightened!' She interrupted me just there.

"'Dear heart,' she said, 'He knows all about you, and he loves you, and is waiting for you. Come in, and tell Him the whole story.' And she drew me into that very room where she had prayed for me!

"The rest of the story isn't long to tell," said Alice, smiling on me with eyes that glistened; "but it will take eternity to live it! I finished the hymn that evening in Auntie Barber's room:

"'Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee!"

And she meant the words.

I wish I had time to tell you the rest of the story about our church choir. Once more it was reconstructed. He declared that all our singers were either ill-humored or hysterical, and every one of them flatted.

Then our Boston guest took up the burden. For three weeks she preached the Gospel to us in song, alone, utterly unsustained, save by the organist, who bravely held the fort with her. During those three weeks she worked. She gathered the girls about her—those elements of power in every church, if they were only understood. "Let us have a new choir," she said; "let us take this for our motto:

"'Take my voice, and let me sing Ever, only for my King.'"

She printed those words in illuminated text, and framed them and hung them in the choir gallery.

In process of time they found a leader, one who was willing to sing by the new motto. I will not tell the story; it is long. But, in its details, it shows what we each need to more fully realize; the power of reconstruction which lies in one young consecrated life. Three months our borrowed songstress stayed with us, and when she went away she left our choir singing by the motto; the essential difference between their music and all others which we had ever enjoyed being embodied in that one brief sentence: They meant the words.

The last time I heard Alice Haviland sing was in our church, on a week-day afternoon, just as the autumn leaves were beginning to fall. She stood near to an open coffin, in which lay an old, worn body, a wrinkled face, crowned with white satin hair, and the most reposeful smile that ever Auntie Barber's dear old face had ever worn. And the young singer, looking down on the quiet sleeper, breathed out the words to wondrous melody:

"Forever with the Lord, Amen, so let it be; Life from the dead is in that word, 'Tis immortality.

"Servant of Christ, well done; Praise be thy new employ; And while eternal ages run. Rest in thy Saviour's joy."

And as the voice ceased, and the singer turned toward me with tear-dimmed eyes, while they closed the coffin-lid, she murmured: "I am sure Auntie Barber has already joined the choir. Her soul was just full of song. And, oh! How she can sing now. And she will always mean the words."

HIS FRIEND.

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