CHAPTER IV.

THERE came a day toward the close of summer when the Penn Avenue Church called a congregational meeting.

The object thereof was to discuss—not a Sabbath-school library, their hopes in that direction had sunk below zero. Neither the fancy department nor the choir would venture a pincushion or a song. Not a matron could be coaxed to offer suggestion. Nobody dare say "cake" or "oysters" aloud. The subject under discussion was a new carpet for the church parlor. One was sadly needed; indeed, no more church socials could be held until the parlor was re-furnished, because no matron could be found who would preside as hostess.

It was voted to secure means for a carpet forthwith. Then did the chairman of the library committee delight the hearts of the carpet committee by announcing that they had unanimously voted to place the funds raised toward a new library in the hands of the carpet committee to use at their discretion, inasmuch as there was no present prospect of a library, and the amount raised would be such a trifle compared with what would have been needed for that purpose.

Then arose a cloud that presaged a storm. The funds were raised for the purpose of securing a library. What right had this committee to vote them away? Could they not be placed in the bank until such time as the needed amount was secured, and then used for their legitimate purpose? Tongues were numerous now, and waxed eloquent; differences of opinion were marked, and were urged with energy. The cloud, at first, no bigger than a man's hand, bade fair to spread over all the congregation, and involve them in a party squall.

Then up rose the pastor; the long weeks of silent action were over; the time for speech-making had come. It was true that the funds under discussion had been raised toward the purchase of a new library; it was also true that without a general vote to that effect the committee would not be justified in turning those funds into another channel. At this point the belligerents who desired a new carpet, and meant to have it at once, looked disgusted and the belligerents who desired a new library, and meant to have one sometime, if they could get it, looked complacently defiant, and affirmed with nodding heads that they should never, no, never, vote away that sum of money for any other purpose under the sun! But the pastor had more to say; also he had something to do. The congregational meeting was held in the Sabbath-school room, and just behind the pastor was the great handsome library case, closed and unoccupied for many a day; for, to the honor of the Penn Avenue church, be it written, they had not left the old library to lie in dust on the shelves, but had selected, and mended, and re-covered, such of the books as were deemed worthy of being missionaries, and freighted them to a Western Sabbath-school.

That was accomplished during the pincushion and tidy fever, when expectation ran high over the immediate prospect of re-peopling those library shelves; but, as you are aware, the hopes centered on fairs and festivals had been vain, and the library shelves were vacant and dust-covered. So thought every person in that church that afternoon save ten.

"I have something to show you," said the pastor, and, as if by magic, those handsome doors swung open, revealing rows upon rows of books unmistakably new, handsomely bound, delightfully large, many of them. Tier upon tier they rose. It took but little arithmetic for those familiar with the library case to discover that there must certainly be more than three hundred books.

"Three hundred and forty-five!" said the pastor, reading the mathematical calculations all over the room. "Handsomely bound," and he took one in his hand; "duly marked and numbered," and he opened to the fly-leaf and read: "'Penn Avenue Sabbath-School Library. No. 7.'"

What did it mean? Where did they come from? How were they obtained? Nobody spoke, yet these sentences seemed to float all over the room, so distinctly were they written on the sea of eager faces.

"I can tell you about them," said the pastor. "Yes, they are new, every one of them, and they are ours if we vote to accept them. I have very little doubt but that we will accept them, for they were bought by our own money which we had deliberately and in sound mind dedicated to that purpose." He further explained that the money was procured by a system of decimal notation not so thoroughly understood as it ought to be; it had long been known that ten times one were ten, but the power of the number ten divided into tenths, and circulating freely and repeating themselves after the peculiar manner of decimals, was not generally understood or appreciated. We were indebted to the rising generation for many things, and not the least among them, in this church hereafter, would, he thought, be the exposition of the power of circulating decimals.

Had the pastor suddenly become insane? What in the world was he talking about! The opposing forces forgot their opposition and were lost in a common curiosity. Why were people looking over to those girls in Mrs. Jones's class? What had they to do with it?

Hark! The pastor was speaking again. He had forgotten certain statements that he was to make. One was, that these books were not evolved from cake and pickles, nor yet from tidies and slippers; but were the representatives of the value of systematic offerings, and systematic work done by individuals and individually devoted to this cause. Another was a request that, for reasons which would be better understood in the future than they now were, the library be named the "Jennie Stuart Library." And still another was the announcement that, as the library pledges held good until the signers erased their own names, the collectors would still continue their duties, hoping, by this means, to render any future leanness of library shelves an impossibility in Penn Avenue Church.

Light was beginning to dawn, albeit it was still much obscured by fog. The "Jennie Stuart Library." She was one of Mrs. Jones's girls. Decimals—one, two, three—well, there were just ten of them; it had not been noticed before. But how could they have secured such a library as that? Could it be possible that that little ten-cent affair of theirs had grown to such dimensions!

I suppose it is needless to tell you that the threatened storm blew over, and smiles and congratulatory speeches ruled the hour. The decimal class received a vote of thanks, which overwhelmed them with blushes; their suggestions were adopted by a unanimous vote. Penn Avenue rose to the acknowledgment of the fact that the only proper way to manage a Sabbath-school library was to have a standing committee to supply and add new books, in monthly installments.

Of course the opposition to the appropriation for the new carpet was withdrawn, and gracefully, too. Everybody was willing to have a new carpet.

Everybody shook hands with everybody, and congratulated themselves and the world generally, and said, "Who would have thought that such trifling subscriptions would amount to anything!" And "they were sure those girls deserved a great deal of credit;" and "who were they, anyway?"

It is true that Mrs. Marshall Powers said it was a queer way to manage business! And there ought to have been a committee of selection. She was sure she hoped the books were worth reading! But even she was almost satisfied when she had examined them.

And so, at last, Penn Avenue Church had a new library.

"We have lost our motive power," said the girls, laughing a little, as they met together in the evening to talk things over.

"I'm afraid," said one, "it will be humdrum work now. It was such fun to ask people for their ten cents and see some of them look bored, and some look like martyrs, suffering, in order that we might learn the folly that was in us."

"Yes," said another, "now that it is all out, and the glorification has begun, I shall grow tired and ashamed of collecting money. There will be so much said, and so many questions to answer. I'm almost sorry we promised to continue."

"Oh, you wretches!" said Mrs. Jones. "What is the use in being sorry about anything, when Susy Perkins has learned to make cake and keep her temper in the bargain; and Alice Burns can make her own dresses, and means to work for something besides her own self hereafter; and poor Bud is going to join the church to-morrow, and be a minister for anything you know? The library is the very least of it, you ungrateful creatures!"

The girls laughed again, but with tender notes in the laughter. "Oh! We know it," they said with shining eyes; "that part of it is lovely, and we are glad to go on. But we are afraid the library business will grow commonplace after this. We must ask Jennie to give us something that will lift it up."

Dear, thoughtless girls! Even then was preparing that which would forever lift the Penn Avenue Library above the commonplace!

It was only the next afternoon that they were summoned, the class and their teacher and the pastors to Jennie's room to meet a guest whose presence has power to hush all other interests. The "King of Terrors" he has been named; but there was no shadow of terror anywhere about that room, least of all on the peaceful face of the one who lay on her white couch, with a spray of late blossoming roses in her hand. Yet they had gathered to say good-by.

The circle was to be broken; the central figure, as they loved to call her, had been called. They were very still; there was no sound of weeping in the room. Tears would have seemed out of place in view of the shining of that face on the couch.

"Girls," she said, breaking the hush; she was not looking at them; her eyes were resting on a heavy gold band which encircled her finger. "Girls, I have been thinking—" the same simple words with which she had been wont to preface her sweet and helpful thoughts to them during all the days gone by. It struck them like a knell. Was it possible that this might be the last time? "I have not been sure about this ring until to-day. There was a time when I thought to take it into the grave with me; but why should my poor worn-out body be decked with a ring? It will not need it in the resurrection morning; I will not let this ring lie in the dust and wait. I will leave it to work, while I go away to rest. Girls, some of you knew Kent Pierson? You did, Nannie? Yes, and you all know he is in Africa to-day, working for Christ. But you did not know that I was to go out to him, did you? When he put this ring on my finger I thought I would surely be well enough to go in another year. But I am going to Heaven instead, and I have been thinking that our ring should do some of my work for Africa. Will you take it, girls, and change it into books for the library? Books about the needs of the heathen? and the work of the missionaries, and tell all the boys and girls who read them that those books are Kent Pierson's voice, calling them to service?"

The tears came then, and low sobbing. Not from fair Jennie; her eyes were bright and her face smiling. "Don't cry," she said gently, "you need not; for me, you know, all the bitterness is passed. I am too near home to cry. I suppose it will be hard for Kent for a little while, but then, it will soon be over, and Heaven is as near to Africa as it is to you."

They kissed her silently that day—their voices were not to be trusted—and went out softly, as from the guest chamber of the royal palace. Nearer they were to the invisible presence than they had known. That very night, "or ever she was aware," Jennie saw the "shining of His face." No noise, or sound of wings, or rush of music, at least so far as those left behind can tell:

"They watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.

"Their very hopes belied their fears, Their fears their hopes belied. They thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died."

The plain gold band was exchanged for books, and it came to pass that an upper shelf in the Penn Avenue library was cleared and held as sacred ground for those five books. Never had books been more carefully chosen than these, and as the pastor marked them, "The Kent Pierson Library, presented by Jennie Stuart, gone to Heaven," he almost wondered whether there hovered over him angel witnesses to see whether his part of the commission were well done.

"It lies around us like a cloud, The world we cannot see."

One of the five, the first in the row, was that wonderful record of a consecrated life, "Crowned in Palm-Land"; and the pastor, as he read the sweet, and simple, and unutterably pathetic story of that life of love and service, and finally of that lonely death, with not a human eye to watch the last triumph of faith as the feet touched the valley of the shadow, felt that such a book would do faithful work for Jennie and for Africa.

Barely five days after Jennie had been laid to rest in the hillside Cemetery that consecrated book began its work for foreign missions, the story of which can only be told when we all meet where they will never say foreign missions any more, because the foreigners will have become fellow-citizens.

"There are ten of us still," said the girls, looking through tears at the consecrated upper shelf. "Jennie is working with us."

And they felt, every one, that the Penn Avenue library had received its "lifting up."

FISHING FOR PHIL.

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