“Eleonora!” said the humbled student,
“truth is plain before us; can we follow its
teachings? Alas! canst thou, the daughter of
a noble house, forget the glory of thy birth, and,
in the beauty of thy years, tread in that lowly path,
which the wisdom of the world accounteth foolishness?”
“Yes, Ernest, rejoicingly can I do it!”
said the lady; and the bright glow of a lofty purpose
gave a spiritual expression to her majestic beauty.
“Glory to God in the highest, that He hath visited
us in mercy!”
“Lady!” said the Preacher, “the
day-star of truth has arisen in thy heart; follow
thou its light even unto salvation. Live an harmonious
life to the curious make and frame of thy creation;
and let the beauty of thy person teach thee to beautify
thy mind with holiness, the ornament of the beloved
of God. Remember that the King of Zion’s
daughter is all-glorious within; and if thy soul excel,
thy body will only set off the lustre of thy mind.
Let not the spirit of this world, its cares and its
many vanities, its fashions and discourse, prevail
over the civility of thy nature. Remember that
sin brought the first coat, and thou wilt have little
reason to be proud of dress or the adorning of thy
body. Seek rather the enduring ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit, the beauty and the purity of
the altar of God’s temple, rather than the decoration
of its outward walls. For, as the Spartan monarch
said of old to his daughter, when he restrained her
from wearing the rich dresses of Sicily, ’Thou
wilt seem more lovely to me without them,’ so
shalt thou seem, in thy lowliness and humility, more
lovely in the sight of Heaven and in the eyes of the
pure of earth. Oh, preserve in their freshness
thy present feelings, wait in humble resignation and
in patience, even if it be all thy days, for the manifestations
of Him who as a father careth for all His children.”
“I will endeavor, I will endeavor!” said
the lady, humbled in spirit, and in tears.
The stranger took the hand of each. “Farewell!”
he said, “I must needs depart, for I have much
work before me. God’s peace be with you;
and that love be around you, which has been to me
as the green pasture and the still water, the shadow
in a weary land.”
And the stranger went his way; but the lady and her
lover, in all their after life, and amidst the trials
and persecutions which they were called to suffer
in the cause of truth, remembered with joy and gratitude
the instructions of the pure-hearted and eloquent William
Penn.
Published originally in
Our Young Folks, 1865.
