St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-12-13
Did What He Could.

he could well do with his stubby old
pen, to make out his few accounts
with his customers. His hands were
hard with blacksmithing; and his often
bloated cheeks were seldom, even on
Sundays, wholly free from the smut
thereof. He was poor. Probably he
sh0d many horse which would sell
almost any day at auction for more
dollars than all he was himself worth.
He had bad habit of drinking intOXl-
cants, and had been known to spend
the night in the gutter. Moreover, as
such men almost always are, ne was
profane. Little children have been
known to be afraid to go by his small
shop on the slope of the hill, lest they
should Overhear him swearing terribly,
in a rage with some horse or OK, which
was skittish about being shod, and
bothered him it was SO frightful to
hear him then.
No, he wasn't much, anyway
But he had an immortal soul under
this rude and rough outside, and he
knew it. And some kind of Il future
stretched before him through the eter-
mites, and he knew that. His mother
who had been sleeping more than
half a century in the little messy,
bushes-over- grown graveyard, in sight
over the fields from his front door
used to love him, and pray for him, and
with her last breath cOnsecrated him to
God, and begged him to do what he
could that was good, for her sake; and
he knew that.
One evening the chuTch-bell rang. 1t
didn't often ring then. But some strange
minister was paying visit to the aged
for him that evening, and so the bell
was rung, just at shutdown. When its
first notes tiOated off over the hills, the
people, as they heard it, thought some
one was suddenly dead flor they re-
membered no tOwnsman known to be
lying near his end), and listened to
count the strokes, if they might guess
whom it might be; but they soon per-
ceived that it was ringing, and not toll
ing, and so they knew no one was dead,
but that there was "meeting" out of
due time. So they hurried up with
their evening chores, made themselves
tidy, and started as quickly us they
could and by the time the bell rang gg
ing in sight from various directions,
and, one by one, tying up for the even
ing in the horse sheds, as fishing vessels
moor at the wharves when their days
work is done.
The blacksmith had had a good day.
He had shod six horses and eight OK
en-, and made Il good thing of it. The
animals had all behaved well He him
self had behaved well. He hadn't
drank IA drop of rum for IL month-wOn-
derfuly for him. He didn't remember
that he had said bad word that day
still more wonderful for him. 1t was
partly due, and he confessed it to him
self, as he thought it over, to the fact
that very sweet pure young girl-she
might be Observation-Disclosures now
and then, at long intervals, rode by
from the next town, had stopped that
morning to get him to reset a shoe
which her horse had just cast. While
he was at work, she talked to him-as
"if he were somebody )" and she had
said ''Thank you Uery much, Mister
-" when she paid him and cantered
away. This had made him feel all day
more as if he were somebody than usual,
and had combined with other things to
make good day for him. He was sit
ting on the great fiat stone doorstep
just outside the front door of his small
cOttage-where he used often to smoke
his pipe of an evening, and was just
filling that pipe for smoke, when he
heard the first notes of the bell. And
when he had heard enough to decide
that it was not LOrtuary announce
ment, but a call to worship, he said to
himself: 81 haven't felt so much like a
man for year 81 feel like going u
guess Fll wash up and go. Maybe some
great speaker will be there ~
So he washed up, and got out his
faithful swallow-tail, made of blue cloth
with fiat brass buttons, which had done
duty, for ever SO many years since he
married his last wife, at weddings and
funerals, and when he did go to meet
ing on Sundays-which, truth to tell,
was now growing to be very seldom !;
and walked leisurely up the top of the
hill on whose side he lived, and down
the other side, and up another to the
church-yard and after sitting on the
fence, and chatting with one of his
neighbOrs until the second bell had
rung out, and he could hear them in
side beginning to sing the first hymn,
he got slowly down, thinking how much
more spry he used to be in doing that
thing years ago, and went in, and took
a seat in shady place near the door.
The service went on. The good old
pastor introduced his guest and friend
"a young man who talked very natu-
raj" to them for half-hour taking for
his starting-point the text about the
woman of whom Jesus comfortingly
said "She hath done what she could.n
He made Gods commands to, and
Christ's claims upon men, seem easy
and just. He said each can do some
thing. What God wants is that. "God
is very fair. He doesn't ask black
smith to make gold watch, but to
shoe horse, or make a nail, or forge
great iron bolt, or do something else
which he can do perfectly well--if he
only will" And our friend shrank
further into the shadow, as he said
within himself: "That's so; and that's
right. / can do it, and l will.n The
young man-all unknowing-just as he
was closing, got round to this black
smith again. He said "Now beg
you all to do God and your Saviour,
this Justice, to do irhat goa can for them,
for yourselves and your fellow men.
Not what you can't do, but what you
can do; surely it is fair for God TO ask
that Perhaps under some of these
silent mounds that surround us here
waving his hand toward the church
yard1 molders some tongue that once
pleaded in dear dying accents with