During the whole of one of last summer's hottest days I had the good
fortune to be seated in a railway car near a mother and four children,
whose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of
watching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the
journey.
It was plain that they were poor; their clothes were coarse and old, and
had been made by inexperienced hands. The mother's bonnet alone would have
been enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's
thoroughfares. I remembered afterward, with shame, that I myself had
smiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one
which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon,--it was so earnest,
tender, true, and strong. It had little comeliness of shape or color in
it, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had
evidently been much ill; but I have seen few faces which gave me such
pleasure. I think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and I think
that clergyman must be one of the Lord's best watchmen of souls.
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