The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

(Louis Carroll) at S. Mary Magdalen Church (3 p. m. The Children’s Service) on Harvest Thanksgiving Day.

A little girl named Margaret went to a Harvest Festival Service one Sunday. The Church was beautiful with flowers and fruit and sweet music of thanksgiving. And the preacher spoke of God’s great love and goodness in giving us everything that we possess, and that we must try to show our thankfubiess to Him by offering of our best to Him in return. Some of us—and especially the children—perhaps thought they had nothing to give, or worthy to offer, to God, but the preacher said that God would accept even a little deed of love, or a simple act of kindness to one of His creatures, and that children, especially, could do these if they would try.

When the service was over and the people had gone away, little Margaret lingered in the churchyard thinking about what the preacher had said, and a lark started up from her feet and sang soaring into the blue sky with such gladness that Margaret said to herself, “Ah, he is trying to thank God as well as he can—how much I wish there were something that such a little girl as I could do too!”

She sat down on the grass in the sunshine to think, and presently she noticed a rose-bush growing near, and that the roses were hanging their heads, quite withered in the sun for want of water. So she ran to the brook, and making a cup of her hands dipped them into the water and ran and threw the water on the roses. She did so again and again, and the roses revived.

Little Margaret then walked on till she passed a cottage where a baby was sitting on the doorstep and crying sadly because his toy was broken. It was a paper windmill, and the sails had become all crumpled up and would not go round any more. Margaret took the toy from the baby and straightened out the sails, and a wind came by and turned them round merrily, so that the baby stretched out his hands and laughed for joy.

Then little Margaret thought she must go home, but as she passed the brook again she saw a little brown bird struggling in the water. He had fallen in and was being drowned, and growing weaker in his struggles. So Margaret caught hold of a bough, and stretching as far as she could, with her other hand she lifted the little bird out of the water and laid him safely on the bank.

And now she began to feel very tired, and at last reached her home. She climbed up to her room, and lay down on her little bed, very white and still, and closed her eyes. And then she said to herself, “I think this must be dying—yes, I am dying—and soon I shall be dead.” And her friends came in and said, “Ah, she is dying, poor little Margaret!”

But a rose that was growing outside by the garden path heard it, and began to grow, and climbed and grew till it reached the window, and crept in through the window into the room, and crept all round the walls and little bed till there were wreaths of lovely roses filling the room with their sweetness. And the roses bent over Margaret’s little pale face till her cheeks began to take a faint colour too. And just then a soft wind came blowing in at the window and fanned her face, and a little brown bird outside began to sing so prettily, that Margaret smiled, and opened her eyes and … well, she was still sitting on the grass outside the Church, in the soft sunshine—for it was a dream!

I read this story in a book, and put it by to tell you, dear children, this afternoon; but now I will tell you three stories of love and kindness. For—

Some forty years ago there was a great singer, named Jenny Lind, and her voice and her singing were so beautiful that people who heard her felt as if they were listening to an angel. And they would go in crowds, and pay any money, to hear her sing.

On one occasion when she was singing at Manchester, she was caught by the rain during her morning walk and she took shelter in a poor little cottage, where a poor old woman lived alone. Jenny Lind talked kindly to her at once, and the poor old woman (of course not knowing who she was) told her about the wonderful Singer, who, “she was told was going to sing that afternoon,” and how everybody was “mad” to hear her, and how very very much she wished that she could hear her too. But that of course was impossible “for a poor old body like me!” Then Jenny Lind told the old woman that she was the Singer, and said she, “and I will sing to you.” So then and there, in that poor little cottage, the great Singer sang three or four of her sweetest songs, and gave the poor old woman the desire of her heart.

Again—a man walking along a country lane heard such a fluttering and chirping in the hedge that he stopped to look what it could be; and he saw that a young bird had fallen out of its nest, and its wings having caught on a thorn, it was hanging helpless. The mother bird was close to it fluttering and crying with all her might, but powerless to release her little one. She did not move as the man gently lifted the young bird and replaced it in the nest, but then instantly hopped on to the nest herself, and spread her wings over her little ones without a trace of fear, but in perfect confidence in the person who had come to her aid.

And now one more true tale, and this of a child’s kindness to one of God’s creatures. You will, I think, all have heard of Florence Nightingale. Hers is a name to make all English hearts beat warm as long as they exist;—one of England’s noblest women, for she was the first who thought of going to nurse our poor wounded soldiers on the battle-field.

From her childhood Florence Nightingale was always wanting to help and heal those in pain, and her first patient was a dog! She was but a child when one day she met a shepherd whom she knew, and he was in great distress because his faithful old dog, that had served him for so many years, was near his end. Some cruel boys—or I would rather say, thoughtless boys—had stoned the poor old dog, and he was so much hurt that he had only just been able to drag himself home to die! He was well-nigh worn out, but, “Now he’s done for, and I must do away with him,” said the shepherd, as he led the child to the cottage to show her the dog, and then he went sadly away to get the means of putting him out of his misery.

Florence Nightingale sat down beside the poor suffering creature, her kind heart full of pity. Presently she saw some one pass the door who she knew understood all about animals, and calling him in, she showed him the dog. After examining him, her friend said, “Well, he’s very bad, but there are no bones broken; all you can do is to wring out some cloths in hot water and lay them on the wounds, and keep on doing that for a long time.” And the child set to work at once, lighted a fire, boiled the water, and persevered in her work for many hours, and to her joy the old dog began to get better and better. When the shepherd came home, Florence Nightingale said to him, “Call him, oh! do call him;” and so he called the old dog, who got up and greeted his master.

And now, dear children, I want you to promise me that you will each one try, every day, to do some loving act of kindness for others. Perhaps you have never really tried before; will you begin to-day—the beginning of a new week? Last week is gone for ever; this week will be quite different. As you rub out the sums on your slate that have not come right, and begin all over again, so leave behind the disobedience, or selfishness, or ill-temper of last week, and begin quite fresh to try your very best, every day, to do what you can towards fulfilling God’s law of love.