IT was a dark and dismal night, and yet scarcely less dreary inside the little cottage that stood by the wayside, than without. Supper had ended—a quiet, uncomfortable meal; for fierce passions were at work in her father’s breast, and, while it was so, Amy Brown could not be at rest. She knew the cause; her father had been deeply injured by an unprincipled man in the neighborhood. It was in such a way as not to bring trials to himself—he could have borne that—but the little cottage might have to be sold, and then all he had provided for his only daughter, in case of his death, would be lost to her. The thought of this was unbearable. Supper was over. Amy was washing and putting the room in order. Still her father sat thinking, gloomily, over his wrong. She tried in many ways to turn his thoughts from it, but all in vain. At length he rose and paced up and down the room, with angry, passionate motions. She knew what he was when his evil temper got the mastery, and feared the result. She felt that when his anger had cooled he would be sorry for what he might have done in a moment of passion, and her heart sank within her. Her mother’s last request, “Watch over your father, Amy, and try by all means in your power to help him to conquer his evil temper,” came to her. She inwardly prayed for strength to do right.
“Where is my hat, Amy?” asked her father.
“It is such a dreary night, father. Listen to the storm. Do not, for my sake, venture out in it; it can do no good.”
“Better that, Amy, than the storm within. I must go; do not detain me.”
“You may regret it tomorrow, father.”
“That is my look-out. Let me alone, Amy; you can do no good.”
He was bent on going, then, and she must yield. Oh, for some power stronger than her own to keep him back! His hand was on the door, — that once passed, and she dare not think what might happen. Should she speak again, and thus bring his anger upon herself? It was a trying moment; but the asked for strength was given, and words were put into her mouth. In a low tremulous voice she said, — “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
Her father let go the latch, and, sinking into a chair, buried his face in his hands, in deep emotion. Soon the struggle was over. When he lifted up his head, he was calm again.
“Amy,” he said, “you have saved me. No words like those could have had such power to turn me back from evil. My mother repeated them to me when I was a child. Her pale face, as she urged me always to bear them in mind, rose up before me as they fell from your lips after so long a time. Had I passed the door just now, I feel that I should not have entered it again as an innocent man. You have thus, through the blessing of God, kept me from the commission of a dreadful crime. Will you not make it your constant prayer that in the future I may not be overcome of my evil temper, but that, through the power of God, I may become a changed man?”
Great thankfulness filled Amy’s heart that she had withstood the temptation to remain silent, and had been strengthened to do even the little that she was able to keep back her father from evil.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”