文档介绍：The Grey Brethren
The Grey Brethren
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The Grey Brethren
The Grey Brethren
Some of the happiest remembrances of my childhood are of days spent
in a little Quaker colony on a high hill.
The walk was in itself a preparation, for the hill was long and steep
and at the mercy of the north-east wind; but at the top, sheltered by a
copse and a few tall trees, stood a small house, reached by a flagged
pathway skirting one side of a bright trim garden.
I, with my seven summers of lonely, delicate childhood, felt, when I
gently closed the gate behind me, that I shut myself into Peace. The house
was always somewhat dark, and there were no domestic sounds. The two
old ladies, sisters, both born in the last century, sat in the cool, dim parlour,
netting or sewing. a was small, with a nut-cracker nose and chin;
Mary, tall and dignified, needed no velvet under cap. I can feel
now the touch of the cool dove-coloured silk against my cheek, as I sat on
the floor, watching the nimble fingers with the shuttle, and listened as
Mary read aloud a letter received that morning, describing a meeting of
the faithful and the 'moving of the Spirit' among them. I had a mental
picture of the 'Holy Heavenly Dove,' with its wings of silvery grey,
hovering over my dear old ladies; and I doubt not my vision was a true
one.
Once as I watched Benjamin, the old gardener - a most 'stiff-backed
Friend' despite his stoop and his seventy years - putting scarlet geraniums
and yellow fever-few in the centre bed, I asked, awe- struck, whether such
glowing colours were approved; and a smiled and said - "Child,
dost thee not think the Lord may have His glories?" and I looked from the
living robe of scarlet and gold to the dove-coloured gown, and said:
"Would it be pride in thee to wear His glories?" and Mary answered for
her - "The change is not yet; better beseems us the ornament of a meek
and quiet spirit.
The 'change from glory to glory' e to them both long since, but