JUANA MENDIA-THE CREOLE
GIRL.

BY THE REV. F. CRowe.

Juana Mendia was a girl of only twelve years of age, but of full stature and womanly development. She was of almost unmixed Indian descent, and her countenance-notwithstanding her dark copper-coloured complexion-was singularly pleasing. Her profuse black curly locks were usually intertressed with bright ribbons, after the manner of her class, whose whole costume is generally becoming and graceful, and in her case appeared to peculiar advantage. There was a wild decision mingled with a cheerful animation in the glance of her eye, which indicated superiority of natural parts, in addition to more than ordinary personal attractions. But Juana had been trained up in ignorance and vice. Her mother and sisters were loose characters. Her stepfather was a drunkard and a murderer; and, even at that early age, report indicated that Juana was soon likely to outstrip them all in wickedness.

One night, after reading to my wife rather longer than ordinary, I had closed the book, and noticed that the hour was unusually late. Our door had long been carefully shut, for we had more than once seen the footprints of the prowling panther and its cubs very near the threshold. Our house, being the last in the colony, was upon the very borders of the clearance. About retiring to rest, we were startled by a loud rapping at the door. It was the well-known voice of the Senor Alcalde, who answered to my enquiry; and the bolts being speedily drawn, he entered, leading in, or almost dragging by her arm, Juana Mendia. They were followed by a crowd of well-known pale and sable faces, all made equally lustrous in the glare of the pitch-pine torchlight. One of the ministros (assistants) of the magistrate held in his arms a heavy log of wood, with a chain and shackle appended, which I recognised as a clog such as I had seen criminals, who were suffered to be at large, dragging at their ankles. The reason of this untimely visit was soon explained. A brawl had taken place, and on account of Juana, knives had been unsheathed, and foul work was likely to result. The Senor Alcalde had interfered, and as the girl was

under age, in virtue of his official prerogative, he felt it his duty to place her depositada (in deposit) with any citizen householder who would be answerable for her good conduct. If no one willing should be found, the other alternative was, that the clog should be chained to her leg, and she employed to sweep the streets-if, indeed, the rugged road between the thatched cottages inhabited by the colonists might be dignified by that name. In a short conference with my wife, carried on in a language which the bystanders could not understand, I found that she was unwilling to receive her. I briefly urged, that by consenting for the time mischief might be prevented, an opportunity would be afforded for angry passions to subside; and might not the hand of the Lord be in it for the good of this poor young creature? То this reasoning, which she afterwards recalled, she yielded. Juana, in a paroxysm of violence, and stamping with her foot, exclaimed, "Ponganme la cadena. No mė quedo aqui." (Put the chain on me. I will not remain here.) The Alcalde and his attendants, however, withdrew. Her passion was shortly succeeded by tears; and, being somewhat calmed, a mosquito-net was hung up in the hall for her use, and each agitated bosom was soon soothed in sleep.

The following morning, on reflecting, we felt that we had undertaken a delicate charge, and a task of some difficulty, and I sought the Lord's direction in prayer respecting it. By the law of the land we would be entitled to Juana's services without remuneration; but, as we were in want of a servant, she was kindly and firmly told, that if she would alter her conduct, and cheerfully perform the duties assigned her, she should have full wages; but that the very first return to her former life would be followed by her instant dismissal, let the consequences be what they might.

At the hour when I rang the school bell, her younger brother and sister, together with three or four German, Ladino, and Indian children, came as usual to be taught. At the reading lesson, Juana was called, and stood up with the rest in the little class. She could read fluently, having been taught at home when much younger; but she had

never read in the scriptures before, nor had she ever had her lessons explained to her. A New Testament was given to her, and the same number of verses to be repeated by heart on the next day, were required,a little reward book being offered to her as to the rest, should she learn more than the assigned task. That day Juana performed her household work so as to please her mistress, and a word of advice and encouragement to continue to do well was becomingly received. For days her steady industry was sustained and even increased; . and though Juana frequently wept over her work, at other times she was cheerful; her New Testament was often open by her side in the kitchen, or when sewing at the feet of her mistress, and her memory being good, she could soon repeat several chapters.

Some weeks rolled on, and Juana was still assiduous at her task, whether in the house or in the little school. When she went daily for water to the purest neighbouring stream, she filled her tinaja (a large earthen jar), poised it upon her head, and came directly home, or if she turned aside, it was to salute her relatives, and quickly return. The neighbours began to wonder, and spoke to each other on her altered mien and behaviour, and her mother came to thank us, and to express her delight and astonishment at the marvellous improvement which she observed.

In the class, her attention and replies were no less pleasing to her teacher. She longed, she said, to be one of the lambs borne on the shoulders of the great Shepherd into the heavenly fold, and expressed her willingness to be led to him. One day that my own bodily sufferings had brought the subject of death vividly before my mind, I made it the theme of the lesson. "Which of us who are here," enquired I, "is likely to be the first victim ?" Juana at once pointed out her brother, who was a spare and delicate boy. Though impressed with the idea that it was likely to be myself, I reminded her that her robust health was no pledge of life, and that it was as likely to be her. The event proved that this warning was prophetic.

Antonio de la Cruz, a youth of scarce nineteen, was the eldest son of a respectable Ladino widow. He was employed in the care of cattle, and was already a good hand at flinging the lazo. Willing to improve himself, with a few others, he at

tended an adult evening class, to learn to write, and to read in the bible. Since Juana had been with us, Antonio had seldom missed his evening lesson. One afternoon her mistress directed Juana to proceed into the borders of the forest, to gather wild pot herbs. She soon returned in a state of excitement. Antonio had followed, and would have detained her, but she had fled from him. Disappointed and enraged, the wicked youth spread a foul report in the village, which soon reached Juana's ears, and caused her the most poignant grief. Assured of the young man's guilt, a complaint was immediately laid with the Alcalde, and to avoid the penalty of his malicious slander, Antonio absented himself from his home. Notwithstanding every effort to soothe her, that night Juana wept herself to sleep, and was agitated in her slumbers. The next morning she awoke with a burning fever, the second day she was delirious, the third she was a corpse.

A few hours previous to her departure the delirium left her, and a precious opportunity was afforded for conversation. "Juana," said I, "you will soon die, are you ready to meet God ?" "I am a very wicked sinner," she replied with evident emotion. "Do you think God can pardon you?" "I fear I am too wicked," was her reply. I then spoke of the Saviour, of whom I had often spoken to her before, and drew from her some expressions of hope and resignation. She could forgive Antonio more easily than she could believe her own offences blotted out; but she did assent to the declaration of the Saviour's love and substitution for her, and when her shortening breath precluded a reply, a smile of placid joy played upon her countenance, and was arrested there by death's cold seal. Her teacher, when he perceived that he could do no more, retired from the side of her couch, giving place to her relatives and some superstitious friends, who muttered their christian incantations in her closed ears, and then removed her stiffened corpse to be waked with frantic noises and ges

tures.

On reflecting upon this affecting event, I concluded that Juana had been removed from the evil to come. The change in her behaviour had been complete. The cause of her death proved the susceptibility of her mind to a charge, to which but a little before she would have been quite callous. The expressions of her lips, and of her last

looks, though feeble in themselves, appeared enough to warrant the conclusion, that Juana Mendia was the first fruits unto God of my feeble labours, on behalf of the natives of Central America.

During that night, the deluded people assembled in a wretched hovel, and consumed a large quantity of native rum. Under its influence they shouted, wept, laughed, and prayed alternately. One of the old women who had been most active in repeating the death charms, now severely burnt her naked feet by leaping upon a pile of blazing fuel, which others were content to leap over, for which purpose it had apparently been kindled on the clay floor of the house: and thus they continued till the dawn of the unconscious morning.

There being no priest at hand, I was requested by the parents of the deceased to officiate at the funeral, and I consented to address them at the grave. With unassuming decorum, a numerous train accompanied the rude coffin into the forest shade. The Campo Santo (holy field), to which the natives were pleased to apply the name usually given to their cemeteries, though it had no claim to the distinction of consecrated ground, had been cleared two years before, when the colony was first formed; but it was now grown over with bushy underwood, and even shaded with young trees, that excluded the sun's rays far above our heads. Here, where the foot of man had but lately trodden-a soil from which the jaguar and couguar were not excluded, a few of England's exiles-convicts of penury and vice-lay mouldering beneath the soil. Here, around the open grave of Juana, the attendants scattered and half-concealed from each other by the teeming vegetation, was I permitted to preach the gospel of the Son of God to a larger Spanish congregation than I had yet addressed; some of whom had never heard the gospel before, and may possibly never hear it again, though they should be spared to old age. Not a stone marks the spot in the now forsaken district where the remains of Juana Mendia were deposited. The cross of wood which her parents erected is decayed ere this. The vestiges of a former clearance will soon be undiscernible. Already the ground is trodden by the fierce tapir, and traversed by the large droves of waree. The coarse shrill shriek of the gaudy macaw, or the

deep melancholy tones of the ringdove's note, are uninterrupted by the sound of the woodman's axe, or the thunder of the falling tree. But the circumstances of Juana's death are as indestructible as memory, and it is fondly hoped that the last day will reveal that her conversion was as real as the truth of the gospel itself, which, to all appearance, was the instrument employed to produce it.*

THE PRAYERLESS HOME.

BY PROFESSOR ALDEN.

"I have a good offer for my farm,” said Mr. Earl to his wife," and I think I shall sell it."

"Why do you wish to sell it?" said Mrs. Earl.

"The land is stony and partly worn out. I can go into a new country, where land is cheap and fertile, and realize a much larger return for the same amount of labour."

"If we go into a new country, there will be no schools for our children."

"Our children are not old enough to go to school; by the time they are old enough, it is most likely schools will be established wherever we may go."

"We may also be deprived of the privi lege of attending church."

"We can take our Bibles with us, and can read them on the Sabbath, if we should happen to settle at a distance from a place of meeting."

"It will be far better for us to remain here where we can educate our children, and bring them under the sound of the gospel."

"I must do what I think is required by the interests of my family."

"Pray remember that property is not the only thing needed by our children."

A few days after this conversation, the bargain was concluded, and the farm became the property of Mr. Hale. Mr. Earl was to put him in possession of it early in the spring.

Mr. Earl was descended from one of the early Puritan settlers of Massachusetts. His ancestors, for many generations, had been devout members of the church of Christ. He was the first alien from the commonwealth of Israel. His mother was an amiable, but not a pious woman, and some thought that it was owing to her that

he had not profited by the instructions of his pious father, and had turned a deaf ear to the gospel which he had heard from his infancy. He loved the world, and in order to secure a large portion of its goods, he was willing to leave the home of his childhood, and the graves of his fathers, and to take up his abode on the borders of civilization.

His wife was one who preferred Jerusalem to her chief joy. The old time-worn meeting-house, with its high square pews, and huge sounding-board, was as beautiful to her as the most faultless specimen of architecture to the connoisseur. She desired that her children might grow up under the influence of the truths which were proclaimed in that house. Her chief desire, with respect to them, was that they might become rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom. In the spring, she was constrained to bid farewell to her native village. After a wearisome journey, she found herself and family in what was then a wilderness in the western part of New York. The gospel was not preached in the vicinity, nor was even the log school-house erected. For a time Mr. E. observed the Sabbath, so far as resting from labour was concerned. He even spent some time in reading the Bible, but he did not pray. In consequence that blessed book was gradually laid aside.

The climate, and perhaps the labours incident to a life in the wilderness, caused Mrs. E. to fall into a decline. When, after a lingering illness, she bade her husband farewell, she charged him to send her children to her native home, that they might there be taught, in the school-house and the church, truths which could make them wise unto salvation. Mr. Earl complied in part with his wife's request. He sent his daughter Julia, who was now nine years of age, and her younger brother. The older one he detained to assist him in his labours.

It was six years before Julia returned to her father. She had spent that time among the pious friends of her departed mother. She found the home of her childhood greatly changed. A neat village surrounded the tasteful dwelling now occupied by her father. The spire of the village church rose aloft, and the school-house was not far distant. She rejoiced to return to her home, though she was to meet its chief charm no more. A check was soon given to her joy. When she sat down to the

evening meal, the blessing of God was not invoked. It was with difficulty that she could eat. When the hour for retiring came, she was still more unhappy, as the family separated without prayer.

Mr. E. soon perceived that his daughter did not feel at home in his house. It made him sad at heart, for he had long looked forward to her return, with hope that she would restore, in part at least, the loss he had experienced. He said to her one day, "Julia, you do not seem to feel so much at home as I could wish."

After some hesitation, she replied, "I do not feel safe here."

"Do not feel safe!" said he, in astonishment.

"I am afraid to live under a roof where there is no prayer."

The remark went to the father's heart. He thought of all the mercies he had received, the protection he had experienced, unasked! He continued to think of his ways till his soul fainted within him. He looked at his oldest son, a Sabbath-breaker, and ignorant of God, and could not conceal the truth, (that it was owing to the act of removing him in childhood from the means of grace, and exposing him to influences that in all probability would prove his ruin.

In a few days he asked Julia to read the Scriptures and pray in the family. It was with joy that she heard the request, but with great difficulty that she complied with it. It was not till she was reminded of the joy it would give to her mother, could she be a witness of it, that she consented to make the attempt. In a few weeks, on a Sabbath morning, the father himself took the Bible, and having read a portion, kneeled down, and with tears besought God to teach stammering lips how to pray. Light, peace, and safety, took up their abode in a dwelling now no longer prayerless.

THE PREACHING OF THE
GRAVE.

Our earth is full of silent preachers. The brook, with its ever-moving waters, speaks of change; of the lights and shadows of individual existence. The river tells the same great lesson as applied to states and nations. The ocean, now sleeping in its waveless repose, now rolling madly beneath the winds of heaven, typi

fies, in its peacefulness, in its anger, our ever-changing world.

Thus, the falling leaf speaks silently, but impressively, of death; the flowers around us open their fair petals with mute teachings of our heavenly Father's goodness; the lofty mountains breathe forth sublime lessons of His power; and not a drop of water sparkles in a bucket, but it silently proclaims His wisdom. Thus with every thing-surely not less with the grave! The grave! What preacher more solemn in its teachings? What instructor more truthful in its lessons? It needs no outward tinselry to enforce its preaching; the humble resting-place of the poor speaks as solemnly and impressively as the costly mausoleum of the honoured or the rich.' It ever appears before us in its own simple solemnity-the powerful preacher of death and eternity.

Yet its teachings are not always the same; in the graves of the past, the present, and the future, we hear far different voices, each speaking forth its separate lesson.

The graves of the past! Who can number them? They dot every valley, and lie scattered on every hill-side- they speak forth in every clime, in all tongues, to all nations, the self-same words, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

Yet, mingled with this one grand thought, they individually preach to us other and not less important sermons.

Let us hearken to the past's great grave, its universal sepulchre, as it preaches to us in the awfully sublime picture of a deluged world. Gaze in imagination upon that scene! look calmly upon the wide-rolling, all-embracing waters! hear their solemn tones! look beneath their dark waves! listen to the winds, as sweeping over the vast expanse, they sigh over a buried world! Behold this monument of man's depravity and God's judgment, and tell me if there is no preaching here?

Are they frightful, terrible words, which swell forth from this vast grave? Behold that Ark of Gopher-wood, freighted with all of earth's living wealth! watch it ride safely over the troubled waters! see it float peacefully through every danger-the storm harms it not; the winds molest it not; the grave below is no grave for this; for God's mercy is there.

Hearest thou now sweeter words? These are the two voices from the past's great grave? the past's grave of the world!

But the past has another tomb, whose preaching shall be heard through all time— the lingering sounds of whose words shall reach even into eternity. Beneath the sky of Judea lies this sepulchre. Cities are buried there. How impressively do those sluggish waters preach to us! What solemn lessons do they silently tell, as they roll their bitter waves over the buried monuments of man's wickedness and folly! What an everlasting memorial of the depravity of the human heart!

But the past has other graves-great graves! where scores of hearts are sleeping, the victims of ambition,-of despotism,-of war, and they preach to us! From their cold darkness many a sermon comes of the ills which sin has brought upon our race. They tell us of the misery which tyrants cause. Sad evidences are they of the power of the monster-war.

And yet there are other graves, individual graves, which perhaps speak to us no less solemnly than those we have mentioned. There are humble graves, whose preaching, soft and low, comes to but a few listening ears there are heroes' graves, which sen? forth their teachings to all of earth's struggling millions: there are christians' graves, where the good love to linger, and hearken to the angel whisperings which speak sweetly there.

Thus the graves of the past preach to us. From each vast sepulchre,-from each proud mausoleum, from each undecorated burialplace, each humble narrow house,-swell forth the teachings which, if practically heeded, would fill our hearts with wisdom, and gild our days with happiness,

"But the present has its graves, new-made graves, Where the tears of the afflicted still moisten the sod, And the sighs of bereaved ones are ascending to God."

To-day's sun will set on thousands of these new-made graves. What preaching is here? Yet how little do we heed the grave's silent words? Do you ever visit the grave-yard, reader?

The graves of the present preach, perhaps, more impressively than the graves of the past; but how solemn should be the warning when the graves of the future appear before us. There, reader, is your grave! Do not turn from it, do not neglect it, there it lies-your own grave! preaches to you. Heed its words, and when you come to it, you will find it a pleasant, welcome grave, where you may peacefully

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