light might not disturb
Helen; then laid an additional blanket over her, for it was bitter
cold, and placed the candle which she had lighted behind an old-timed
Chinese screen, that formed a sort of a niche in a corner of the room,
which she, in her pious thoughtfulness, had converted into an oratory.
A small round table, covered with white drapery, supported a statue of
the Immaculate Mother, a porcelain shelf for holy water and her
prayer-book. Over it hung an old and rare crucifix of carved ivory,
stained with color which time had softened to the hues of life, while
the features wore that mingled look of divine dignity and human woe
which but few artists, in their delineations of the "thorn-crowned
head," can successfully depict. It had been brought from Spain many
years before by her father, with a cabinet picture of Mater Dolorosa,
which now hung over it. Both were invaluable, not only on account of
their artistic excellence and age, but as mementos of her father, and
incentives to devotion. Thither she now went to offer the first fruits
of the day to heaven in mingled thanksgiving and prayer. Almost numbed
with the intense cold, she felt inclined to abridge her devotions, but
she remembered the cold, dreary journey of the holy family from
Nazareth to Bethlehem--the ruggedness of the road, and the bitter winds
which swept through the mountain defiles around them--then she lingered
in the poor stable, and knelt with the shepherds beside the manger
where Jesus Christ in the humility of his sacred humanity reposed. She
pictured to herself the Virgin Mother in the joyful mystery of her
maternity, bending over him with a rapture too sublime for words; and
St. Joseph--wonderfully dignified as the guardian of divinity, and of
her whom the most high had honored, leaning on his staff near them.
"Shall _I_ dare complain?" thought May, while these blessed images came
into her heart warming it with generous love. "No sweet and divine
Lord, let all human ills, discomforts, repinings, and love of self
vanish before these sweet contemplations. With thee, in Bethlehem,
poverty and sorrow grow light; and the weariness of the rough ways of
life no more dismay. Let me follow with thee, sweet mother, after his
footsteps, until Calvary is crowned by a sacrifice and victim so divine
that angels, men, and earth wonder; let me, with thee, linger by his
cross, follow him to his sepulture, and rejoice with thee in his
resurrection.