Salome (turning southward). Sarah, Rebecca, look in wonder out! Joanna (turning southward). Fair Rachel, dry thy tears! Thy children come Mary (turning southwest). Sing out, strong Miriam! The Lord our God Joanna (turning northward). Awake, awake, arise, O Deborah! Utter a song, O wife of Lapidoth! Salome (turning southward, pointing east and west). Sweet Ruth, look smiling from the golden fields, Mary (turning eastward). Queen Esther! radiant Esther! rise again, Zion's young Prince, thy ransomed people ieads. Salome (looking forward). Anna! Elizabeth! O saints new crowned! The women form a tableau, during a chart behind the scenes of "Now is Christ risen from the dead," or any Easter anthem. NOTE. The part under the sub-heading “Awake! Rejoice!" may be used as a recitation only, or given as a dialogue by three girls, without scenery or costumes. In fact, the entire Play makes a very effective reading. BLIND MARY OF THE MOUNTAIN. North Wales is a land of mountains and rocks; of lakes and waterfalls; of driving mist and gleams of sunshine. Blind Mary was a Welsh woman, and loved her native land. She would not have exchanged the wild mountain upon which she lived for the richest and fair, est meadow in England; or the little hut where she had zaten, drunk, and slept for fifty years, for the neatest house in any English village. Mary's cottage stood on the side of one of the highest mountain ranges in Wales. Great rocks lay scat tered about in wild confusion; a narrow path, something like a sheep track, wound in and out among these rocks until it reached the high road. The mountains towered all around, gray and hoary; sometimes capped with clouds, and sometimes, after heavy rains, glistening with threads of silver, as the new-born waterfalls coursed down their sides. The sheep and goats leaped from rock to rock or browsed upon the mountain grass, which was short, springy and delicious with the scent of the wild thyme, over whose purple blossoms the mountain bees hummed. Ferns and wild flowers nestled in every corner and peeped from under the great rocks. But it was at Mary's cottage door that the view was of such surpassing loveliness. Picture to yourself a glorious summer evening; the red setting sun is glistening on Mary's window panes; you look down between the mountains, through what is called a "pass," very purple those mountains look now that the shades of evening are stealing on. This narrow pass is closed by a lake, which looks like liquid gold as it glitters under the setting sun. The pur ple mountains! the golden lake! You will not wonder when I tell you that many a traveler finds his way to Mary's cottage to gaze upon this beautiful scene. It is such a summer evening to-day. Mary is sitting in her old arm-chair at the cottage door. It is a rough place, built of great mountain stones in a sheltered spot, on account of the winter's wind. She has just laid aside her knitting, and has taken a book, that which John Bunyan calls "the best of books," in her hand. Her sightless eyes are fixed on the glowing sky, as with her fingers she carefully spells over the raised letters. Her white handkerchief is neatly pinned over her blue serge gown, and the old white Welsh mob-cap is on her head. A traveler had been climbing the mountain, little thinking that a cottage was so near, when he came upon this scene. He stopped for a moment to look at the blind old woman with the silver hair, meaning to go up the mountain; but, with the quickness of the blind, Mary heard his footsteps. "Sit down, sir," said she, pointing to a settee. "I know by your step that you are a gentleman, and alone. Sit down, and let an old woman show you her beautiful view and offer you a drink of buttermilk. There isn't such a view in all North Wales. Look at the mountains yonder on the right and left, how purple they are; and just see the lakes at the bottom of the pass, with the sun shining over them, and that brook below dashing over the rocks." The traveler looked at her with surprise. "I was told that blind Mary lived up here," said he, "but I can scarcely believe that you are blind; you seem to see the mountains and lakes as well as I do." "I do see them, sir, with my mind's eye, as the saying is, and years ago, when I had my eyesight, I could look at them plain enough; but it pleased God to take away my sight and to make it dark." "Doesn't it make you very unhappy, Mary, never to see the blue sky or the mountains which you love so dearly?" "Don't ye The blind woman's eyes filled with tears. ask me, sir. One time I was very rebellious, and almost angry with God for afflicting me; but now I can bless His name. I can see something better, sir, than rocka and mountains; I can see Jesus my Saviour, and His love, and I can look forward to that beautiful place He is preparing for me. Will you forgive an old woman's boldness, sir? You tell me that you have good eyesight, that you can see yonder lakes and the blue mountains beyond; but, sir, did you ever see that wonderful sight, Jesus Christ laying down his life for you?" The young man looked at blind Mary, with her silver hair, neat cap and calm, placid face lighted up by the last beams of the setting sun, and he answered : "Mary, I am afraid that I have not thought about these things; but I promise you that I will. I shall not forget my evening climb on the Welsh mountains, or you, and what you have said to me." 66 God bless you, sir. What should I do, a lone old blind woman, if it wasn't for my Saviour? I'm never alone, for He is with me. I'm not afraid to die, because He has washed away my sins in his blood, and when I leave my mountains and lakes I shall go to that beautiful country, where I shall see him face to face. I trust that I shall meet you there, sir. I shall ask my Saviour to open your eyes that you may see yourseir first as a sinner and then Jesus as your Redeemer." As the young man rose to go the sun set behind the lakes in a flood of glory,-gold, amber, and flame color, fading away to green, then melting into the blue of the summer sky. He took one last look at blind Mary. She thought that he was gone. Her hands were clasped over her oaken staff, her lips moved as in prayer, the glory still lingered on her face. Was it the reflection of the setting sun? No, surely; it was a reflection of that exceeding glory of a better land, which, though she could not see with her eyes, dwelt in her heart. The traveler turned away and pursued his path down the mountain through the darkening evening. The stars came out one by one, looking down with their calm, bright eyes; the moon threw her silvery light over mountain and valley and on the calm surface of the lake. Years have passed away since then. Mary lies in her humble grave in the little church-yard by the lake side, and the villagers tell how, a few years ago, a gentleman came, a good gentleman, who spoke to them of Jesus; how he asked for blind Mary of the mountain, and they showed him her grave, and before he left the village he put up a neat monument at the head of the grave, on which he had these words carved: "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty; THE CHARGE ON "OLD HUNDRED." Half a bar, half a bar, Half a bar onward! Into an awful ditch, Choir and precentor hitch, Into a mess of pitch, They led the Old Hundred. Trebles to right of them, Tenors to left of them, Bellowed and thundered. Their own time and hook, From the Old Hundred. Screeched all the trebles here, Boggled the tenors there, Raising the parson's hair, While his mind wandered; Theirs not to reason why This psalm was pitched too high; Theirs but to gasp and cry Out the Old Hundred. Trebles to right of them, Tenors to left of them, Basses in front of them, Bellowed and thundered. Stormed they with shout and yell, |