Then, while the rough miners, amid
their tears, tried to comfort her, she suddenly knelt down on the grass
where they had laid the body and prayed as her dear father had taught her
to pray.
[Illustration: THE MINER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.]
What a touching thing it must have been to see the child kneeling there,
and to hear her, in her great grief, say three times over, "Thy will be
done!"
One of the miners took her to his home, and they all tried to comfort her.
At first it seemed as if she could not recover from the shock, and they
feared she would die of grief; but by-and-by she began to try to help
the kind woman--who was like a mother to her--in the care of her little
children, and at last she got courage to go down into the mine again, to
the very place where her poor father had been killed.
But she did not come now to run about and play hide-and-seek among the
winding ways; those days were over, and the sorrowful time, which had
passed since then, had taught her precious lessons. Her father's Friend
was _her_ Friend now, and she loved to carry the Bible, which had belonged
to her father, down into the mine, and while the miners were taking their
dinner or their short rest, she used to sit beside them and read them
chapters and psalms, and so became a little messenger to tell them of the
love of God. Do you know a hymn about shining in this world--where so "many
kinds of darkness" are found--for the Lord Jesus Christ? I do not know
whether this child had ever heard of it, but it is very sweet to see that
the Lord had taught her to shine--as the hymn says--"first of all for Him";
then in her little corner in that humble cottage where she tried, in spite
of her own sore trouble, to be a cheer and comfort to the miner's wife; and
then He gave her a little corner in the dark mine where she might shine
"Like a little candle
Burning in the night.
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