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Family 1
DAY SONGS.
By George Cnrrlngton Moseley.
Oh, the freedom and the joy of the mating songs,
Of the carolling summer bird;
Oh, the wondrous, waking, melodious bars,
O'er the dew-pearled meadow heard.
Oh, the wild and delirious and tender trills,
That float on the noon-day air;
From the tiny throats break a thousand notes,
Of loveliness most rare.
Oh, the tenderness and sweetness of the twilight sons,
That sounds o'er a halcyon world;
When the choristers sing best as they wing to rest,
And the curtain of night is unfurled.
Oh, what a lesson these feathered friends teach us,
To be joyful the whole day long;
At the morning and noonday and evening time,
Let your life be a happy song.
WHY HE BECAME A PREACHER.
BY MISS ANNA GRATZE.
"Father, why are you a minister?"
"That's a strange question by a boy of your
age. What makes you ask that, Willie?"
"The boys are going to play baseball this
afternoon, daddy, and they all say they're glad
their father isn't a preacher, so they can have
some fun on Sunday."
A tear was glistening in the boy's eyes and
the childish lips quivered.
"Willie, my boy," said the minister, as he
took the boy on his kness, "when I was a lad like
you, rosy-cheeked and curly-headed, I could do
very little on Sunday except going to church,
and my father wasn't a minister. One thing,
however, I never missed; that was visiting dear
old grandma.
"Some day, my boy, I am going to take'you
to the place where 1'" spent my boyhood days.
GrancbfiS/s old homestead stood upon the hill,
>? Wnile my father's farm was in a beautiful valley,
covered with fruit trees, through which a
broad river wound its way.
"Sunday after Sunday T climbed the steep
hill; it was a hard climb, but I was repaid for
it, for the view on top of the hill was magnificent.
"One Sunday in May the birds were singing
sweetly, every tree and bough was covered with
fragrant blossoms, and in my childish glee I
sang merrily with the birds, wondering if Paradise
had been as beautiful as this valley; or
perhaps this was the very spot where the Garden
of Eden had been, and surely this river
must be the river of life.
"One more bend in the road and grandma's
house was visible. There she stood on the porch
as I had seen her every Sunday ever since I
could climb that hill looking for her boy.
"At last, after I had been all round the orchard,
seen every bird's nest, petted the old
cow Bessy, and Jimmy, the horse; looked in the
chicken coop, visited Martin, the old colored
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man, who naa oeen in granuma s service nearly
fifty years, I sat down at Granny's feet to
tell her what the Sunday school lessons had been
that day.
" 'Grandma,' I said, 'why do you always
wear black 1'
"Silently the gray-haired lady arose, walked
over to the bureau, pulled out a drawer, put
down her hand in a place which she knew so
well, and returned with a small picture.
" 'Who is that man, grandma?' It was the
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pliotograpn oi a tan, weu-uum muu.
" 'He is your grandfather, George; he died
twenty-five years ago, and I have worn black
ever since.'
Ik.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S <
leadings
'' 'Why did he die so young?'
" 'Your grandfather?you're named after
him, my boy?was a Methodist minister. We
lived in the log cabin yonder, where Martin and
his wife live now. This was all prairie and
woods all around here. Only a few settlers
lived in this State in those times, but two or
three miles apart from each other, and we
seldom saw anybody in those days.
" 'Your grandfather had been sent out here,
and it was his duty to visit the settlers all
around. Sometimes he would be absent for a
few weeks, and then I was all alone with Mar
tin, a young boy, and Mary, his cousin. Grandpa
had picked them up one day half starved
and brought them home. The boy about sixteen,
the girl perhaps twelve. Martin said they were
cousins; their parents had died of smallpox. We
kept them, and when they grew up they got
married. They never had any children.
*' 'Well, as I said, your grandfather was away
for weeks at a time, he had to be doctor as well
as preacher, and while he was away we attended
to the garden and field.
" 'About fifteen miles from here was a large
ranch, and an old shanty, where a man sold vile
liquor; it was the devil's own place. The cowboys
from all around came there to spend their
hard-earned money eambliner and drinkinc all
through Saturday night and all day Sunday.
" 'This is too much for my poor George, so
Sunday after Sunday he went there to preach in
an old log cabin or under the open sky. A deep
hatred and bitter fight arose between the saloon
keeper and the preacher.
" 'One Saturday it snowed. All day a terrific
gale was blowing, and George was very restless.
After dinner he put on his boots, took his hat
and coat.
" ' "George, you are not going out in this
storm ? *'
" ' "I must, mother, I must. The boys will
be waiting and some poor soul may be in distress.
''
" 'George, this is going into death itself;
the boys won't expect you in a night like this."
" ' "Won't they? Well, the devil will be
there, selling liquor, and I won't let him gain
one inch of ground, see?"
" 'My pleading I knew would be in vain for
he was a determined man and would rather die
than neglect his duty; but I held on to the last
straw. Taking the baby out of the cradle, I
said: "George, for the baby's sake don't leave
me tonight."
" ' "Wife," he thundered, "get out of my
way; do you take me for a weakling that would
be afraid of a little snowdrift?"
" 'Tenderly kissing us goodbye, he went out
into the storm.
" 'All night I kept a light in the window.
All night I sat by the fire and prayed for him,
my heart filled with a dark foreboding. Martin
and Mary sat up with me; they loved their mast.fir
with a rlwnfinn mlw fnnnrl omAn<?
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people.
" 'How long the night seemed to be! You
could hear nothing but wind, the shrieking and
whistling of the wind. It seemed as if a herd
of animals were passing by in wild flight. Occasionally
the howling of a wolf was heard in
the distance. Even now, after all these years,
I can hear the storm of that awful night.
" 'At last the late, gray dawn broke, and
still it snowed; would it ever stop? Martin and
Mary were fast asleep; the cow and the hens
0 U T H [August 9, 1911
were calling loudly for their morning meal;
the baby, too, was hungry. A new day broke;
new duties awaited me. One more fervent
prayer, and with the breaking day my courage
returned.
" 'Towards noon it istopped snowing, and
there in the distance a lonely figure slowly returned.
Martin, with a bottle of hot coffee made
in haste, jumped on the other horse and went
out to meet his master. Exhausted from the
fight with the elements, he fell into my arms.
" ' "Mary, I've failed?I have broken my
promise. Failed them for the first time in ten
years. My poor boys."
" 'We put him to bed and soon he was raving
so wildly that we could not hold him down, but
had to tie him to the bed. The fever grew
higher every day, and no doctor for many, many
miles around. We gave him such medicines as
he used to give others and always carried with
him on his visiting tours. The fever was burning
him up, and I did what common sense
taught me?packed him in snow, put ice on his
head, and that, with the medicine, saved his
life.
" 'For two weeks we watched him day and
night, taking turns in sleeping. I was mostly
up nights, the howling of the wolves sprawling
around the house and his mad ravings almost
drove me frantic. When the second Sunday
had passed the boys wondered what had hapnnnorl
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a Sunday before. So they came looking for him,
poor fellows! I never saw such love! Some cried
like babies, he had been so good to them; they
called him father.
" 'Well, they wouldn't leave him, but just
made me lie down while they nursed him day
and night. Soon the news spread all through
the State and the people came from afar to
visit him. We could have started a grocery
store with all the things the friends brought us.
After three weeks he was able to sit up, but,
what a changed man; you wouldn't have known
him.
" 'The first meeting he held again was wonderful
indeed. People came from all over, 420 in
all, men, women and children. I never heard
such a sermon in all my life; his text was "God
So Loved the World." Everybody sobbed. A
few weeks after that meeting the saloon was
closed, the bartender moved awav Vmi r orron /I.
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father's wish was fulfilled, the height of his
ambition was reached. In the place of the
saloon a church was built, the first in the State.
It was only a primitive wooden shanty built by
the cowboys; they made the benches and carved
the pulpit. Grandpa never was the same, and
two years after that terrible night he died. "We
buried him behind the church, the wooden cross
which the boys put on his grave is still there.
" 'Never was a man mourned as he was! The
boys used to come and tell me what he had done
for them. How he had put their money in the
bank in the far away city, sent some to their
parents, snatched them away from a life of
woe and shame, made men of them and loved
them as only a father could love. He was thirty
when he died, do you wonder that I always wear
black?"
"Grandma," I said when she had finished
her story, "I want to be a minister like my
grandfather!"
' One day my little trunk was packed. I was
ready to go to college. Grandma came to bid
me goodbye, it was she who put the last article,
in the trunk and closed the lid. Kissing me
she said:
" 'George, will you promise me to read a
chapter every day? It is the most precious
thing I possess: Your grandfather's Bible.