Newspaper Page Text
4 (964) 1 HE
Family 1
SEVENTY
YEARS TODAY.
"So when that Angel of the darker drink
At laBt shall find you by the River's brink,
And offering you his cup invite your soul
Forth to your lips to quaff?you shall not shrink."
?Omah Khayyam.
Seventy years today, and yet the years
Seem not as years that lasted overlong,
Because His hand has led me all the way,
And in my heart there's Peace and Song.
Seventy years today?a thankful heart,
Because he leads me by the waters still.
And every day new wonders he prepares,
And every day with joy my cup iloth fill.
Seventy years today. Time seamed my brow
And stole my roses, and bedimmed my eyes,
.Time put the silver strands among my hair.
And yet I would not have it otherwise.
Seventy years today?God hath been kind,
/viiu sum me many joyts as on i ve piuu,
And when from Him sometimes my feet did stray,
To draw me back He gently used the rod.
Seventy years today?1 shall not fear
When I shall yield me up my faltering breath.
Firmly my feet shall press the valley's shade,
And God's own hand shall pilot me through
death!
Seventy years today, full three score ten,
Perchance I may reach four score, God is
great;
He cannot come to take me home too soon,
And if He tarriee, I'm content to wait.
Seventy years today, and yet the years
Seem not as years that lasted overlong;
Because His hand has led me all the way,
And in my heart there's Peace and Song.
?John Richard Moreland.
A TALE THAT IS TOLD.
T~> TV :J T 11
r>y waviu uyun.
It had been a week of unusual stress and business
for the minister of Merkland, and when he
let himself into his study somewhat late on a
Saturday night and realized that he had yet to
prepare for next morning's appearance in the
pulpit, he was a little dismayed, for he was in
no mood for the making of a sermon, and even
when he had spread all the needful adjuncts to
his task on the desk before him, and had the
Bible open in front of him, he found his mind
a singular blank. Sundry texts indeed chased
themselves through his brain, and instinctively
his lips moved over certain words again and
again.
"A tale that is told." He wrote the words
at the top of his page, and tried to bring his
thoughts into line by thinking of no less than
tliroo fliffpronl ftonth-Viofls Viv wtiir>h Via Viarl
ministered in the week just coming to a close.
But all the meditations suitable to the occasion
seemed to elude his efforts to grasp and tabulate
them. Finally he closed his eyes and gave
himself up for a moment to certain memories
of the past which had been pursuing him all day.
The minister of Merkland was a lonely man,
the minister of a lonely parish in the covenanting
regions of the south country of Scotland.
Merkland village was nine miles from a railway
station, which means that the life was remote
and circumscribed.
But human life flows with the same relentless
tide in the solitary places of the earth as it
/Iaoo wlmrn mon aro fliinlrnol T^v raaaAn Vinw
Ul/VO Ti liVJl Vi AAA V' 11 Ul Vy vuiVMvaiii J vuuvu j **v ??
^ ever, of the restrictions imposed by remoteness,
the tragedy seems to strike a deeper note. It
was tragedy the Rev. Angus Brownlie was
thinking as he sat there on the hard green baize
of his study chair, the tragedy of his own life
and other lives with which his had been interwoven.
Upon this reminsent mood his housekeeper
broke with her low knock, and her discreet
cough, which she used in season and out of
season as the signal for her approach.
i ' 11
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
headings
"What is it, Elspeth?" enquired the minister
patiently, as one speaks who has to aceept
the inevitable.
"It's a man. sir. seekintr to sneak to vou. He
will not give his name."
"What sort of a man; prophet, priest, or
king?" he enquired with a hovering smile.
"I dinua exactly ken what kind of a man.
Tin doesn't look like a gentleman, but then
again he is not exactly a gangrel, something
betwixt and between."
"ITas John M'Gairn gone home to the village?"
"Aye sir, efter he chappit the sticks."
"Well, I daresay the stable will be warm
and dry if the man needs a bed. Meantime,
where have ye put him, Elspeth?"
"I left him in the passage."
"No, he is here," said a voice over her shoulder;
whereat Elspeth, very angry, and completely
taken aback, started round upon the
man in a kind of righteous fury. How dared
ary nameless wastrel who chose to ask for the
minister intrude himself upon the privacy of his
study ? But before she had spoken the minister
put up his hand, and the expression on his face
made her wonder and keep silent.
"You can go, Elspeth. I know this?this
gentleman. I will speak with him here and
alone."
Elspeth withdrew; then the minister, squaring
his shoulders, moved to the hearthrug, and
stood looking in a perfect silence upon the intruder,
who made no immediate effort to end it.
lie was a tall slender figure of a man, carrying
himself with a certain distinction in spite
of his shabby and way-worn clothes. His face,
clean-shaven and blue with the cold of a snell
winter's night, was well-featured, and that
broad and sweeping brow had been intended
by nature to be the seat of noble gifts. The
mouth spoiled all; it was weak, irresolute, even
vicious in its curves, and the big blue eyes were
full of wandering fires.
"So you have come back, Sandy Calvert, un
regenerate as you went away."
"I've come back, Mr. Brownlie, unregenerate
as I went away," he answered; and a smile
which had a lurking sweetness in it hovered
about his lips. "I'm here because I'm in straits,
down on my luck, bowled over, sick in body
and in mind. Tell me, is my father alive?"
"Yes, but he is failed. It is certain that the
sight of you might go far to finish him."
Thn WQnrlni*nY?'a Afrnn won m A ^
xiiv Ti uxiuv/i ui o ojr oa x vaiugu iuuuu tliC lUUillj
and a sort of hush seemed to fall upon him.
"I heard?I heard in San Francisco of Alice's
death, and since then I've been a haunted man,
driven like chaff before the wind. I could get
no rest till I came home to find out the truth.
Tell me what was the matter."
"She died, Sandy," answered the minister
in quietly measured tones, "of the broken heart
you left her Kvith."
The wanderer gulped something down, and
for a moment covered his face with his hand.
Then, he looked round again, with a poignant
and Dathetic look in his face.
"If I broke hers, what have I done for my
own? I have never been able to forget her.
The words she spoke that night I left Merkland
have pursued me. She said that living or
dying she would have my soul, that I should
never be able to get away from her influence;
she even said that she would try and live till I
came back a different man."
"You're back, sure enough, but whether a
U T H [October 11, 1911
different man or not I cannot tell," said the
minister in a slow, difficult voice.
"I've been like the prodigal of old, in the far
country, and I've come to myself, it is your
forgiveness 1 ask, Mr. Brownlie, since 1 can't
have Alice's. Then I'll see my father and go
forth again to do what I can to atone. Do you
think my father would see me if 1 were to go
up to the Castle of Merkland tonight?"
"No, and that 1 do not. It would not be safe,
Sandy, to burst in upon him without preparation
or warning. He is an old man, and he
bears things less patiently than he did. But if
you will sit down here and tell me where you
have been all these years, I will make up my
mind what is to be done for you. You look
surprised. Alice laid a charge upon me at the
last, that if you came back I was to take you by
the hand. How hard a charge it was I only
realize now I am called to fulfil it, but who am I
to break the bruised reed? Sit down, Sandy
Calvert, and let me hear the record of the
years."
Elspeth, full of misgivings and curiosity, hovered
between the kitchen and the study door,
and was at length rewarded by the ringing of
the bell.
i J -el?_i.i- T
vjui nic atauic laiiicui iigiacu, uispcill. X
have to go to Merkland," the minister said.
"Merkland on a Saturday night at nine
o'clock," she muttered to herself, as she hastened
to obey; but she was still more uneasy
when she found that she was to be left with the
doubtful stranger alone in the manse. But the
minister took no more notice of her significant
looks than if she had not existed. When the
gig rattled away down the road, she locked herself
into the kitchen, and did not stir from her
seat till she heard it again on its return journey.
Then the minister, having fed and housed
the beast with his own hands, entered the study
again where his strange guest awaited him, and
the door was shut.
"Well," said Sandy Calvert, springing up,
"what luck had you?"
"None. I have done my best, but the iron
is in the old man's soul, Sandy. He will neither
see you, nor hear talk of you."
"But I will not go without seeing him," said
the wanderer. At least he must hear from my
own lips that I regret all the suffering I have
caused him. To-morrow is Sunday. Is there
an outhouse where I could sleep, and to-morrow
I will go myself to Merkland? I wish I
had taken the law into my own hands and gone
with you to-night."
"That would have been unwise," Sandy. His
passion was at the white heat, and no man
knows what the upshot would have been if he
had seen you. I said to him that if I, who,
through you, had lost my one ewe lamb, could
take you by the hand, surely he might soften
his heart, but it was in vain. Now listen. 1
have a plan. To-morrow for certain he will be
at the kirk, for he has never been known to
miss a Sabbath, whatever the stress of wind or
weather. And you will be there too, Sandy,
and I will preach a sermon for you both, such
words as the Lord may give me in the silent
watches of the night. With him we must leave
the issue."
They sat up till the mirk midnight, and Elspeth,
wakeful in her garret room, was filled
with misgivings lest they should be murdered
in their beds. The minister had given her no
orders, but she knew right well, because her
ems were painiuny snarpened, that he had put
the stranger to bed in the smaller guest chamber,
which was always kept ready and aired
for the chance comer. Also she had heard him
make a raid upon the larder, and guessed what
she would find in the morning. But at length