Newspaper Page Text
Woman's Work.
T. L. MITCHELL, Publisher.
Vol. 17—No. 9.
For Woman’s Wonk i.’M)
TOE MIMW KW6 ®F LDSHT.
• . * mighty King of Light that sets
‘ 11 Tall minarets aflame,
And fringes with a thousand jets
~..• . ’Wk. * Cloud-castles none can name,
’ .. Still stoops to paint the lily white,
’«&■ • *» Give buttercups their gold,
And the forget me-nots delight
nP* s%gjEF' --W® .. With hues in heaven unrolled.
‘ ’Mia Hung on the sky in loops of fire
♦ His pictures grandly gleam—
a.. I'x Are nature’s heirlooms hour by hour,
~' \ TO w"*'’ ‘ On mount, and sea, and stream.
The poor who have no lamp to burn
Can glory in Sol’s rays;
X. ■ -- He of dim vision still discern
' "TO.. ' ' ' '* K >ta£^' Its light, and give God praise.
Vi-> - »-i>'
.-. ? ''to""~' / The sun, the mighty King of Light,
A *-’*L«<f* * ’<' '' '" ?V. ' That guides the flocks afield,
■r- ■ *That makes the morning grand! v bright,
<♦ And earth its treasures yield!
. .. '■ \ ' . The downcast and the lowly raise
to i '«• '■»' " r . ■ •’. Their grateful eyes above,
For gift,through all life’s changing days,
Proof of our Father’s love!
TO' TO' ■ George Bancroft Griffith.
F<t Woman s Work.
A MODERN ST. ©EeiLIA.
UTT ISS CECILE CAYWOOD put on
A VIA her wide-brimmed hat and trip
ped through the fields in the soft sum
mer afternoon until she reached the
tiny vine-covered church where she was
organist.
She had a key to the church and would
go there alone many evenings to prac
tice new hymns.
To-day, after her customary practice,
she wished to try one of the Oratorios
from “The Messiah.”
She laid aside her hat and gloves and
began to play. Soon she finished the
hymns and started the Oratorio. Sweet
ly solemn sounded forth the music;
she seemed to speak out her heart in the
organ tones. The western sun shot
slanting rays through the window to fall
over her. Her dress was of some soft
white fabric, the sleeves falling loosely
back from her beautifully modeled wrists
and hands. Around her neck, suspend
ed by a slender chain, she wore a jew
eled cross, and with the sunlight falling
like a halo upon her auburn hair she
looked like a fair saint as she sat there
playing.
The music, sounding through the open
windows, roused from slumber a man
who had been lying under the shade of
the chestnut trees in the churchyard.
For a few minutes he lay and listened,
blinking sleepily up at the sunbeams
stealing through the leafy canopy over
head. “Wonder if I was dreaming of
music and the sun woke me up!” he
muttered. “No, that’s real; someone
must be playing in the church.”
He arose, stretching himself languid
ly. He was of a rather unprepossessing
appearance, his clothes being soiled and
much the worse for wear. His hat, worn
low down over his disheveled hair,
looked as if it might have seen better
days; his face, which was reasonably
clean, wore a hard, half desperate look,
and his whole bearing was one of reck
less defiance.
For an instant he stood listening, then,
with a muttered, “Guess I’ll see who
’tis,” slouched over to one of the open
THERE ARE CHAINS OF RESPONSIBILITY THAT ARE STRONGER THAN WE KNOW.
ATHENS, GEORGIA, SEPTEMBER, 1904-
windows and, resting his elbows on the
sill, looked in.
Miss Cecile did not see him— could
not, in fact, without partially turning—
but he had a good view of her. As he
gazed at the girl a wavering ray fell
aslant the diamond cross she wore and
quivered there, a line of flashing light.
The man started at the sight of the
gleaming stones and, with a low excla
mation, started to draw himself up into
the window, a' dark look in his eyes —
then hesitated, with a furtive glance
around. When he looked back the va
grant sunbeam was straying across the
organ keys, and the cross looked dull
and heavy. “Guess I’ll wait till she
gets through playing,” he said to him
self, but with his eyes still fixed on the
cross that hung around the young girl’s
neck.
It glittered again in the light, as its
wearer moved, and again the dangerous
light came into the man’s eyes as he
watchedit. “She doesn’t need it,” he
murmured between his set teeth. “She
has enough and to spare, while I have
nothing—nothing. ’ ’
A cloud passed over the sun, sudden
ly darkening the place. The man
started and looked nervously around.
“Pshaw, no one is coming here,” he
said to himself, “I needn’t be getting
nervous over a shadow!”
Miss Cecile had finished her selec
tion long ago, but her fingers strayed on
at their own sweet will over the ivory
keys. The music flowed soft and sweet,
with a strange, pleading note running
through the lovely melody; now high,
now low, but always that pleading strain.
The man shivered slightly, “What’s
the matter with me?” bethought, angri
ly. “Why should I think of my moth
er’s songs? Goodness knows I didn’t
hear many; she died when I was so
young that I can hardly remember her
at all. But perhaps I might have been
different if she had lived!”
He shrugged his shoulders and tried
to shake off the feeling that had seized
him, then turned again to the window —
but the music seemed to have cast a
spell over him. He listened idly, won
dering why he did so. Now it flowed
along so smoothly. Why, he wondered,
did it make him think of the shadowed
stream where he had fished long years
ago when he was a boy. Now it was no
longer the calm sweep of the river, but
a little brook rippling over its rocky bed.
He bent his head upon his hands as
the memory came back to him. How
clearlv he could recall it —the little
sparkling stream upon whose banks he
had lain one summer’s day with the bit
terness of defeat upon him.
He had lain there that morning and
thought over his rigorous childhood fol
lowed by his first year of freedom, his
first year at college, then, the gradual
breaking away from the bond that had
held him. He had thought of the reck
less life he had led, of the disapproval of
his stern old father, of the final sunder
ing of the ties that had held him to his
home. He had thought of the short
time since then —how bis friends had
one by one disappeared, and how he had
at last lost his situation and found him
self homeless and friendless.
How sweet the music sounded! Ah
yes, it was the voice of a blue-eyed child
who had found him there and pitied
him when his heart was black with de
spair: he had said in answer to her ques
tions, that he was sad because no one
cared for him.
“God cares for you,” she had an
swered. He had asked her why, and
she had smiled on him and said that she
had learned in her last Sunday’s lesson
the verse that, “God is Love.”
How the organ seemed to catch the
words and send a burst of triumph
through the church —“God is Love, is
Love, is Love.” Now’ the music grows
sad and low: does it wish to take him
back over the weary years of misery and
degradation?
True, for a short time the memory of
the pure faced child had kept him
straight, but the old habits were hard to
break; he had fallen, nor tried to save
himself.
For a time he had bad unusually good
luck; then he had lost steadily, until
he was now a gambler, a drunkard and
a tramp —a wretched outcast for whom
life held nothing.
How the music sounded in his ears,
sweet and low and pure! He bent his
head still lower in his hands. To
what a depth he had fallen! To
think he would have robbed the girl
who sat there playing! Thank Heaven
for the shadow that made him turn and
so save the last shred of honor left. Ay,
but had it? He had thought to do the
deed. He was black through and
through! He shuddered and almost
groaned aloud under the awful darkness
he felt pressing upon him.
KATE GARLAND, Editress.
Price 10 cts- $1 per Year.
Hark! the organ was repeating the
child’s words: “God is Love, is Love, is
Love!” Was it true? Was there anv hope
for him who had sunk so low? He had
been taught from the Bible, yes, but
taught to believe in a stern and rigid
creed, and so he had deliberately and
uncompromisingly lost himself. That
was a pretty belief for those immacu
late ones who had not strayed aside!
But listen! How the rolling notes
swelled forth in a triumphant song of
Love Infinite! He could almost believe
the organ had spoken!
“Like as a father pitieth his chil
dren!” Was it the girl singing, or a for
gotten chord awakened in his memory?
He ceased all mental effort, and allowed
the music to bear him as it would.
Thoughts and verses long forgotten
came crowding back upon his mind, but
in a new light and with a new signifi
cance, and ever the music seemed to
call him up and on. A sudden flood of
light illumined his darkened under
standing He lifted his head, the old
defiant look was gone forever.
“I will arise and go unto my father!”
he murmured softly, and his face wore
a softened, humbled expression. Like
a paean of victory over a soul redeemed
pealed out the music higher and higher.
The man bared his head at the sound:
“I may look at her—and at the cross—
now,” he said to himself with a smile,
though his eyes w’ere dim as he looked,
> The last rays of the setting sun fell on
Cecile’s hair like a golden halo, and lit
1 up her upturned face with an almost
. heavenly light as she played the final
great notes of triumph.
“St. Cecilia,” murmured themanout
-1 side the window, “she looks just like
• the pictuie I have seen so many times:
; only the angels are lacking. Ah well,
she has brought a human soul to heaven.
. Some day I shall return and thank her,
till then —fare you well, sweet lady.”
He turned and walked rapidly away,
the music still ringing in his ears.
When he reached the road he took a
battered quarter from his pocket and
looked at it thoughtfully. “Not much
’ to travel five hundred miles on,” he
said half humorously, “but I can walk,
and there may be work I can get as I
go along.”
He replaced the coin, and, turning his
face homeward, started forward on his
journey just as Miss Cecile, warned by
the growing shadows,tookher music and,
; locking the church, ran lightly across
the field and up the hill to her home.
Spencer Fielding Calnes.