The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, June 21, 1906, Page 11, Image 11

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INTO NAmiOUS LIQHT (Continued from Last Week.) “Do you know, Auntie, I have had such strange dreams, but I cannot recall anything distinctly. I seemed to have drifted, drifted away in the clouds surrounded by a multitude of strange forms and faces; then suddenly I heard Mr. Marsden’s voice calling me, and he took me in his arms and brought me back home. I thought I spoke to him, then he vanished. You know I wrote you that he and Julian were friends no longer, and that he had not been to see us in many months. Now that you are here perhaps he will come back. I wish he would, for maybe he could tell me why God keeps. me here when I have wanted for so long to die and go home to father. Now that you have come back to me I shall be more content. For my sake you must not mind Julian, but must stay with me if you wish me to live, for the loneliness of my life has been un bearable. ’ ’ “There now, darling, you are talking too much. I shall never leave you again, and I am sure Mr. Marsden will come back to see us.” “If he only would, and I had my baby back, now that you are with me, I feel that I could get well very fast. I am so tired all the time. I have just wished to "o to sleep and never awaken.” “Then sleep, darling, sleep and dream that all is well, for I am sure the future will be happier.” “Where is Julian?” “He is lying down now. He sat up all night and left you but a few minutes ago.” “Midst all the strange visions which surrounded me last night I thought I saw Julian weeping over me, and it seemed that he and Mr. Marsden were friends. How I wish they were! Do you suppose dreams ever come true?” “You must not talk any more now, dearest. Dr. Gordon commanded that you be kept quiet. So close your eyes, darling, and let me soothe my little girl to rest, Io sleep and to happy dreamland as in the sweet days of your childhood.” CHAPTER XXVI. When Christina awakened again, for a few mo ments she wondered if she were not in heaven. Uver her was bending a little girlish face, and in an instant a pair of loving arms were about her, while the dearest voice exclaimed, “Mother! mother!” “My precious darling!” burst from the mother in such exultant tones of joy, that the father, who stood in the recesses of a curtained window, was moved to greater depths of emotion akin to the divine than he had been for years, and his very soul was stirred almost to believe that God had blessed this world with something from heaven. “And you do love me still, mother?” came from little Maybelle in such wistful tones. “How can you ask me that, my precious baby? Mother’s very life has been almost taken away be cause she could not live without you.” “But you never came to see me, mother, and ev ery night after the lights were out, and I was left alone in the dark, I cried softly for you, and be cause I thought you had forgotten me. Father came to see me often and always loved me so and bought me such beautiful things. He said you loved some one else now better than you did him or me, so that I must love him best because he loved me best.” “0 God! How could he?” gasped Christina. “0 my baby, my heart, my life! How could he, how could he be so cruel!” Deveaux, greatly alarmed, hastened to the bed side. “Annie, Annie, forgive me! I was an in human monster. I was beside myself with jealousy. I so wanted one heart to love me alone; and I tried to persuade myself that I had a right to my own baby’s love, and a right to take her from you for the sake of having her all my own. This is the real reason, before God, why I took her from you. Pity this accursed and empty heart of mine, Annie. The Golden Age for June 21, 1906. By LLEWELYN ST EP HENS Such fires of hell are torturing me almost to mad ness, I implore your pity and forgiveness. I do not hope for your love. That hope is dead. But I hope your God, if he still retains any power over this world’s inhabitants, may strike my spirit from this old body and from having any power over you or Maybelle, if I ever again voluntarily give either of you one moment’s pain—or if I ever voluntarily give John another moment’s pain.” The tears rolled down from under Christina’s closed eyelids, as she whispered, “These empty hearts of ours!” But she grew calmer as the baby lips kissed where the tears rolled, and the haby heart nestled close to her own. CHAPTER XXVII. During the weeks which followed, Christina’s vitality and strength returned more slowly than Dr. Gordon had anticipated. She often seemed de pressed. Mr. Deveaux was devotion and tenderness itself, though never obtruding himself upon her when he felt that she wished to be alone. Mrs. Wayland was unable to gain her confidence, there fore dared not question her heart’s secrets. The night when John had called her back to life, she thought but a dream, yet a dream so sweet, not a day had passed since in which she had not wished it to be a reality. And the remorse she suffered from feeling that she committed a great sin in lov ing and longing to be loved by John was devouring. She reserved the darkness of the night when she was alone, and thought by others to be sleeping, to pour out her soul’s grief to God. How she prayed God to make her satisfied with His goodness in re turning her almost idolized baby to her; and to make her at least forgivng toward the husband who had become such a changed man. But God seemed deaf to her prayers. Had she yet learned really to pray? Had she yet joyously exclamed, “Thy will be done in all things?” One day Mrs. Wayland found Christiana convulsed wih weeping, and implored her confidence. “Christi, what hurts you, darling? Are you not so well to day?” “No, auntie, I fear I shall never be well again. But my illness is not so much of the body as of the soul.” “And can you not trust me with your grief, who has loved you as an own mother, and who would now give her very life for you, if need be?” “That is one of my sorrows, that I am not worhy of such love as yours, not worthy to be the daughter of my sainted father and mother. At times I have so longed to be just what father would have had me be, and what our heavenly Father would have me 'be. And since the hour I first held my baby to my heart, I have so wanted to be in all things just the woman God would have mv darling’s mother to be. I know that I have prayed to be submissive in all things to God’s will, and yet I am not sub missive. One idol I have not been able to tear from my heart. Ah, you do not know what tempta tion is! Again and again I have fought soul battles which have been greater struggles than they would have been had they been physical battles with a den of wild beasts. And yet my idol is not de throned. Sometimes lam almost willing to give up all that heaven means, could I bul possess this one idol.” “Trust me, dearest, for I know your heart is as pure in its motives as it is possible for that of a mortal’s to be.” “All these years God alone has shared my secret. I am sure John—yes, John himself—has never sus pected it. But from the day John Marsden bound me to some one else in marriage, and I heard him pronounce me the wife of Julian Deveaux, I seem to have gradually awakened from a dream to find myself bound behind iron bars, while in sight, but just across an impassible gulf, was freedom, joy and love akin to the divine. I have been constantly just near enough this other shore to make me realize what life could have been to me. It seems that this life is just a mixture of regrets for the past and of longings for what might have been. What a joyous young life went out when father died. All since that time has seemed but shadows through which one glorious ray of sunshine penetrated when darling little Maybelle came. But she came and vanished so quickly, as a humming bird darts to sip a flower’s honey and like a flash of light is gone. And since her return, I do not seem able to be re stored to my former self again. Each day is such a struggle, such a longing for peace which does not come.” Mrs. Wayland held Chistina close to her, and smoothed the curls back from her throbbing tem ples while she answered, “My poor little girl. God knows your heart. He alone can give you peace. There is but one idol which can rest upon our heart’s throne in perfect peace, and that one is the Son of God, who gave his life for us and whose love outweighs all human love; that Friend who so loved us, that he suffered every grief known to hu manity, and carried the sins and sorrows of the whole world within His own pierced heart upon the cross of Calvary.” “Yes, auntie, I believe that with all my soul; and yet I have not joy and peace in that knowl edge.” “But, dearest, great heights cannot be attained at one bound. We must go up step by step. You will come to many slippery places, many rough places; some times your feet may slip, the rocks may cut and the thorns may pierce; but so long as you trust yourself to God’s guidance, you will steadily go onward and upward. If you will only open your heart to the love of Christ above all oth ers, and ask Him to use you for His service in the upliftment of mankind, just think what a blessing ou could become to this great city. Use the bless ings God has given you to bless others. I know you have despised your wealth, because it seemed to bring with it sorrow only. But all things bless or curse according to the way in which they are you could become to this great city. Use the bless no necessity for your continuing a slave to society’s customs. You can afford to be independent, and see the example of how a woman may be a social queen and still be an active Christian woman, up lifting all those with whom she comes in contact. (Continued next week.) [TkWEASUKOFALL.rtifoJ imSmßw I SjuJSI 1 Commercial Brains n o V (1 I measure every typewriter tLL— I ■ —quality for quality—attrl- Cl \ ■ I bute for attribute—by the V.i y> I I Underwood pl | I How approach It In respon- Vl—r-—li I siveness—in mechanical per- II I section. How resemble it in V1 11 I appearance, design and fin- H I ■ ish. Its increasing fame p I S- I ■ makes permanent the stand- W CO i ■ ard— 1 THE ORIGINAL OF ITS KIND O “2 I ■ I Imitations are Never so UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER CO. ” ■ 241 Broadway, New York, 11