Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Let There Be Light. By MRS. A. SMITH IRVINE. “And the Evening and the Morning were the first Day.” Without form (and! void! Darkness upon the face of the Deep! What a picture! Imagine, up on all that turmoil and upheaval of primal night, the voice of the Word, “Light,” as it echoed the world around; and the great orb of Day arose ma jestic in the heavens; and form, and fullness, and the morning of the great Day of Creation, began! So the evening and the morning were the first day! But the evening came first! Yet once more in the history of the world was there a “first Day”; an evening—a fearful eve ning of unrest and wretchedness—and a morning when Jesus, the Light of the world, arose from the midnight darkness of the tomb, and shone out into the despairing hearts of men! These two “first Days” of the week (or period or dispensation) mark the two great, leading epochs of the world—and are united by a mighty span of the wondrous arch of Revelation, whose keystone is also “Light,” and which rests upon the luminous pillars of these two great days of Light; the first, the all-beneficent and life-bestowing light of the natural world, a prophecy and a foreordination; the other, a grand rising sequence, which is the true, spiritual light of men, lost in the darkness of Sin! There shall yet, however, be a third Day (for there is a trinity of all things) an evening, fear fully sombre and gloomy, into the shades of which the world is even now entering—to he followed by a morning, a still grander rising sequence, that shall usher in to the whole universe, the unthinka ble glories and the incomprehensible “Light” of the final consummation of all things! And this last evening and morning is also over arched by still another luminous span of Revelation and Prophecy, which, springing from the glorious Resurrection-Day of Christ, has its other end upon the third great glowing pillar of Light, which is no other than the Throne of God! Thus from Eternity to Eternity we have swung round the circle; and again we are “in the begin ning” of a new creation; this time sinless and for ever secure; the great final dispensation of “the fullness of the times”—when God is all in all! On the morning of Creation, which followed the dismal evening of Chaos, the word that brought the Day, was what Christ spoke of Himself, when He proclaimed, “I am the Light of the World,” and it was in 'both cases, as John tells us, the very same “Word” that spake. So also at the close of the third evening, the most fearful of all, and upon the last great morning of this trinity of days (or dispensations) shall the same Word speak yet once more; and at last, shall shine forth in glory unspeakable, the perfect, radiant fullness of “Light”; and all darkness and sin and sorrow shall forever flee away; and in that brigtit effulgence we, who are children of the light, shall at last see, and know as we are known. But there is still another meaning to this text, and it touches each individual life. With us too, the evening comes first; in this earthly life how much of pain, sorrow, anguish and testing; but it is all leading on to that rosy morn, when our true Unobstructed life begins, and which shall grow brighter and blighter—to the perfect Day; for the inexpressible Day of Eternity has begun, and of its wonders there shall be no end! In that flood of “Light” all things which we in this darkness could not comprehend, shall be made plain; all mistakes rectified; all misunder standings removed—and peace flow like a river! Thus OUR evening and OUR morning shall be our first day; and we shall be like Him and shall see Him as He is! How this Bible view changes everything! How inspiring, how comforting! How full of promise to the weary, heavy-laden heart! What we have ignorantly called death is now’ but the open door of Life, to all to whom Christ has been the “light life,” an<| whose steady, unwav- The Golden Age for November 22, 1906. ering light has made an open path through all the shadows! We had thought it was Dawn when we began to live here—and that we were walking onward into the shades of Evening. Nay, not so; for the eve ning and the morning shall also make our first, real, perfect, unending Day! Rejoice! We are no longer children of the night; the morning comes! and there shall be no more night; sorrow and sighing shall forever depart; God Himself shall wipe away all tears —and the smile of the Lord be the feast of the soul! 0 Eternity, how great are thy recompenses! How the East End Was Redeemed (Continued from page 7.) past,” she said, an indignant thrill in her voice, ‘ ‘ for you or any other man who lives today ?’ ’ “I do not want you to,” he replied calmly. “Canonize Branham Cobb as a saint in the inner shrine of your heart, if you will, but give me the right to shelter you from the storms of life. You say you want to give yourself away in service to the submerged masses, let me take care of you while you are doing so. Guendolin,” he added as he rose and stood before her, “I will give you the deed of the East End Slums, on the day that you become my wife.” “Oh, Dr. Falkenham,” she answered, pathetic protest in her voice, “that you of all men should want to bribe me into marriage!” “I do not want to do any such thing,” he re plied, looking pale and handsome, as he leaned slightly against the low mantel. “I simply wish to give you the pow’er to make the grandest dream of your life real. Think of placing fifteen hundred or two thousand people in decent homes, of watch ing them in their work, of seeing them at church with their wives and children, and being able to say to yourself, ‘This is all my thought realized, under God they owe it all to me.’ ” Mrs. Cobb got up, the scarlet flash of excitement tinting her pale face. She walked to a window be tween the book lined walls, and then she turned and faced him, a slender black-robed figure and yet a woman, magnificent, when fully aroused. “Hush! You break my heart again. You mean it nobly, but all the same I am reminded by my mala-self, of the bargain Mephistopheles once made for a human soul. Don’t you know, that in some of my moods, I would marry yon,” and the appeal in the proud voice is like a knife stroke to him, “even if I abhorred you uterly, in order to raise the money to redeem my people? Ah, you do not believe it, but think of the little children and young girls foredoomed to vice and wretchedness in the East End, and your skepticism will vanish.” “I would not allow you to wrong yourself so, or me,” he interrupted sadly. “But believing as I do, that you are conscious of our congeniality and that I am much more to you than you are at pres ent ready to acknowledge, I will make you another proposition. I confess, I am a proud man in some respects, and your remembrance of Mephistopheles’ bargain is not calculated to lessen that fact. But I am a lonely man and you are the one creature on earth I love, above all others. Well, I will buy the East End and rebuild the houses according to your plans. I will also bind myself to repair the stores, and open up some sort of decent manufactories for the people, besides transforming the beer gardens into small parks for the children. The deeds can all be made to me, instead of you, as I first desired; but I will only undertake the work on my own terms.” “What are they?” Mrs. Cobb asked with breath less interest. “That you will allow me to call on you twice a week, for a year,” he said decisively, “and that you will show me how to make your ideal, real, by your advice, counsel, help, when it is necessary’ —w’ill you ? ’’ “I will,” she said, strangely moved, “and so, we may both learn how to live beautifully for the race, and thus, perhaps, catch the glow of a larger hope for mankind. And if we should discover that i$ best to put from us all thoughts of personal happiness, what matter? We might still be fel low-workers, pledged to help on the redemption of this small world.” “Perhaps,” said Dr. Falkenham, with a deep smile, “but you must understand that I do not surrender my hope of winning you during the year. ’ ’ “Yes, but I have nothing to do with it. I may be in Heaven, where companionship of the higher sort is plentiful, before the time is out.” “If you are,” he said brightly, “I shall hope to be with you.” And then he left her to commence the biggest year’s work of his life, the issue of which might have appalled a man made on a scale less large. But he was strong enough to welcome the battle, and if h« failed to win Guendolin Cobb in the end, he would at least have the pleasure of knowing that he had made one part of the earth clean and habitable. Only, of course, he did not expect to fail, and meantime, he had her consent to visit her, and for a year, if no longer, the gates of Para dise were flung opon to him—for that is what her society had come to mean to him—Heaven on Earth. Finis. Fifteen Years Ago. I wandered to the grog-shop, Tom, I stood beside the bar, And drank a bowl of lemonade and smoked a bad cigar; The same old kegs and jugs were there, the ones we used to know, When we were on the round-up, Tom, some fifteen years ago. I asked about our old-time friends, those cherished sporty men, And some were in the poorhouse, Tom, and some were in the pen. And one. the one we liked the best, the hangman laid him low; The world is much the same, dear Tom, as fifteen years ago. New crowds line up against the bar, and call for crimson ink, New hands are trembling as they pour the stuff they shouldn’t drink ; But still the same old watchword rings, “This round’s on me, you know!” The same old cry of doom we heard some fifteen years ago. I wandered to the churchyard, Tom, and there I saw the graves Os those who used to drown themselves in red fer mented waves; And there were women sleeping there, where grass and daisies grow, Who wept and died of broken hearts some fifteen years ago. And there were graves where children slept, have slept for many a year, Forgetful of the woes that marked their fitful so journ here; And ’neath a tall, white monument, in death there lieth low, The man who used to sell the booze some fifteen years ago. —J. S. Holden in St. Louis Globe-Democrat. A traveler in Pennsylvania arived late one night at a small village hotel and asked for a room. He was told that the only vacant one was next to that of a very nervous man whom he must be careful not to disturb. After going to his room the new comer thoughtlessly let fall one of his shoes; then, recalling the warning he had received, placed the other very carefully on the floor. He had put out the light and retired when there was a knock on his door. Opening it, he faced the nervous occu pant of the adjoining room, who demanded excit edly: “Why in thunder don’t you tgke off that other shoe ? ’ ’ —Exchange, 11