Newspaper Page Text
10
TJ T T~' T T z"A TT Q T~? TTZA T TA Conducted by
I - ! L J. kJ <J O 1/ IJ. I » I J Ada Louise "Bryan
A Department of 'Expression For Those Who Teel and Think.
MY CROWN.
No robes of purple wrap me ’round,
As back and forth I go;
I bear no scepter in my hand
A royal rank to show.
No jeweled crown doth weigh me down,
Nor dazzle human eyes;
Men see in me no majesty—
My crown is in the skies.
No pages glad, in velvet clad,
Upon my step attend;
No courtiers smooth, with soft untruth
Their servile bare heads bend;
No herald proud with trumpet loud
To tell my coming flies;
Nor mobs applaud
Nor senates laud —
My crown is in the skies.
For place and face aud human grace
Let other , folks contend;
Beyond the ken of common men
My winged hopes ascend;
Earth’s self will pass like mist from glass,
And stars that set and rise;
Not so the world here afterward!
My crown is in the skies.
Battleboro, Vt. ARTHUR GOODENOUGH.
CHAT.
It is Halloween —the time according to ancient
legend, witches, fairies and earth-bound spirits hold
carnival; and also when simple mortals, particu
larly young folks who have made acquaintance with
Cupid, entertain themselves with telling their for
tunes. . We will imagine ourselves gathered about a
big open fire, before which nuts and apples are
roasting for the fortune-telling. Mr. Arthur Good
enough reads to us first his spirit-lifting poem, “My
Crown.” Then Mr. Ben Ivy reads aloud Burns’ fa
mous humorous poem on Halloween, and Mr. Cooper
comments upon it, and tells characteristic stories
about the gifted, erring Highland poet. After this,
we proceed, as the children say, to tell tales. We
have an experienced and skillful story-teller with us
today, Mrs. M. M. Buckner, of South Carolina. Her
story, “The Ghostly Horseman,” will interest you,
I know, and may send little creeps down your spine.
We are honored in having Mrs. Buckner join our
club, and hope to see her often.
Here is another new and welcome addition to
our Circle, Moonshiner, of Tennessee. Both humor
ous and pathetic is his story, “Aunt Lize.” Moon
shiner was a favorite in the ranks of the Sunny
South Household. He is an ex-moonshiner —very
much ex —for if he ever assisted in expressing the
juice of the mountain corn, it was in his salad days.
He is now a student of one of the first theological
colleges of the land; also an acceptable writer for
the magazines under his own name, or another more
appropriate pen name which he often used in the
Sunny South.
Os course our Household sitting-room is decorated
with richly-tinted autumn leaves, and it is well, as •
they will serve S. T. P. as an object lesson to point
her interesting talk on leaves and the different ways
they serve us, beside delighting the eye. Dreams
are things of mystery, therefore the telling of them
at a Halloween meeting is fit and timely. Leo’s
dream is wonderful. I think Ben Ivy may help
her to interpret it. If dreams are the shadows of
thought, Leo’s thoughts must sometimes be on a
high plane. Mr. Wheeler voices the objection one
hears given occasionally to religious revivals, but
if some of the spiritual seed that they sow are some
times choked by the thorns of worldly influence,
other seed flourish and bear fruit.
ADA LOUISE BRYAN.
■fflUitb ®ur Correspondents
THE AUTUMN REVIVALS.
There have been meetings jn almost all the
churches, and we have had our share in Hatties
burg. Rev. Solomon, of Columbia Street Baptist
Church, has been holding a protracted meeting of
three weeks’ duration, resulting in 107 additions
to the church and sixty conversions. No less than
forty-nine persons—many of them young people—
The Golden Age fcr October 31, 1907.
were baptized in the river last Sunday. It was
indeed a grand sight! Many persons think that
revival meetings do but little good—that their ef
fects are not lasting—but I have never yet seen an
earnest, active, live Christian that did not say he
or she owed their spiritual awakening to the influ
ence of a revival meeting. Others say that the joy
ful witness of the Spirit is nothing but excitement
but why do not other exciting influences produce a
similar result? Persons are happy when some great
joy comes to them, but their happiness is unlike
the exaltation that comes to a soul when it is, as we
say, converted. The Household is very entertaining;
the new members say many bright things. I think
we should have a Household badge, and I submit my
design. What say you? Also, what about a House
hold number for Thanksgiving? I have had a little
taste of bitter in my daily life-cup lately. My little
son has been very sick, and I cut my hand pretty
badly by letting a chisel fall on it while I was
putting in a window sash, but the dear boy Is much
better, and my hand is - doing well.
GEORGE W. WHEELER.
n
THE GHOSTLY HORSEMAN.
It was Halloween night—dark and rainy—I was at
my uncle’s home in the country. He and auntie
had gone to visit their married daughter. Only we
young folks —my cousin and I, and Bessie’s beau,
Charlie Benson —were installed in the big old house.
We had all the time-honored formulas for tell
ing our fortunes and were longing for some new sen
sation when the door-bell rang, and in came a queer
looking couple—our neighbors—old Harmon Johns
and his daughter, Virginia—“ Jinny,” as he called
her. Bess looked at Bob —her mischief-loving
brother: “This is your doings,” she said as she
passed him on her way to receive the unlooked for
guests. “Did you write them?” I asked Bob in a
whisper. “Yes, I thought it would be fun to have
Miss Jinny call up the spirits toight. The old fel
low and his girl were mighty glad to come and get
their fill of fresh cider and Bessie’s nice cake.”
“She looks like a spook, herself,” I said; and so
she did —a small, dark wisp of a girl, with big,
scared looking eyes. It was known .in the neighbor
hood that “Jinny” could communicate with the spir
its and receive messages from them by means of
writing, table-tipping, etc. Her father, poor and
ignorant, thought this was a wonderful accomplish
ment, and was proud of the notice it brought her—
feeling that he shared her halo.
The room was darkened, and Virginia proceeded
to obtain spiritual manifestations in the well-known
ways—writing unreadable messages on a slate, al
lowing us to smell dewy flowers, said to be dropped
by invisible hands (they smelled suspiciously like
the chrysanthemum that bordered the walk outside),
and with one hand fastened to the chair behind her — .
tying one hand with cord in a knot that old Harmon
said “no mortal man could untie” —(we were too
polite to try)—until the program had been gone
through, when Bob suddenly turned up the light,
saying, “Let’s have the old fashioned table rapping;
and I’ll call up the spirit; Miss Jinny told me I was a
medium. I’ll call up old Ben Lovel.”
We looked at each other in a sort of dismay, and
Virginia’s eyes grew larger and more frightened.
Ben Lovel had built this old mansion, and had died
here —died a miserable death, acknowledging that
an undiscovered crime lay heavy on his soul. He
was a very wicked man —and more than one crime
was laid to his door. His widow tried at once to
sell the house, but it had acquired the reputation
of being haunted. Finally, my uncle, who was an
old Confederate soldier, and knew no fear, bought
the old mansion. It had been like home to me, but
many times had I been frightened half out of my
wits by hearing what seemed whispers and footsteps,
and on certain nights it was declared that a horse
was heard galloping up to the gate in the wild, mad
fashion in which Ben Lovel was wont to ride his
black horse, Belial —as though the fiends were after
him.
Our protests against calling up the evil man’s
spirit were overruled by Bob, the table was rolled
out, and we took seats around it and spread our
hands flat upon it, the thumbs and little fingers
touching to make the magnetic circle. Then we
sat and waited, looking at each other with little
nervous laughs at first, then awed by the solemn face
of old Harmon and Virginia’s pallor and her weird
stare into space, we became still as the dead. The
night had grown wilder, the wind had risen; we could
hear it moan in the big cedar tree outside. We
waited, and—yes—we heard the faint, far sound of
a horse’s hoofs striking the earth in a gallop. The
sound came nearer. Virginia’s hands twitched, the
table shook and heaved up again and again, coming
down with soft thuds. We did not heed it; we were
listening to the sound of the galloping horse now
near and distinct. The sound stopped, the gate
had been reached. Listening with strained senses,
we seemed to hear footsteps coming up the walk,
ascending the stairs. Then suddenly the hall door
banged open, followed by the opening of the door
of our sitting-room. A chill wind filled the room; the
lamps flickered; one went out. We jumped to our
feet in wild confusion, upsetting chairs and table,
and started to run into the inner room, then stopped
and looked at each other with ashamed, white faces,
Virginia had fallen on the floor in a heap; old Har
mon had squatted behind the piano. “ ’Twas a sure
’nough spirit—Ben Lovel’s spirit!” he gasped when
he was pulled out by Bob. “Nonsense, it was the
wind.” “But the horse —” “It was some horse that
had got loose —from our stable lot, likely.” But we
were not convinced. There came no second gust of
wind, and we were sure we had heard footsteps.
We called up no more spirits that Halloween night
Fairfax, S. C. M. M. BUCKNER.
WHAT THE LEAVES DO FOR US.
Have you ever been thrilled by the quiet glory
of trees freshly green, or contemplated the vast har
mony and wonderful promises of spring time? Have
you looked with subdued awe upon the magnificent
fulfillment of summer time, or bewildered admiration
upon the gorgeous beauty and colorings of a forest
on an autumn day?
Every phase of nature has a blessed message for
us if we are but ready to see and hear.
These delightful, golden autumn days filled with
mellow sunshine and forests that are a blaze of
color and skies that are a dreamy, hazy blue, present
a picture that would ravish our souls with its beauty
if we could but see.
Even the falling leaves teach us a wonderful les
son of life and service.
All the summer long every leaf, every blade of
grass, has worked with unceasing energy to purify
the air and make it fit for animal life to breathe.
Did you ever think what the trembling, fluttering
leaves are doing for you in separating the carbonic
acid gas from the oxygen and assimilating it so as
to purify the air?
They have made the earth beautiful; they have
made a delightful home for the birds; they have
fanned the air and kept it fresh; they have cooled
the earth and protected man and beast from the
heat of the summer sun.
And now that their work seems to be over and
their day of rest about to begin they flutter airily
to the ground only to take up their work in a new
sphere.
For a while they blow lightly about at our feet.
Then the sleet of winter overtakes them, the rains
fall softly upon them and by the wonderful chem
istry of nature they are converted into new soil for
the violets to grow in next spring. S. T. P.
Adel, Georgia.
*
WHAT DID IT SIGNIFY?
I would like for some of the Household to inter
pret a singular dream that came to me not long
ago. It seemed that a funeral was in progress. I
saw figures draped in black, and a dead body was
borne past me into an inner room. Growing restless
I ventured near the connecting door, when a menac
ing voice asked near me, “Who is there?” Frighten
ed, I drew back to my former place. Moments
passed; the sense of gloom and oppression increased.
At last, one who sat near me—my aunt, it seemed —
drew a deep breath of relief and said, “The corpse
is gone to the grave; let us go out of this place.”
We went out on the porch. The fresh wind blew
revivingly in my face, my ’spirits rose, and turning
to the East I beheld an impressive spectacle. Stretch
ed horizontally across the heavens was the magni
ficent figure of a woman, that glowed as if with
an inner illumination, almost wholly eclipsing the
outlines ®f another form dark and threatening, that
was dimly apparent. Along the woman’s figure ran
a word in bold,, bright lettering. The word was