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WHAT CONVINCED HTM
OME practical experience, in a time of
sore trial, has convinced some people
that the religious beliefs which they
had been holding to from their youth
and which they had supposed were the
best on earth, were really very unsafe
and deceptive. They had long been ex
ceedingly blind. Before me is a letter,
written by my son, who lives in a city
p« 1-
in the State of New York, and in it he relates an
incident concerning a young man, who was reared
a Catholic, and who is employed by the same firm
that my son is. The young man tells the following
story: A few years ago, one of, his sisters died.
In arranging for her funeral he went to a priest
to get him to officiate, but he refused to serve, his
excuse being that the weather was cold and rainy.
This priest sent the young man to another priest,
who also refused to serve. Then he went to several
other priests, some of whom lived in an adjoining
city, and all of them declined to officiate. He spent
an entire forenoon in search of a priest who would
Limit of the Line. n
the Grecian busts in the Hall of Sculpture. And
I love best, Mr. Murat, the ' Wltigsd Victory of
Samothrace. ’ Why? Because at stands in the
Original, in the Louvre, before (the Venus. Energy
before lose. Oil! that winged victory would light
upon the prow of tfa'is HOW vessel of Gregg’s—the
Water Oaks Gazette 11. I believe that it is wing
ing this way. I hope for the best. 1 am fond of
cheering on the firing line. The Fords, Mr. Murat,
don’t do things by halves. But your master, Mr.
Gregory Ford, may be a magician in business, sir,
but in love, he is beyond the knowledge of mortal
woman. Though I know all the names of the Gre
cian busts, and though I can tell the titles of each
trailing flower, in the silver urns that breathe with
odorous incense before the relies of the Parthenon,
yet I am nothing to Lord Gregory, who belongs to
t'he nobility of the North Pole, as to things of love.
Don’t stare at me so, Murat, nor pounce upon my
new princess dress. Mourn for your master, truly
absent, but not upon my satin pillow ! If you must
weep—why do as other weepers —weep alone!
Alack! I’m getting ‘weepy’ myself; but I will not
weep for Gregory, though all my clamoring pulses
rose —and cried . . ‘You love him!’ ”
Murat rose from the satin pillow 7 to greet an
other lady.
“Shirley!” Miss Ford exclaimed.
Miss Bryan sank back into a wicker chair, her
black dress enhancing her pale Southern loveliness.
The long night vigil had left her face calm as an
angel, and she had laid aside her business-self as
one puts off a veil. Murat placed his paw upon
her knee, and she stroked the shaggy head ab
sently.
“It is so good,” she mused, “to sit idle at this
hour in the sun. We never know how tired we are,
we human machines, until we stop.”
Miss Ford broke open a letter briskly.
“I’m your boss this morning, Shirley, and I bid
you pile nine silk pillows under your lovely self —
and sleep. I am a charming boss. All my em
ployees are quite crazy about my firm. If you
don’t like the pillow's, and my ‘sleepteritis’
suggestions, here is where I can show you
how popular my firm is. We are on a tre
mendous boom, at present. We survived the late
panic, thank you. I have a personal on
candy. Huyler’s chocolates please me somewhat.
All Wall street admits it. Therefore, as I never
buy on margins, bad form, dear, my goods are de
livered in five pound boxes. My brokers are so
careful about their cards. They wish me to know
who did the buying—not that 1 care about the
cards, so the candy comes! ’ ’
Shirley saw her lift out the candy tongs, smiling
at her April lightness of heart, in spite qf hep
Gethsemane of the night before.
ffy C. H. WETHERS E.
serve, and finally gave up in despair. He then
went to the home of another sister, living in the
same city, and reported the situation. In this ex
tremity the young man went to the residence of an
Episcopal minister and secured his services. After
the funeral, he went to the minister to pay him for
his service. The latter said: “My boy you have
my sympathy. How do you obtain your money'?”
The young man said that he worked for it. He
had just handed the minister five dollars. The latter
laid his hand upon the boy’s shoulder and said:
“I guess you need the money more than I do. I am
glad to have rendered you a service.” The young
man expressed gTeat gratitude. He told my son
that he became convinced that Protestants have a
great deal more Christianity than Catholics have,
and he now keeps aloof from the latter. It would
be a most 'blessed thing for thousands of other Catho
lics if they could be made to realize the blindness
that they are in, and the deceptiveness of their
religion. Happily, many are coming into the light
of true Christianity. They are seeing a great dif
ference between the true and the false.
“You have a merry heart, Ethel.”
“I will tell my little heart tflrat it is merry.” i?,
“It does good like a medicine.” 1
“Oh! that sounds like Proverbs,” Miss Ford!
suggested, putting a chocolate in her cheek, and
pushing the box over to Shirley.
“Does it?” inquired Shirley, dipping dreamily
into the box. “I am too tired to give even Solo
mon credit, this morning.”
“Oh!” said her new boss, “don’t be weary. I
have been sprinkling dew 'all over and on my silly
self from all Mrs. Bryan’s rose bushes. I am rose
clipper now that she is away. I clip anything
handy—even snakes’ heads. They make such lovely
ebony and brown studies, t'he snakes, and their lit
tle red tongues are quite wicked. I adore water
moccasins. Don’t you feel one crawling down
your back?”
Shirley sat up swiftly.
“I could beat you, Ethel.”
“No! no!” rebuked Miss Ford, “you imisn’t
exert yourself. The firm which you ’have now
joined has but one steady job.”
‘ ‘ What’s that, Ethel ? ”
“To eat chocolates until you get fancy sick, Shir
ley, and then for the most delightful doctor in
town. You can help yourself up the social ladder,
though there is nothing at the top to warrant your
‘climb,’ iby having a M. D. of the ‘spangled set.' ”
“I am taking dots on how to do wheen I get
into the ‘spangled set.’ ” Mis Bryan smiled in
spite of herself. “But Dr. Bloxam is our only
Escalpius, and I don’t know whether he is among
the peacock set or not.”
“I do,” declared Miss Ford. “He is a dear, and
that makes him' a ‘swell’ and a ‘spangler’ also-
And, additionally, he sports a silk hat. I fear that
is seven years old, also; about the same venerable
age, I imagine, as Uncle de Peyster’s swallow
tails. ’ ’
She caromed off into peals of laughter, and!
forced an unwelcome chocolate down Murat’s
throat. w .
“Oh! what did you have your mouth open for?”
she asked.
Shirley watched her and smiled to think how
happy she could make some man, with all her
magnetic tricks of voice and hand.
“Why don’t you marry Gregg Ford, Ethel?”
A shadow crossed the smiling eyes. She dropped
the candy tongs on Murat’s innocent back.
“Why?” sighed Miss Ford. She became pen
sive.
“May I ask you something else, Ethel?”
“Ask!”
“Not long ago you told me of a woman who in
fluenced Mr. Ford’s life very much. How, in the
name of Croesus, could a $25,000 village heiress
piake a commercial appeal to Gregory Ford? He’4
The Golden Age for May 20, 1900.
pay that much for a yacht trip, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, and forget it. There was no commercial
appeal, dear, with him. He loved her for herself.
And she didn’t know that he had much money, if
any. He wanted her to love him for himself.”
“Didn’t know that he had much money—if any,”
gasped Miss Bryan. “Wlhy was that?”
Miss Ford half-shut her dark eyes, veiling their
golden lights.
“Now, Shirley, if you and I were caught a-tween
the crimson covers of a novel —a color, by the way,
that gets on Gregg’s nerves —we’d create a panic
along about this paragraph, I truly believe.”
(To be Continued.)
H *
Pagan Education.
(Continued From Page 2.)
doubt with Christian money, but it has drifted until
today it is second to the Chicago University, which
is the hotbed of American heathenism. There is no
more God there than in the heart of a heathen
Chinee. Oh, they have a fqrm of chapel service,
but the criticism of the Word of God and of the
religion of grace which we hold so precious in this
country, even to the extent that we would die for
it, must never enter those walls. I often think of
what Sam Jones said to the divinity students at
Harvard. He was preaching in Boston and the
papers were pitching into him, calling him all sorts
of backwoods names, saying he was an ignoramus
and a backwSoods cracker, and all that, and he got
tired of it. One day a lot of slmmeling headed
students got him there to address the divinity de
, partment, and before he was to make his speech
they asked if they might ask him some questions.
He gave his consent. One of them said, ‘ ‘ Mr. Jones,
we are called skeptical here at Harvard and we
want yon to tell us whether or not you think we
deserve that? Do you think we are skeptical?”
Then he told Mr. Jones their belief concerning cer
tain things in the Bible, ending up by saying again,
“Now what do you think of us? Are we scepti
cal?” Sam says, “No, boys, I wouldn’t say you
were skeptical at all; you ’re just jack-assical, that’s
all.”
What is the main drift of the teaching of Chi
cago University? The main drift is to destroy
confidence in the Word of God. The last accom
plishment of the Chicago University faculty is a
book declaring that Jesus Christ never arose from
the dead at all, and that when He said that He arose
from the dead, He did not say it; that somebody
else said it and stuck it in there and made out like
He said it; and the whole book is set to declare
that there is no such thing as resurrection from the
dead. That is the form of education without reli
gion that is to damn this land, and I say to you
again, That may suit some people, but it don’t suit
us, and, more than that, we are not going to have
it. What we want here in the South is to lift up
our people in Christian civilization, and when I
tell you this one thing you will agree with me, that
Christian civilization is the one thing that will lift
it up.
I come back to close with a quotation of my
text; if you will take it and study it, and study
this matter of which I have been speaking in its
light, you will agree with me that instead of having
less of Christianity taught in our schools, every
school in Christendom ought to have it as the
foundation of all teaching. “Whatsoever ye do, in
work or in deed, do all in the name of tlhe Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
Him.”
* H
Pasted on a window of a book store was a sign,
“Porter wanted.” In the window on a pile of
books was a sign, “Dickens’ works all this week
for $4.” An able-looking Irishman read first the
sign and then the placard. He scratched his head
and blurted out, “Dickens can work all the week
for four dollars if he wants to, but I’m a union
man. I’ll not touch it. Ye’s better kape Dickers.”
*
When asked by his teacher to describe « e back
bone, a school girl said: “The backbone ij s>, ■■ething
that holds up the head and ribs, and keeps one irom
having legs clear up to the neck.”
7
