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1 H K SP K I f K r By ARTHUR TALMAGE ABERNETHY •
• *• * *-** 9
• I lay alone at midnight in my room: “I am the spectre of thy murd’rous past, The ghost came nearer as I laughed and 9
(And it was Springtime, with the world And I shall haunt thee while thy memo- said: 9
a abloom, ries last”— “A murderer I who ne’er have known
And I had nought to give me thought of “Murderer?” quoth I, half jeering, half the dead? ®
9 gloom.) aghast. But one I’ll be if thou leav’st not my 9
• bed.” q
a My thoughts dwelt not upon the things “Fiend, get thee hence, thou hideous
long past; nightmare. The spectre, ghastlier still, approached •
® I gave no reck of Time’s dead buried Thou hast no right my soul to thus im- my side 9
waste, pair, And pointing bony fingers at me cried: a
I only hoped for morning’s coming, fast. And fill my sleeping moments with des- “Assassin thou of Time, life’s suicide
pair.” •
• Tomorrow I would feast and merry be, “ God gave thee time in which to do His 9
9 And once again the joys of Springtime p-—- q
see, t ? Hi s garners with the fruits of earth to
9 ery. | • His gardens to develop thou until 9
• jiol t . . 9
9 My future prospecting of suden chilled 1 SSHllffc'. i ; beckoned thee into a brighter day
To find my room with some strange vis- ? 7sg***\ ? When He should drive all earthly cares
ion filled: * y I away 9
• A spectre with a ghastly glare that t I j And bid thee in His ? lorious presence f
• thriUed ’ I | stay ’ •
J “Go get thee from me,” murmured I half i s^ never eave thee till the 9
• loud: 4 ! grave •
9 I thought my nerves my senses did be- I i t Shall open for thee, wasteful, worthless
And superstition pesters not the proud. 4 m mar Hell sou ®
9 ? T 4 iWW I rave.” a
U x * >lon stood quite near my •? ? “Oh, get thee from me, ghost of mem- ®
w k ec *’ * ZSWKHS, I I ory 9
® bke a ghoul, it to me said: ? '/ W® B fmt • I guilty plead and do petition thee, a
• Ive come to dwell with thee till thou | Wl\ j Beseech and intercede in heaven for
art dead. 1 |V\ j me ” •
9 I v : 9
® “Who art thou, spectral visitor?*’ I 4 ARTHUR ABERNETHY. ? The gh os t fr u t grinned and mid the en- a
9 cried— circling gloom
a For even in my dreams I knew it lied, , I startled woke and gazed around my ®
There stood no real ghost by my bedside. “Thou art a murderer,” still the spec- room, •
9 tre glared, Saw the sun shining and the world
• And e’er an answer did its lips evoke, e d ”l instantl y de " abloom -
» “Thou art some nervous vision, some Bu L’? y Jf®L C s Umb wlth many a mor ’ The ?® phyra of the s P™S tlm e wafted
dream’s ioke. tal shared - through, •
® And petals from the roses scattered blew a
9 , . I struggled to awake from this strange Into my room: ah, little that they knew
Tomorrow when I wake with calmer dreaming, 9
TTT . n e rv es, This ghostly frenzy that so real seem- Os my sad vision when gaunt memory 9
• With that sweet peace that a proud con- ing, Came with its dead, my dead, to chai- a
science serves, Haunted my_ room with spectral lights lenge me,
111 laugh away this fear as it deserves. astreaming. And make me dread to face futurity. ®
J 9
OFF TO THE ORIENT.
(Continued from Page 7.)
modern city. Here for the first time I enter
ed a Mosque, and saw Moslems kneeling on
carpets and bending their bodies until their
foreheads touched the floor, while they re
peated their prayers to Allah. If these men
are as pure in their lives, as they seem de
vout in their prayers, they ought to be model
citizens. At the close of a strenuous after
noon, we were glad to get back to our good
ship, which welcomed us with an unusually
good dinner. The luxury of sea travel today
is a marvel of modern times, and many of
those great ships are rightly called “floating
palaces,” and if there is any better way to
recuperate than to cross the ocean in one of
them I have not yet found it. I have reached
my majority in sea travel, for I have just fin
ished my twenty-first sea voyage.
As we steamed on towards Naples, we
coasted along the southern part of Sardinia,
and my mind went back nearly thirty years,
to the time when Dr. Taylor and I visited
Sardinia for the first time, going there to
look after our Mission work. We went to sev
eral mission stations and found a goodly
The Golden Age for June 1, 1911.
number of faithful Christian people. Every
thing was new to us both, and we found
much to amuse and interest and instruct. It
was my privilege to visit Sardinia two or
three times after this, and I became deeply
interested in the people, and especially in our
Sardinian Baptists. They were mostly of the
plainer class, poor and uncultured, but pious
and ready to suffer affliction and persecution.
I became much attached to our Colporteur, a
native Sardinian, a man of much energy and
courage, unusually well versed in Scripture,
and able to silence almost any objector with
Scripture quotations. He travelled all over
the Island of Sardinia, much of the time on
foot, leaving tracts and Bibles wherever he
went, preaching publicly and from house to
house. Such pioneer natives are needed in
every mission field.
As I stood on the deck of our vessel and
looked out on the hills and valleys of Sardinia,
these and many other thoughts and incidents
connected with our mission work crowded my
mind. The next day we entered the far
famed Bay of Naples, and landing not very
far away from Puteoli, really began our jour
ney through Bible lands. We have been here
five days, and tomorrow we sail for Egypt,
and over a route intensely interesting to one
who knows and appreciates the life of the
great Apostle Paul. ,
Naples, Italy.
A SUMMER SHOWER
We have received a new
lot of those magnificent
reprint, oil pictures,
16x20 inches in size.
They are truly handsome.
As long as they last, we
will give them free with
renewals to THE
GOLDEN AGE. Send
remittance today. &
