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BY DAYTON, ELLS & CO. VOLUME IV. devoted to religion and literature. Is published every Saturday >t Georgia, at the subscription price of rouß dollars>i»er year. DAYTON, ELLS & CO., Proprietors. “ Through a crack in the shutters darted a solitary sunbeam, falling directly across he bibe’s coverlet. The little one had probably awakened by It, and was «™>«£r >*'«*£ delighted with the bright intruder. Bo h hands were outs retched to grasp the goldeni pencil that broke into fragments in thcdl “P l . ed ‘“Catch the sunshine, was all that Hatty said, as she kissed both mother and child. [Baptist Banner, July 18. Through a tiny crevice darting, Glanced the sunshine’s golden ray, Talling, like a flash of glory, Where the baby, sleeping, lay. Soon the brightness so unwonted Opened wide those laughing eyes, Gazing on the ‘ bright intruder ’ With a look of gay surprise. See, the pearly ‘ dimpled lingers ’ Strive to catch the airy toy ; While the rosy lips are parting, Giuing sounds of baby joy. O ! the roguish, laughing sunshine, How it breaks and ripples o’er ; Almost grasped, yet ever darting Farther than it was before. How the little angel baby Sports with summer’s rosy light, Wildly crowing, ever gleesome, ‘ Noyer thinking of the night. Let us seek to ‘ catch the sunshine ’; In the effort we may find Joy itself in many a measure, With sweet smiling peace of mind. Take with childlike faith and trusting Every blessing freely given ; Treasure up the heart's fair sunshine, Feeling ’tis a gift of heaven. “CATCH mjUMll'Er A HOME STORY [concluded.] The nurse entered for her charge ; and Mrs. Temple had- leisure and solitude in which to ponder upon this last sentence. — There was a time when life was steeped in glorious sunlight, such radiance as her soul > drank in as its food and delight. She re membered the proud satisfaction of the lover —then of the husband, in her beauty en hanced by the vivacity of youth and happi ness ; in the quick intellect, now, alas, so perverted ! A petted child at home, she brought to her new estate little knowledge of the trials incident to it. Perplexed, ha rassed, discouraged, it was no marvel that her spirit soon succumbed, and that she was willing to believe the flesh still more weak. She confessed to herself, this morn ing, what she had often been dienly con. scious of before, that there-had been times in the past when reformation would have been easy—when, stimulated by the wifely love which still burned in her bosom, she felt almost persuaded to defy, disease, and, more formidable still, doctors; but habit and indolence mastered resolution. •“ Now” a nd with a hopeless sigh, she held up her wasted hands, tremulous as those of palsied age—“ what can I do? ” The wedding-ring hung loosely upcn its finger. She groaned with the pang that came with the suggested omen. Was the bond it typified, although purer and strong er than gold, slipping from the hearts it united, or growing weaker and thinner from constant abrasion? “Dark! darker than ever ! ” she murmured. “ Nothing ia left for me but the night of the grave.” With the languid pace that had taken the place of her once elastic gait, she tottered, rather than walked, to the window, and opened the blinds. The warm flood poured over the plants, and enlivened the bird, whose trill of ecstasy proved his instant ap precation of the favor. Struck by the rich coloring of a newly opened azalea, Mrs Temple bent forward to examine it more nearly, when her eye fell upon two pale yelhftv leaves, breaking through the mtftild on the side of the pot nearest the window. A touch wuvld have crushed them; and their form was yet too indefinite to.declare their parentage. They might have derived their being from the superb plant towering above them, or been the plebeian peoduct THE BAPTIST BANNER. of some waif seed, dropped, as sometimes happens in human parterres, tn aristocratic earth. Yet each feeble fibre lent all its might to expand its covering towards the light. Need we repeat the lesson taught by the twin leaflets to her who gazed upon them ? She had been resigned to a living burial, sinking beneath the mould and dust self-indulgence was heaping upon every fa culty of usefulness; or if, at intervals, spasmodic quickenings, longings for the sun beams, stirred within her breast, the difficul ty of the first step paralyzed them anew.— Oh, hers is not the only immortal nature that burrows, and grovels, and languishes out —we cannot say a vegetable existence, for the thousand forms of strength and loveliness, to-day feeding upon air and sun shine, bowing and blooming their thanks to Him who has sent both, forbid the calum nious comparison—but a life that has no parallel in nature, unless we trace a flatter ed resemblance in the silly sloth, clinging to his tree so long as there remains bark sufficient for his daily sustenance, and wail ing out his weak cry at every step towards a new home. It was long since Mary Temple had thought deeply upon any subject except her own bodily ailments and imaginary griev ances ; but the touched heart now aided the brain. * There, before her frail teacher, she knelt, the sunshine resting, like a blessing, upon her bowed head, and thanked God fervently for the loves of earth, the hopes of heaven, to’which her eyes had been so wilfully blinded, and entreated strength to quit her prison cell. She was really wearied by the unwonted ’excitement of the fore noon, and obliged to lie upon the lounge until within an hour of dinner-time ; but her husband was surprised to see her open the door as he bounded up stairs —a fleet, soft tread, acquired by months of practice — still more astonished and pleased at the cheerful voice in which she saluted him, and the change in her accustomed dishabille.— The dingy worsted wrapper was superseded by one of dark, rich silk, whose pink facings relieved the sallowness of the wearer—a robe hitherto reserved for the very rare occasions deemed important enough to jus tify the trouble of dressing. “ Are you expecting company, Mary ? ” She was listening for the question, yet it caused a sharp twinge of self-reproach. — “ Only my husband,” was her gentle reply. Tie noticed the emotion she strove to conceal, and kissed the quivering mouth, his own eyes full ofvjfnder feeling. Even > in his refusal of her timid petition to be i allowed to dine with him, there was sach i affectionate kindness that she could not feel ■ disappointed. “We must be careful, and , not get well too fast,” he said; and both ‘ hearts gave a sudden throb at the words. “Get well?” She repeated them over and over after he had gone, not with the de spairing moan in which it was her wont to utter them, but in a trust that was almost confidence. She had set her face steadfast, ly towards the light, and the shadows were cast backwards out of her sight. Brother merchants who passed Horace , Temple on his way down street, that after noon, wondered what successful speculation had given such a rise to his spirits; and his clerks compared notes on the same subject, some of them more than hinting at an extra i glass of champagne, which they knew, per haps belter tha.i he, •• maketh glad the heart ■ of man.” Several days elapsed before Hatty Dale’s . next visit. She heard a man's voice as she opened the door of her friend’s sitting-room, but, relying upon the servant’s assurance that his mistress was not engaged, she en tered. Her impulse was to retreat as she beheld the portly figure of Dr. Pilson ; but Mrs. Temple called her forward. “The doetor and I are only having a friendly chat, my dear,” she said. , “To which we are more than happy to admit Miss Dale,” subjoined the bland phy i sician. “ For myself, I regard your coming as particularly opportune. I have such i faith in your sound judgment, that I rely i upon you to assist me in enlightening our I patient here as to the fallacy of a theory she has adopted lately. What think you, Miss Dale, of this gentlest of natures stubbornly resisting the advice of her medical man, and scouting at the science of medicine itself! ” Mn. Temple smiled brightly; but the: answering glerfm Upon Hatty’s face was very i A AB® KffiWSffASSSa. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1863. HIS BANNER OVER US IS LOVE. faint. “Perhaps the ‘ patient * considers that ‘patience has had its perfect work,’ ” she replied, with an attempt at playfulness. “Let me answer you from the same book,” said the doctor, readily : “ ‘Be not weary in well doing.’ ” “ I have had very little experience in well doing for eighteen months, doctor,” Mrs. Temple interposed. “ I hope to tell you a different story before long.” “I wish you mayfiad your system a suc cessful one, madam. Would that I could say I hope ao! You will hardly believe me ’’ —turning to Hatty—“when l inform you that yesterday noon I met her and Mr. Temple riding out in a sleigh, actually a sleigh! This fragile creature who, a fort night since, could not leave her chamber, this tender flower, this mimosa, this—” “ Dormouse! ” suggested the quondam invalid, “ who, having been most thorough ly awakened by that same sleigh-ride, is very much disposed to repeat the experiment frequently while the snow lasts.” Dr. Pilson arose, dignified, yet polite.— “ As you judge best, madam,” he said grave ly. “My remonstrance was mefct in kind ness. I have performed my duty., If, at any time, you should need my poor skill, I beg you to let me know. I have always served you to the best of rny ability.— Heaven forbid that 1 should ever cease to do this! ” And with this pious ejacula tion, he bowed himself out. “Now, Mary, what does all this mean?” asked “Have you really disobey ed his directions, and to the extent that he says ? ” “My study, since your hst visit, has been to obey nature and conscience,” was the re joinder. “It is hard work, Hatty—far more arduous than I conceived of when I began it; but, thus far, the ‘grace has come with the burden.’ ” “And ever will,” said her visitor,feelingly.' “ I pray that it may, for I am deploiaUly 1 weak. Twenty times a day lam tempted to abandon the attempt at reform. I seem never before to have understood the mean ing of the word ‘ inertia.’ Body and mind are alike averse to the new regimen, for 1 no longer feed the one with professional dietetics, or the other with morbid musings, nor suffer both to drone for hours and days together. My progress is painfully slow.’’ “Few great works are accomplished in a day,” was Hatty’s encouragement; “and , you have been sick. Do not'fly into the opposite extreme of imagining all your i maladies unreal because they have been ag . gravated by fancies and drugs. lam truly i glad to leave you thus, Mary, for I believe I you will persevere.” | “ Leave me ? ” repeated Mrs. Temple, i in some alarm at her voice and manner.— “Are you going away ? ” . *“On a long journey, to .” “To pay a visit ? ” > “Yes. I have relatives there, and may t remain with them until spring,” said Hatty, stooping to lift Blanche from the floor. Her look was so sad that Mrs. Temple forbore | to make further inquiry, without suspecting > that her melancholy arose from any deeper feeling than natural regret at leaving home i and friends for an absence which might be ( prolonged indefinitely. “Still,” she thought, , after she had gone, “ her present home is i not a paradise that she should grieve to . leave it. I have often wondered if her cold, L worldly aunt could supply the wants of an (orphan’s heart, and such a heart as hers.” i Hatty wrote with tolerable regularity du » ring the winter, but such short, unsatisfac , lory letters that her correspondent was > disposed to think her careless of their friend - ship or forgetful that the return epistles • were penned with difficulty, sometimes with absolute pain. The most sunny day has Hits douds, and there were still hours of de-1 , pression, days of irritab lity, imperfectly controlled, that shaded Horace’s hopeful • 'face and wet the wife’s pillow with tears of • penitence. The demon Dyspepsia had been ; too assiduously courted, too tenderly nur sed to be exorcised by a single effort. The twin-teachers had exchanged their -ickly hue tor a dark green, then relapsed slowly into sere second infancy and died meekly jin the shadow of the thrifty offshoots, their ascendants; snow and thaw were gone, fine idays were frequent, when exotics and Ca nary' revelled in air as well as sunshine, 1 before our heroine could safely take upon i herself the duties of a housekeeper, an^ 1 venture occasionally into society. More than one card had passed between Miss Stewart and herself, for, by a succession of mischances, neither had ever found the other at home. “ Have you any engagement this evening, love ? ’ she inquired of her husband one morning, as, in neat wrapper and most be coming cap, she sat behind the coffee-urn. “ None; lam quite at your service,” re plied he with alacrity, for he was not yet quite used to the delight of possessing a wife who could have evening engagements, “ Then,” blushing a little at her own memories, “if you have no objections, 1 will invite your friend, Miss Stewart, to take tea with us.” Horace was speechless for a moment in absolute amazement; then, pushing back his chair, walked around to his wife’s place and kissed her as though they had not been married full two years and a half. She could have cried heartily as she hid her face upon the dear shoulder, but she battled bravely with the happy shower and con quered. A gloriously happy woman she was all that day, for struggles, weariness, self-denial were amply rewarded by the words he had said in her ear, “ My nolfie -wife; God bless you!” Miss Stewart returned a gracious accept ance to Mrs. Temple’s note of invitation, although not generally partial to quiet tea drinkings. “ But,” she said to her sister, “if this visit proves as rich a farce as the first I made at that house, 1 shall not suffer for lack of entertainment. Oh, dear!” she laughed, arranging the picturesque net of crimson and gold in the hair she knew to be one of her chief beauties, while her black eyes flashed back from the mirror their scornful light, “ the remembrance of! that scene will be fresh in my mind twenty (years hence. If 1 were-dying, the picture I would excite a smile. My unheralded en trance was a coup d' etat. I owed Horace • Temple a grudge, as you do not need to be told; but from that hour, I have almost forgiven him. 1 could not have desired a more complete revenge. I suppose we shall sup upon weak tea and Graham bread in that second-story nursery ; and that Mad ame will sport her recherche dressing-gown —1 verily believe she has worn it by day and by night for the last year; and that her hair has not been thoroughly combed in the same time. And this is the wife of the fas tidious man who, as he once informed me —impertinently enough—had in his early youth formed a standard of womanly ex cellence which he had never seen approach ed since, yet was determined not to marry J until he did. Sic transit yloria mundi re- I solves? ” Mr. Temple stood ready to welcome the belle at the outer door, and had a most cor dial greeting. Then a lady came from th# parlor, and the imperturbable woman oi ( fashion was nearly surprised into an excla ■ mation as she spoke the usual phrases of . reception due from hostess to guest. A slender figure, with just enough fragility to . make it almost ethereal in its grace, attired . with exquisite neatness and taste ; a face , classically oval, every feature of delicate beauty and illumined by a smile of heart ( sunshine—these made up the apparition , that utterly confounded her. Mrs. Temple saw, and it must be confessed enjoyed, the effect of her appearance. This conscious ness of an advantage gaiued at the outset reassured her to meet the would-be haughty condescension with which Miss Stewart re covered herself. Two or three gentlemen and as many ladies followed her arrival, • “just such people as it was an object to ■ cultivate,” she said internally, and to this • species of agriculture she accordingly ad-, (dressed her best energit> But, as is often (the case, the force brought into action se 'ed so egregiously disproportionate to I work to be done, that the attempt was ri-• diculous. She was over -dressed, too talk-j ative, too prononce, as she would have said of another ; in modern American too “loud” , and “fast” fi’r the refined.group, particu j larly beside the gentle, lovely lady of the mansion, *hose sweet tones, ever ready to fill up the pauses in the conversation, were like flute solos h<? ird in the rests of clarion I music. Miss Stewart was a failure, and as this was discovered to be irretrievable, she became ill-natured, what in a plain * would have been rude and snappish The I most pleasant time of the evening to her was when her carriage was announced. Mr. Temple escorted her home. He wa? in high spirits, “ could afford to be,” she un» willingly allowed to herself. Her adieux were less elaborate than formerly, and it is to be doubted whether there was much sin cerity in her reciprocation of his hope that they “ should see a great deal of her now that Mrs. Temple’s health enabled her to partake more freely of the company of her friends.” His wife was sitting in a thoughtful mood by the fire in her room, awaiting his return. “ Bravely done, darling ! ” he said merri ly. “I have been right proud of my house hold fairy to-night.” “ Almost as well satisfied as if you had married your first love?” was her arch query, but there was anxiety in the eyes so fondly raised to his. “ Better satisfied than if any other woman in the world were my wife.” She could not mistake his truthful emphasis. “ A million times more pleased than if the queenly Eleanor occupied your place.” Thank you !”—drawing his brow down to her lips—“ thank you ! oh, so heartily! Yet, dear Horace, there was a time when she made you sadly ashamed of me.” “ Not a word ! Nothing you ever did caused me one tithe of the mortification I should feel, this evening, were I her husband. Slie is a gay humming-bird, brilliant, but spiteful, and fit only for summer weathej. Let her pass, Mary. Her gyrations cause but little commotion in our quiet home-nest. A dear and lovely one it is to me.” He did not say “ You made it so,” but she felt that this was his meaning. “ Darling ! ” —she started from her rev erie at the word and the pressure of his arm, i and withdrew her gaze from the fantastic pictures she was tracing in the coals—“you mentioned my ‘ first love,’ a while ago.— Have you any idea who she was?” “ I referred to Miss Stewart.” “So I supposed. But I never loved her, never gave her the least intimation of any intention on my part to address her, altho’ I have heard that she numbers me among her slain.” “ I am glad to hear that,” interrupted his listener —“ very glad.” “ But I had a ‘first love,’ notwithstanding,” pursued he. “ Don’t look grieved, and ac cuse me of a want of frankness towards you, whom you and Heaven are fny witnesses I love as well as ever man did a wife. I never thought it expedient to tell you the story until now. Years before the never-to be-forgotten visit to your native place, which made me acquainted with its fairest orna ment, I loved Hatty Dale.” “ Hatty Dale! ” “ 1 loved her, and told her ao. 1 was then twenty-two, and an ardent suitor.— She, a girl of eighteen, with one of the warmest hearts that ever throbbed or ached, and, as I truly believe, preferring me to all the rest of the world, rejected me decidedly, repeatedly.” | “ But why ? ” Mary flushed with indignation, never considering that this rejection had been the : foundation of her wedded bliss. “ For a long time she would assign no reason for a course which, 1 could see, was fraught with anguish to her as well as to i me. At last, in an overflow of emotion, a wild, sweeping flood of sorrow, that left bare the inmost recesses of her soul, she revealed all, a secret which I have kept sa credly until this hour ; nor would I disclose it now, even to you, without her expressed desire as my warrant for doing so. I had ! a letter from her, this afternoon. Its con tents 1 purposely withheld till your com pany had gone. Hatty’s mother, whom ' she was called to to nurse, is dead.” “ Her mother ? I thought both parents while an infant.” “Sos vysthe world, which also reports . her to be an only child, adopted by her father’s sister. She was taken, at an early age, by her present guardian; but she i» the youngest of three living children. The others, a brother and sister, much older than heiself, are in the insane asylum at fifteen years of her life.” Mrs. Temple turned very pale, and burst into tears; Horace was scarcely leas agitated. 1“ This terrible story the noble creature imparted to me as the sole cause of her de- TERMS — Four Dollars a-year. >•' ' ■ r ■■■ - 1 1 termined resistance to my proposals. If it effectually extinguished all hope and indeed desire to make her mine, it also increased my respect, and did not diminish my regard for her. We learned the calmer love of brother and sister, a sentiment which has made me a better man, and, I trust, has brightened her lonely path a little. When I made you my bride, dear one, I bore with me her blessing and prayers. Let her sub sequent conduct testify to her nobility of heart, her purity of motive.” “ She has been a blessed sister to me,” said Mary, tearfully. “ All that lam this night, all that brings you happiness, under God I owe to her. My poor Hatty!— What a life hers has been ! ” “ Hear what she writes,” continued Ho race : “ ‘lf you think she can bear it, I wish you to tell Mary everything. That I have never spoken to her of the fearful cloud which has hung over my head for so long has not been because I doubted her discre tion or friendship, but I dreaded the effect of the communication upon her nerves and spirits. She is stronger now, and perhaps able to hear and sympathize with the dis tress of one who loves her so truly. But even through this thick darkness pierces one ray of sunshine. *lt is the thought that in the grave where I have laid my mother —beloved, although I never knew the full meaning of that sweetest of names in that rest are ended the wanderings, the woes of her troubled spirit; that, restored to the serene loveliness of her youth, in the pres ence of her Father and o irs, she now sees light. And oh, I rejoice to know that, upon earth, in the deeply sunken vale through which He has decreed my way shall lie, there is no gloom His smile cannot dispel, except when the shadows in which we are enveloped are created by ourselves. May His love keep us from such ! ’ ” [JVr 77ie Baptist Banner.} Tbe Suffering Cherokees. Brother Bits: Enclosed you will find five dollars as a contribution to brother Compere’s Indian fund. We are not now Georgians, but have®! been; and while the request for aid for the “Red Man of the Forest” is open, we feel assured that those out of your State will not be denied the pleasure of contributing for the relief of those whose lands we pos sess. The writer has long felt that if there is one race of people, more than another, who has a right to our charity and benevo lence, it is the race of people which has been forcibly dispossessed of their lands for our benefit. The Indians have been driven from country to country, only nominally paid for their lands, butchered for daring to defend their homes—the homes and graves of their fathers —many tribes extinguished, hemmed in on all sides by different people, giving up all that made them a peculiar peo ple, and destined soon to lose their distinc tion as a race. And now, forgetting all their wrongs from us, they have boldly taken their stand with us, to repel the com mon foe; and, in so doing, have lost all but the hope that we will not forget them m the hour of their last extremity. They have given all to make us rich—shall we show the perfection of ingratitude to them by slighting the imploring hand now sinking in the ocean of a miserable extinction? Never, no, never I “ Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry him self but shall not be heard.” If we pass by unheeded this cry ut the poor, may we not fear lest God injustice verify this threat in the great calamity now hanging over us? God will be just, as well as merciful. Let Christians hear and obey the voice of God. Fraternally, W. M. H. Cmntonville, Ala. at the prayer meeting. “How is it that jou are always at the prayer-meeting, let it blow hot or blow cold ? ” asked one young man of another. “ Because I go upon the principle, that if it is right to have a prater meeting, it is the duty of the churcn to aitend. if it is right for one to stay away for small causes, it is right for all, and the meeting will be likely to fall through. If it is the duty of one to go, it is just as much the duty of an other ; and therefore I seldom see any good reason to break through this general prin ciple, and stay away.” “Butdo you always fvel Ike it?” “I am sorry if Ido .not; but as feeliags are variable, I dare not trust them. I take counsel of my church o< ligations, rather than feeling. If I don’t feel like going, I shall not probably feel more like it by stay ing away- There is alwa>» a blessing to be found at the prayer-meeting.” NUMBER 36.