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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, OCTOBER 1, 1882.
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LIFE AND DEATH.
How oootlf I* life I Wbat countless expense,
To temper the blood and comfort the sense,
And nourish tbe mind and chasten tbe breast.
And keep tbe bear! ruled In Its stormy unrest;
But deatb unto all Is offered so cheap:
There’s nothing to pay for falling asleep—
Save closing tbe eyes and ceasing to weepl
—L. E, Bleckley, In Atlanta OonttUutUm.
HAVE HOPE.
Tbe shadow of tbe mountain falls athwart tbe lowly
plain,
And the shadow of the cloudlet hangs above the
mountain’s bead;
And the highest hearts and lowest wear tbe shadow
of some pain
And the smile has scarcely flitted ere tbe anguished
tear It shed.
or no eyes bave there been ever without aweary
tear,
And those Ups can not be human which have never
heaved a slgb;
or without the dreary winter there has never been
a year,
And tbe tempests hide their terrors In the calmest
summer sky.
o this dreary life Is passing, and we move amid Its
mate,
And we grope along together, balf In darkness,
half In light;
And our hearts are often hardened by the mysteries
of our ways,
Which are never all in shadow, and are never
wholly bright.
And our dim eyes ask abeacm.andour weary feet a
guide,
And our hearts of all life’s mysteries seek a mean
ing and tbe key;
And a cross gleams o’er our pathway,—on It hangs
theCrucIhed.
And He answers all our yearnings by the whisper,
•’Follow Me."
JUDGING BY APFEARAXCEN.
A Lennon of Home Life.
“My dear! it exceeds anything I ever
knew in the way of extravagance. If Mr.
Rogers is allowed to do so, he will assuredly
lose his influence; it is so inconsistent, and
a minister should be especially careful of
his reputation. I called at Mrs. Pratt’s on
my way home, and when I told her about it,
she suggested writing him an anonymous let
ter. You know she’s president of our sew
ing society, and says she won’t make her
eyes ache stitching for any parson or his
family, while he can afford to spend money
like that! She thinks he had bttter hire a
seamstress! Why, it will be the talk of the
town! I've a mind to see two or three of
the ladies, just to get their opinion about
the matter,” and Mrs. John Lester paused
for breath while she handed her husband a
eup of tea that looked most inviting, served
in the delicate china which had been her last
Christmas gift.
The evening was warm, but through the
open windows came the fresh country air,
sweet with the fragrance of the clematis that
shaded the west end of the piazza. Every
surrounding of the supper-room spoke of
ease and luxury. Mr. Lester forgot the close
business office; forgot the dust and filth and
noise of the city when he drove into the lit
tle village where he had made his summer
residence. Hard work had brought him a
fortune, and when he married his partner’s
handsome and wealthy daughter, the world
counted him as one of the happiest of men.
Yet the world's judgment is often wrong,
and well for some of us that its standard of
happiness lies beyond our reach, else we
might labor to catch the glittering bauble,
and, after heart and bands and feet were
bruised and bleeding in the search, grasp it
but a moment to And it only—gold I
John Lester was a man in the highest
sense of the word. He held his influence in
the village, for he was generous of manner
as well as means, and rich and poor alike,
respected him. He who seeth not as man
stetb, who looketh not on the outward ap
pearance, judged which was the nobler act—
tbe donation of a thousand dollars toward
tbe new church, or the hearty “Good evening,
Tony," which always made the coachman’s
dark face lighten with a smile. Tony had a
sun-stroke one season. When the fever waa
raging, and Eunice, his young mulatto wife,
could not control the strong, excited frame,
Mr. Lester staid all night by the coachman’s
bedside. Did Tony ever forget that t
Mrs. Lester was an estimable lady. Her
husband loved her, for he was too honest a
man to have married for any other cause.
She, too, had a power among the village
folks, but it was tbe power which money
gains. She was courted and quoted; and
perhaps lame Teddy, the washer-woman’s
boy, gave the correct reason for it when he
questioned, “Mamma, isn't Mrs. Lester’s
teapot full of pennies?”
Poor Teddy I On tbe top shelf of their
one closet, stood a useless teapot, the re
ceptacle of each occasional spare cent.
The child’s acme of happiness centered in a
chair which he could wheel himself, and bis
faith in the teapot increased with every ad
dition to its contents. It took a long time
to cover the bottom, anu the coins did not
yet begin to reach the hole where the spout
ought to have been. There was something
most touching in his wanting tbe one five-
cent piece given him by bis old grandmoth
er changed into pennies, because they would
"help All up sooner.” And Teddy lay back
on the lounge as the Lester barouche passed
by the tenement-house, and wondered if it
would not seem just like Heaven to rest
against those soft cushions and look right up
into the blue sky instead of getting a peep
of it through the small window, for the poor
boy spent many a wearisome day alone.
Mr. Lester had been glancing over the
evening paper, and dropping it to take his
tea, became conscious that his wife had been
addressing him,
“What is it, Edith? You are extrava
gant, and everybody is saying so."
“I extravagant, Mr. Lester! and I’ve only
had two silks this summer! By the way,
don’t forget my check for two hundred in
the morning; I’m going into the city. What
was I talking about? Just this! I called at
the parsonage this afternoon; one of the
ladies tries to go in every day to look around
a trifle. Mrs. Rogers is young and needs ad
vice, though she won’t always take it. Why,
she had her shades drawn up to the top of
the sash when Mrs. Hill was there the other
morning, and when remonstrated with upon
the plea that the sun would fade her new Brus
sels, actually said she must have light,
whether carpets grew dingy or not; and my
dear, the shades have been up exactly the
same every day since. Very good sense
you think Mrs. Rogers has? and is that all 1
have to say? Oh! no; but the beginning
of the remainder. While 1 was waiting for
the minister’s wife, 1 noticed in a corner of
the parlor something new—an antique vase,
as curious as beautiful. It must have cost so
very much, and the bracket that held it was
elegantly carved by hand; we have not a
more expensive piece of workmanship in
our whole bouse. Hadn’t she a right to ac
cept a present? Certainly, my dear; I’ve
no fault to find with her having all she can
get, but it is with the giver. The idea of
Mr. Rogers doing anything os extravagant as
that!” '
Mr. Lester had become accustomed to his
wife's volubility. Sometimes he quietly
listened, sometimes argued, and at others
tried to check the disposition towards gos
sip which so evidently ruled her, and was
increasing rather than diminishing. Just
now he wondered if all women really were
like his Edith—certainly not as handsome,
and no one could grace a table as well as she.
Even now, as she sat talking, there was a
charm about the tipping of the dainty cup.
Surely he was, and ought to be proud of her;
yet there was not the rest he needed in the
talk with which he was being entertained, a
fair sample of each evening’s experience.
Knowing but little of her sex, he questioned
if all women found pleasure in so severely
criticising their neighbors. He had no sis
ters; his mother died when he was a boy,
and boarding-school, college, and hotel life,
ill served to show him woman as she is when
worthy of the name she bears. John Lester
had anticipated having a home. Had his
ideal been too beautiful ? He had asked for
a wife. Had he found the one he wanted?
The parsonage ? And with tbe thought of
it be queried within himself if the minis
ter’s modest litttle wife were seasoning her
husband’s supper with comments upon their
parishioners. No; he was sure not. The
night he sat up with Tony, Mrs. Rogers had
brought some jelly to the sick man, and he
was very certain that tbe sweet voice which
had comforted Eunice, unconscious that
any one heard it, could never say ill against
another. With the vision of the little wo
man came a resolve to be more of a mao
than he had ever been. He would not longer
sit at his own table and allow his neighbors
to be slandered when they were above re
proach.
“Edith, how do know that Mr. Rogers
bought the vase and bracket?”
“Know it, my dear, with all possible evi
dence one could want. Why, right on the
table lay a card with the words, ‘For my
wife—God grant she may yet live many
years to save and bless others, as she has her
husband.' Pretty, all that, but of course it
accompanied the vase; there were the nails
and hammer used in hanging tbe bracket.
Then, too, I waa standing before it when
Mrs. Rogers entered; and as I remarked that
it was a new and elegant ornament in their
room, she exclaimed, 'Oh I yes; and a birth
day present from some one whom I love very
much. I found it on my bureau this morn
ing.’ Taking her seat, she espied the card
and picked it up to put in her pocket with a
blush, which made her look almost handsome
for once. I do believe she was ashamed to
tell me plainly that Mr. Rogers made the
gift, and she ought to be ashamed ! Yes, I
say it exceeds anything I ever kuew of in
the line of extravagance!"
Certainly Mrs. Lester's statement seemed
most plausible, yet her husband grew
strangely interested in the minister’s little
helpmeet during the recital, and the manly
resolve in his heart to purify the tone of his
own wife’s thoughts was thoroughly rooted.
In a firm but gentle voice he replied:
“Edith, till you know that Mr. Rogers
gave his wife the vase, you have no right to
say he did. Imagination is one thing, evi
dence another. It may very be apparent to our
acquaintance that you have all a woman
could desire to make her life happy; yet, it
a woman’s highest pleasure to slander her
brothers and sisters? You resent the idea
of having any intent to slander, but already
Mrs. Pratt has listened to what you have
told me, and she has or will repeat the story
in a fuller dress. I beg that to-morrow, in
stead of spreading, yon will try and check
the evil you may have done. If Mr. Rogers
did give the vase he had his reasons for so
doing, and it is none of our business how
he spends his money. Unless I am mis
taken, he and Mrs. Rogers will endeavor to
rid our village of this sin of gossip, and, my
wife, we will aid them all we can! ”
Mrs. Lester was subdued, if only by the
stand her husband had taken. A woman of
no mean disposition, she had merely suc
cumbed to the custom of the society in
which he moved, forgetful that owing to the
position she held, a word of hers weighed a
great deal in the estimation of others. Her
husj>and's rebuke had touched her, and for
the first time in her life she hod realized how
deep an injury she might do another by an
unjust word. Ah! the unjust word had
been spoken that day. and on the morrow,
while Mrs. Lester shopped in the city, the
minister’s wife received an unusual number
of callers.
"Harry," she said, “they all noticed my
vase and admired it so much. One lady told
me that untique ware was quite the style
now, and concluded my present must have
been very costly. It is beautiful, isn't it?
but not half so beautiful as the true love
that gave It to me! ”
At that moment Mrs. Lester drove up to
the gate, and through the open window saw
the minister with his arms around his wife
standing before the bracket. It looked like
another proof toward the truth of her story;
but recalling her husband’s words, she en
tered the parsonage with more of kindli
ness in her heart than she had carried there
before.
“I’m just home from town, Mrs. Rogers,
and stopped to leave this small parcel; the
fall goods were being opened, and this is a
pretty shade that will suit you," and she
did not wait for thanks.
“Oh! Harry dear! a new dress. Now you
can do what you wished you could this
morning—get a chair for poor Teddy Burns.
I’m to glad I Why, it’s like your sermon on
Sunday; 'AH things working together for
good.’ ”
In the Lester home that night there was
a happy change, Mr. Lester wondered why
his wife was so tender in her greeting, so
softened in manner, never dreaming that
his good deed was already springing up ; it
had not been sown upon barren ground, but
in soil that simply needed cultivation.
Oh! if a man would ofterier seek to rule
in love 1 If finding us guilty of many faults,
he would try to lift us to nobler ideal of
womanhood instead of sneering at our
weaknesses, the result would prove his effort
to be a grand one.
Oh I if woman, the true woman, seeing
in her sex this disposition to bicker, to slan
der, would reprove by silence or gentle re
buke, society would be based upon a higher
principle, the atmosphere of our homes
would be purer, and lives of mother, wife
and daughter would breathe of the love that
“is kind and thinketh no evil.”
Whatever Mrs. Lester did was done earn-
eatly; but the night before she had em
ployed her energy inattemptingto misjudge
her neighbor, now her heart was opened to
herein, and she would confess in the minis
ter’s home all the evil she had thought She
had talked only to Mrs. Pratt, but with that
recollection came the fearful knowledge of
the rapidity with which news, evil or good,
spread through the village. Mrs. Lester
was bitterly humbled as she remembered all
the put and the unnumbered words she bad
spoken against one and another, not mean
ing harm at the time,—oh! no. But the
harm had been done; it was too late to undo
it now. Edith Lester wasachanged woman
that night, and she determined to use her
whole influence hereafter to check, if might
be to kill, tbis deadly sin.
The morrow dawued, and over the parson
age hung a cloud. There was a tremor in
the little wife’s voice as she said good-bye to
her husband when he started for the study;
then it rose clear and steady while the hand
detained him: "Harry, my husband, in .
our joy last night we said 'all things worked
together for good;’ in our sorrow we wjll
believe it, too.”
Mrs. Rogers was dusting the parlor when
Mrs. Lester came in with Birdie. Tbe min
ister’s wife looked wearied, and perhaps
Birdie’s loving kiss and clinging arms were
too much for her, for she laid her bead down
on the table and wept. Then came the
story, for Mrs. Lester was sweetly fitted to
be tbe comforter now, and she must know
tbe cause of such sorrow.
“I could bear it, Mrs. Lester, but to have
Harry wronged! Harry, so generous, so
true! I kept up before him, but I must talk
to somebody. What do I mean ? Why, we
have only been here three months, and last
night, as Harry was locking the house, he
found this under the front door.. He is per
fectly innocent as to its purport—he has ex
pended nothing here because the people have
given us so much. His first payment is up
in my drawer, excepting tbe sum he always
sends his old mother, and oh! he is not ex
travagant, Mrs. Lester, only so self-sacrific
ing; he wanted to go without a commentary
he needed that he might get lame Teddy
Burns a chair, but we did not tell any one
about that, and even Teddy was not to know
where his gift came from. What does it
mean? My head is so—”
“Let me see tbe note Mrs. Rogers; Birdie,
run out and ask Tony to drive you home,
and you can get a basket of fresh eggs for
your dear teacher.”
Only two days! and yet the little word
from her lips had spread, and here was the
result;
“Rkvirknd Sib : It Is commonly reported
in our village that you are growing extreme
ly extravagant. That you a minister of the
Gospel should indulge in making unwar
rantable gifts, when we find it difflculf-tSMt-
collect your salary, is beyond consistency.
Evidences are against you, and this is but
a warning that your congregation highly
disapproves of your procedures. Knowing
your character to have been heretofore irre
proachable, I consider it my duty, as one in
terested in your welfare, to inform you of the
public opinion, that you may prevent further
talk. A Friknd.”
Edith Lester had been humbled tbe night
before, and bad been asked to be kept so, but
in this way? She deserved it, though the
punishment was severe, and did hot spare
herself; at the last, Mrs. Rogers' face brigbt-
ented and she actually laughed amid all the
tears. “Oh! it was the vase then, and I
showed it to every lady who called yester
day ! I wanted to tell them where it came
from, but shrank from saying so much about
myself. I saved the life of a poor outcast
once (sometime you shall know how), and
she has never ceased being grateful. When
we came to housekeeping she sent me the
only thing she had kept from being pawned
during all her wanderings—that old vase, an
heir-loom in their once respectable family.
She is a happy woman now, and married to
a Swiss, who carves beautifully; he made
the bracket. And the card you saw I—dear
Harry laid it upon my plate with only a
bunch of violets, because—because violets
led us to know each, other, i flushed to
think I had left his sacred words where
stranger eyes might see them." .
The Bewing society met. at Mrs. Lester’s;
the minister’s wife was not there, and Mn.
Pratt looked across the table to Mrs. Hill in
a most significant manner. The hostess was
so very still and white some one questidned
if she were ill. > .ft
“No, thank you; but, ladies, 1 I' ; hate a
statement—a confession to make, and'a reso
lution to offer.” . i .
Then she went over the whole story,‘im
plicating no one but herself; and there was
more than one moist eye las the usually
haughty lady pleaded with her sisters jo aid
her in her new resolve .to be “first pure, then
peaceable."
Mrs. John Lester’s money never wielded
such a power in the society as did her love
that day.
Mr. Lester had been proud of his wife, of
her beauty, her grace; but a new pride was
kindled in his breast when he listened to all
she had to say. The wife he had looked for