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10 THE SOUTHERN WORLD, OCTOBER 1, 1882. |ptng ffiyr/f 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