Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1856-10-15
g Ieeklg Gamilg g0nrual !,

couch. arose and approached her fathers |
bed, stretching forth her little arms and |
crying piteously. A kind neighbor, think
ing that the sight of her might tend to
tranquilise her fathers tortured soul, lifted
her up and called his attention to her
A 6ercer blaze of madness lit bis cleaning
eyes, and'a deeper shudder passed through
his frame and he raised his hand, while
vengeance shrieked from his swollen throat,
TO strike her down. Then covering back in
all the abandonment of despair he uttered
shrek on shrek and begged that that little
demon might be killed.
Oaccursed, hell distilled poison, that W.
Ethne sabFeft tie laws OF nature and turn
the fathers love for his offspring into dead
ly hate that to the distorted vision will
give to innocence the appearance of dev-
IL ! that renders the doating pareEt the en-
emy of his child and drives him to seek its
life
Tell me, thou master Materia Medica,
thou subtle chemist, what other drug, what
other poison invented by either man or
devil, or both combined, will thus revertthe
laws of God, the instinct of the heart p
Tell me what other potion will make the
father imagine his innocent offspring the
child of hell And thus it is with ardent
spirits: all that is lovely is turned by it to
deformity; and the beings nearest allied to
God and Heaven appear to its poor victims
the agents of hell. The enemy of all that
God loves, it turns his beauties to deformi-
ties, and hurries its devotees into the open
jaws OF destruction while they vainly i'm
agine they are fleeing from it.
But the heavy hours of night wore wear
lily away, and as the crimson streaks of the
morning shot up in the eastern sky, Hor-
ace Laverne grew calmer, and fell into
troubled sleep, over which the devoted wife
watched with anxious heart, and with as
tervent prayers IS ever breathed from NOR
tax heart and rose in incense to circleround
the throne of Omnipotence And the lit
tie Marion, in hushed awe, sat by her mo-
ther, her eyes glancing first to one parent,
then to the other, with sad and troubled
expression, her little heart not wholly com
pretending what was the matter, yet op-
pressed with sense of uneasiness, con.
sciousness that some calamity had occurred
; Poor child it was. her first grief, her first
, awakening from the fairy realms of child
hood where sorrow and care are unknown.
That day her heart received its first lesson
IN the ills which flesh is heir to. O what
} fearful accountability does that father in.
cur who thus rudely breaks the holy alli-
r ance betO cen childhood and angels, and in
ltlates the young heart into the, miseries Of
Ouug even sv0 -voni pre-
' hend its own pain Childhoodis the greer
y pasture with perennial fountains, where
, heavenly vistants delight to dwell anc
o strike the golden Earp and joy; and ah
too soon will our children, in their ap
r proach to maturity, emerge from the lovely
C region into the barren realms of life, where
JOY and grief, sorrow and gladness are 81
e intermlngled that, though the soul sink
/, not into absolute despair, it never feels a
% gain the bliss of unalloyed delight. How
N carefully, then, should we cherish the ten
n der plants that they may not feel the with
st ering blight of sadness, and that gushin,
h. sensibllities may not be turned back il
a. bitterness, to corrupt the fountain fror
$. which they sprang.
Is Gradually the flush passed from the fac
d, of the sleeping man, and a CHASTITY palenes
is usurped its place, his muscles twitched
IN and an occasional jerking agitated his Who'll
c. frame. Here We will leave him for while
ut the scarcely less pale wife, with all the d,
$. votedness of woman's fond heart, watchin
70 every movement and hanging in breathles
ns silence over the sufferer, while feveris
a. slumber sealed his eyes but to open th
Mt pandemomium of frenzied vagaries th;
1t held wild revel in his unhinged mind.