Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-03-10


under the ground before he will make selection
from the wolfsh horde.
s-
LENr-The grey ashen skies of yesterday
were not inappropriate drapery for the solemn
drama which commences at this time in two
of the Christian churches.-The season of Lent.
Tell their beads In drops OF RAIN
Aud patter their dolefil prayers"
There is something in the essential idea of this
ancient rite, Invested of all the religious frippe
ries which modern fashion has hung around it
Qke the bells and pomegranates upon the high
priests garments,) which is to us exQuisitely
touching and beautiful. Put aside the argu-
ments, heavy and light, against its observance,
and which attack the authority that upholds it.
With the involved recoudtc dogmas of the
churches we have nothing to do, it is simply as
it appeals to the common sense of humanity or
rather its common sense lighted by poetic feel
ing that we acknowledge its force and beauty.
Not Lent rs it is popularity regarded,-a season
of formal church going, time of revellingin eggs
and oysters, when the righteous man looks up
on beef or mutton with anathemas in his eyes,
and regards ham with the pallid horror of
Jew. When Flora McFlimscy smooths the curls
straight, and declines schottisch with an
allusion to AshWednesday "a fashionable
Lent is truly Religion in articulo norris
But Lent, as it appears to the eye Of the poet
or the Christian, comes to US in the solemn garb
of pilgrim through the past centuries,-the
sacred palm branch in her hand plucked in the
Holy Land Clothed with the gorgeous solem-
mites of the Romish and English churches,
with all the majestic associations which ages of
1, a.. -s,t Dc
sublimest anthems, and intensest feeling of
which the human heart is capable, she wears a
prestige of gloom and antiquity borne by no
other modern rite. Yet it is not, after all, in
this light that the season seems to us most just
and proper in its demands upon our reverence.
When we look at the world as it really is, a
seething cndron like that Of Macbeth's witches,
in which uubelief, idolatry, falsehood and mean
ness are all mingled, 1t seems but right that
once year, at least, the angel of healing should
descend, as of old time into Bethesda's pool
That in the Christian church there should be n
time of deep silence when the soul can go back
in deep humility from the world, and be alone
with its God in Judgment a time when every
true heart can follow its Master into the wilder
ness, and meet there the tempting demon of its
own besetting sin in deadly conflict, follow Him
through the valley of the shadow Of death,
and rise at last, like Him, from the grave
of sorrow into the full Easter sunshine of
love to God and man. If our Catholic and
Episcopal,an brethren would but see clearly the
true su6limity of the idea of Lent, and observe
it in grave simplicity, despite the many just
preiudices against it-ns it now is-so beautiful
would it then be, that soon the dawn of Ash
Wednesday would, like the muezzins trumpet,
call the world 10 prayer.
In the meantime let who unbelievers
at least treat the observers of the season with
charity 1t may be. unfounded on the Bible
though their observance is that this belief is to
them a blessing.
"a fearful hope Is all the world contains"
Blessed are they who find an additional sup
port for their hope, even in tradition.
n -.