Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1867-12-26

Henceiorth Is parallel with thine.
a Silent awe Is In my room;
Itremble with delicious fear;
The future with its light and gloom,
Time and Eternity are here.
"D0ubts-hopes. In eager tumult rise.
Hear. Oh my God. one earnest prayer,
Room for my bird In Paradise.
And give her angel plumage there
And Edward Arthur looked too,
with all a fathers pride, upon his
first-boFn. To him the little round
face was the sweetest he had ever
gazed upon. He forsook for awhile
his jovial companions in the club
roem and at the restaurant, and con
fined himself, when not profession
ally engaged, to his wife's cham
Der
! Gertrude, who had often wearicd
for his presence in his absence, felt
glad and grateful for his attentions.
She had, however, never dreamed
what a course-what a downward
course her husband was pursuing.
She did knot know that he had be-
gun to frequent horse races and
gambling saloons, and many other
ofthe ante chambers of hell. Had
she, how would her heart have died
within her.
There was a fraternity of noble
men to whom Arthur in his palm
lest days attached himself We al
lude to the Freemasons. They SEW,
with great regret, the frequency
with which he trampled under foot
one Of the most sacred of their Car
dinal virtues, viz. Temperance,
and strove by every means in their
power to avert the clC nd which they
saw slowly gathering and lowering
| in the future. They counseled him
they advised im-they entreat-
ed b IN, for the sake of his family,
if not for his own, to reform, but in
vain. His business dwindled--his
respectable friends - men who
had honored him for his talents,
and for his cocial virtues, after hav-
ing tried by every means in their
power to reform him, began, like
the Priest and Lcvite, to "pass by
on the other side"
Poor Gertrude When she real
lied how desperate matters were
getting, she could hardly believe it.
She had never dreamed of her
hearts chosen becoming a drunk
ard. But there he was, with all his
noble talents and endowments, sink
ing into a sOt-the weak victim of
every temptation. She began to
suffer too, as drunkard's wives do,
alas too often suffer. Poverty,
with his grim, hyena-like visage,
stood looking her in the face
Those who in more prosperous
days had courted her smiles now
passed by with a slight nod of re-
cognition, or stared rudely in her
face.
Her child grew in grace and beau
ty, and unGer other circumstances
would have filled her house with JOY,
But, alas she was an inebriate's
child, and destined to drain the cup
OF bitter bregs which q fathers
trembling hand holds with fiendish
cruelty to their lips.
Arthur, when he found his wife
had gained some knowledge of his
excess, from feeling of shame,
slluned her presence more than ev-
er, but this gradually wore away,
and sometimes he came stumb-
ling home drunk.
But why need we dwell on an inebri-
ate's progress. Who does not know
that when intempeance is finished
"it bringeth forth death"-death to
every moral excellence-Geath to
every social atiection-death to ev-
cry spiritual aspiration-death,
alas to the immortal soul.
Edward Arthur's house and fur
niture we're sold for debt-he NOV
ed his family into a rude tenement
in the outskirts Of the village, but
his own time was passed almost
wholly amang the low and vile His
face became blotched and purple
his eyes blood. shot and his form
bloated. Gertrude did what she
could to earn a subsistence with her
needle, but "shirt making is pro-
poor business. The Free
did a great deal for her
about his time. One oil them,
during the cold winter, sent her
wood, another meet, third -four
But Arthur's ofFenses caused him to
be cast out long before that from the
Lodge, and she felt that she was not
in any way entitled to their kind
ness and consideration.
Oh this is to many poor mortals
a bitter world. Remember the
days of darkness" says the Psal-
mist, 'for they shall be many, =
And to know that they are owing,
rs Gertrude did, to the sinfulness
Of those we have loved and trusted,
adds to the blackness of their
gloom.
But there was a darker day com
ing to the inebriate's wife than any
she had yet experienced One day
her husband came home half intox-
Icated. or late he lad grown bru-
,al towards her and her child when
n this state. Little Ida, who had
hot learned to f, arhim, ran towards {
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