Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1868-12-02
THE CHRONICLE
The Scattered Pearls.
BY MISS AUGUSTA LARNED.

BY MISS AUGUSTA LAkNED.
A young child had a lapful of pearls
given him by a good and powerful
spirit but the work of Infringing them
was to devolve upon himself alone.
This was only a thing of time and OPP
portunity. With these the child
knew he could weave a coronet, which
would set his brow among the calm
and glorious brows of earth.
But it so happened that he lived in
the midst of drudging, toilsome Ieo-
pie, who had no idea of the value OF
pearls, and thought this existence was
only made for raisinggrain and fatten-
ing swine.
So the old woman, his mistress,
called him sharply before day, while
he dreamed of stringing his pearls,
and cried, "Get up! stir your bones
1t is time to go after the cow"
When he returned from the pasture,
the old man, his master, babe him sad
die DObbin, and take the grain to mill.
In running forever on errands, to
and fro-and, when he grew older, IN
blowing, sowing, hoeing and moving
the boy had no opportunity to string
his pearls; and, being loose and dis.
arranged, one by one they dropped
out of his grasp, and he lost them, not
knowing where they fell.
Accordingly, he mOurned, as the
time for %stringing them passed by, and
I only a mere handful remained in his
keeping. "Oh, how have my treas
ures been wastedi How my time has
been misspent! How bare and bald
has been my life! Why did the good
spirit bestow choice gifts upon me, and
yet deny to me their uses ,"
So the child, who was now a man,
died; and even in paradise he mourned
his wasted, scattered pearls-and the
life that he had lived here seemed all
meaningless and a blank But an
angel, who saw his mind reflected {
in a mirror, took him byth hand and
led him gently back to his earthly
home, that he might see how his lost
treasures had been gathered into other
lives. The old woman thought not so
{ much of drudging now. She lament
ed and wept Over her boys departure.
How wise and gentle he was, she
sighed; and one of the lost pearls she
had found and strung amid the wood
en- beads that hung around her neck
shone and sparkled with a refining
grace.
Onward the spirit and his accom-
] panying angel sped, until they came
to a young peasant girl whom he had
loved and helped with her tasks, when
he knew her in this world. She too
had picked up one of his loose pearls,
and placed it upon the embroidery OF
her bodice. Now, as she in her
mothers kitchen, her eyes glanced
toward the pearl, and then were raised
in soft, sweet contemplation, as if 1t
had stirred a hidden depth of her
maiden soul.
So here and there, among the rude
people he had known, were found all
his pearls garnered upand sown some
where upon their coarse garments,
giving a precious quality to existence
that could not have been theirs if he
had never lived.
Back to paradise he journeyed and
all the discomfort of his mind gave
place to calm joy. "I deemed Provi-
dence capricious," said he, musingly,
Ito bestow upon me gifts l could not
turn to account. But my aims were
selfish. 1 longed TO crow my own
head with a pearl diadem, that men
might envy the wearer. To my
mortal vision this seemed the highest
object that life offered; but now, in
the light of an enlarged existence, l
see that much which this world calls
wasted is only so much sown in Gods
vast field"