Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1870-08-05

lieve at that time you said it. I told
Charles that 1t was lie, and would
stake my existence on it; but since |
have heard that Merriam asserted
you used almost the same words,
doubts are made eertainties. This
and more has convinced me, and /
can now say believe / know you
at last. | am glad you can find COM
fort and consolation in the church,
and again lmplore me to try and be o
Christian. Believe me, my expert
ence with Christians ia not such as
to make me desire closer relation.
| God may be good, but I have never
received any favors that make me
yearn for His love, and the quicker |
change places and the friends of this
world for the next, the better satis-
fled shall be that is If anything on
earth or in hell can make any differ
ence in my feelings. But beg you
| not to grieve over the ruin you have
brought upon me, and, as you stay
at your home, try and not think of
the wanderer without q friend on
| Gods green earth to care for her,
without home or friends, or money,
or credit, or name. / start out upon
the broad highway, to fight my way
through with nothing but darkness
to cheer me on. My heart is capable
of love no longer. You speak in
your letter of your duty to your wife
and family. DO you suppose Thu 7
believe that you love your Emily any
more than you did 6ne mcnth AGO.
Dld your dry to yn-: wife keep you
lro".. telling NE o thousand times
that you loved me better than all the
world; that if all the wrath and all
the horrors this world could bestow
were placed on one side without me,
and on the other was poverty, with
barely the comforts of life-you
would unhesitatingly give up the
first, to share the latter with me?
Yet at the first stroke, you say you
are determined to bow your head like
the willow to the blast, aud let a
heartless world -berate your idolized
darling, for seducing you. Let me
! tell you that the willow is weak
protection. No bird, not even the
most diminutive, builds its nest i'm
the willow - while the mighty eagle
takes its perch upon the oak. have
proven how the willow will bend
and bend, and finally strip down the
side, taking the heart out as it goes.
If had not been blinded by my love
for you. / should have known how
you would have acted when the
struggle came. You know how
many nights you have left me alone
to find my way home, as best could,
and perhaps you remember told
you that some way | did not feel a
| .,f nrnfnnffnn urI,nn vrith
and you reliantly said that no harm
should come to me without it was
over your dead body. And you re.
member, how often you have said,
"Oh darling you do not know what
capable of it," Now all is changed.
the trust reposed in you has been
betrayed. | have been thrust out in
the world with nothing. No home
nor friends, nor loved ones. You
have shrank from the task you i'm
posed on yourself. In fact you have
absolutely failed me in every prom
| Use.
Tell me, If you can, what right
you have to stay i'm your home,
while I was driven from mine. My
| home was as dear to me. and as good
as yours. Was it any harder for you
to forsake yours, than for me to give
up mine? You are man. Tell ME.
| il you dare to make s profession of
religion, after all that has passed be-
tween Us, aud after going to your
wife and telling her that you have
always loved her; that your heart
has never wandered from her, even
for moment, that you were led es-
tray, but you did not wrong her in
: yVIr heart, Say how, te.. HE, are
you q Christian, or can you ever be
one? Don't tell me you did not tell
her so. | know you did, and her
poor deluGed soul thinks she posses
ses yoar whole heart. Now if you
did tell her so, what will you do
with your professions to me? You
are living lie with her and you
know it,. II you did not tell her so are
you living with woman you do not
love, and who knows it, and letting
the one you love with your whole
soul drift away into friendlcss
world, without lifting Il finger to
keep her bv your side.
Henry Henderson, you have de-
stroyed the idol You have created,
you have cursed the woman you
promised to make happy, you have
trampled upon the heart that loved
you better than life, and better than
her hopes for heaven. You have
done all you can. and now | fear
neither man nor God, for am proof
against pleasure or pain.
Now listen! while | warn you to
! have no more affairs of the heart,
| for just SO sure as God created you,
/ will never lose sight of you, and |
now swear, by the wrongs l have
suffered, by the hopes of II woman's
life that are blasted, by desecrated
home, by all the vows you have
made, that if you are false to those
vows, [ will kill you with less re:
morse than | would kill serpent
that had stung me. Yours,
= T. C.