American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-10-16

| and feel the frost creep in and harden
them, until at last they turn to ice, sitting
at the same table and sleeping in the same
| room.
Others again find each other out as in
| all these years we have been finding out
this new world They settle down at first
among the meadows by the spring, then
they go through belt of shadow and lose
their way to find it again by and by, and
come cut into wider spaces and a better
land than they left. They meet the rug
ged hills and climb them together, strike
the deserts and cross them together, come
to the mountains and scale them together,
and then they see the other ocean, and
reach it together; and so their journey
ends. But through shadow and shine they
keep together; they allow no disaster to
divide them, and no third person, not even
the mother-in-law, to interfere.
Did you ever hear my definition of mar
riage? Sydney Smith says: at resem-
bles a pair of shears, SO Joined that they
cannot well he separated, moving often in
opposite directions, but always Furnishing
anyone that comes between them" The
remark is as wise as it is witty. and he
might have added: Part the shears
asunder, and then all you have left is
| we may grow gray as we find each other
out, and wonder why we never saw that
trait before or struck that temper; but if
there is this true heart between us that
keeps the rivet in its place the years will
be sure to bring new reasons for a more
perfect union, and the sweet Scotch ballad
will be psalm of life:
John Anderson, my 10, John,
We clomb the hill together,
And many a canty day, John,
We've had wi ane anither;
Moo we mum toddle doom, John,
But hand in hand Wen go,
And sleep together at the foot,
John Anderson, my 10.
But in finding each other out, again, it
is possible that, like my mothers old
shears, over which used to ponder when
was a boy, one side will be greater than
the other Now, what are we to do about
that? I found my old friend James Mott
delighted, one evening when went to call,
because as he was walking in his garden
two men went by and one said, That is
James Mott" and the other answered,
"And who is James MOTIF" why, don't
you know? 1t is Lucretia Motifs hus-
band" Now, James Mott was anything
but a common man. With lesser half
he would have seemed great, and he was
great in a perfect loyalty to truth and
goodness, but his wife was the woman of
century, while he was SO noble and great
of soul as to be glad and proud of her
greatness, and at the same time seemed
greater for his worship, feat few men
ever accomplish. Audubon, our peerless
naturalist, married a good. sweet wife,
and when she began to find him out she
found that he would wander off 1000
miles in quest of bird. She said amen,
and went with him so long as she had no
sacred reason for staying at home, crossed
the Alleghenies with him on horseback,
camped in the woods, lived in log huts
and shanties on the frontier, entered
into his enthusiasm, and counted all things
but loss for the excellency of the glory of
being Audubon's wife. When the chill
dren began to come to them he had to
wander off alone, but he could not go into
a valley so deep or a wilderness SO distant
that the light would not shine on him out
of their window. He knew just where he
should find her, and how she would look,
for while, as Ruskin reminds us, tine
clouds never take the same form again, we
know the sunshine as we know our most
familiar friend, and it was sunshine he
saw when he looked homeward; and so, if
you have read his notes, you will remem-
Der how his heart breaks forth into sing
ing in all sorts of unexpected places as he
thinks of the wife and children waiting
his return; and so they grew aged to-
gether, until they dropped into the lap of
God like mellow fruit. 1t was laid on
him to do this curious wild work. How
her woman's heart yearned to have him
home we may well imagine; and how
gladly she would have sacrificed some of
his greatness to keep her children's father
at her side, but she did not tell him SO,
and now she is changed into the same
image, from glory into glory, as by the
spirit of the Lord.
My story ends before the answer to the
prayer is granted They must be getting
on when we leave them, for they have six
sons; but they move away and the curtain
falls on them forever-but it makes little
matter. / know just how it was with
them if they kept these safeguards
and followed this inspiration that L have
tried to teach. When Oberlin was eighty
years old and very infirm, in climbing one
of his mountains he was obliged to lean
on the arm of a younger man, while his
wife, who was stronger, walked by herself |
Meeting one of his parishioners, the old |
man felt SO awkward at his want of gal
lantry that he insisted on stopping and ex-
planning how it was, and how they each |
understood it perfectly. She could not
lean on his arm, but she leaned on his |
heart all the same. They had grown aged |
together and he shot ahead a little; but |
they must not mistake them, it was all |
right. So it would be with these twain in |
the far-away Eastern Valley. They would |
keep together, and when the arm
failed the heart would still abide |
in the old, beautiful strength and grace.
Z" And what did you see?' said, eagerly,
when friend went from our dale once |
over into the Lake country, and on his
return told me he had been to Words
worth's home. al saw the grand old |
man," he said, walking in his garden
with his wife. Very old he was-nearly |
blind, the people told me-but they
like sweethearts, they were so ten
der and attentive;'' and Miss Martineau
tells the same story, with the additional
particulars of near neighbor-how she
would miss him and trOt out to find him
find him, perhaps, asleep in the sun, run
for his bat TO shade his face, tend him and
watch him; and so it was that when he
died they dug his grave deep enough for
both, and when she died they were one
In the dust as they were one in heaven,
and had been on earth for over forty years.
The world came to him at last but the
wife at first. Worse and worse" JEFF
frey said in his review, when IA new poem
came out. g Better and better" said the
wife, sitting on the green bank The
world might scott the wife believed Sho