Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-05-29


charming in her earnest acceptance {
l life. Why should he not love her
e Why turn aside with shudder at Il.
S thought Of union with this command
= ing, peerless womanP This is why
r Horace Hays was child of God, stri
wing in every way to fulfill his hol
c commandments. living just lite, re
mote from the scoffer and denouuee
a of religion. Now could he take to hi
bosonia wife who would jeer and scoi
t at his sanctity, deride his belief ant
7. disdain his teachings? Ahl as mucl
: as he loved her. he loved his Redeemel
more. Religion was all she needed tc
make her, in his sight, truly perfect
but without 1t, her other charming
characteristics were warped and fear.
fully distorted. Her queenly intellect
was mutable and impious. Her fasci-
mating bearing was polluted with ir-
reverence. She was a creature with
her Makers image stamped beautifully
upon her, combining charity, sisterly
kindness and purity, but sullying the
whole by ungodliness, allowing the
stain of skeptieism to creep over her
radiant womanhood and subdue its
luster. She was cognizant of the fact
that frailpyrrhonism was gaining mon
archy over her being, yet sat listless
and unconcerned, making no effort to
stay its march. What if it did gain
possession" she thought, IF / am
earnest in my belief, just God surely
will not punish me for it. If He
placedgreatmen here to ferret out facts
that sieze on to my mind as truth, it is
lie who gave; | receive, and punish
ment then surely would not be just,
and His disciples invariably give Him
that appellation." She considered
herself slender tool in His hands and
power, to work for good or evil. She
attributed none of her shortcomings to
herself Twas her Makers work. He
fashioned, planned and gave her; now
He could guide her through this weary
vale of tears. That was her doctrine,
if supreme being created her; and
if she sprang into existence by chance,
nature was her god, cosmology her re-
ligion. She would have fain believed
chance her maker. If that was so,
she might live again in ages far remote,
when the wheels of civilization had
rolled steadily on and made the earth
a more desirable tenting ground for
wandering waits than when she had
previously existed. True, life had ills,
but they could be excused with the
hope of living fifty years every two or
three centuries, and perhaps in some of
her successive livings she might meet
with more cOngenial spirits and more
learned philosophers than her country
and age now afforded. Thus she would
reason to herself until her brain grew
dizzy and reason faltered with her vast
speculations. She had no definite
creed, no distinct doctrine. She was
experimenting with systems of prinei-
pies, coquetting with logic She firmly
anticipated, later in life, to establish
her an unerring belief, and to walk ac-
eordingly without variance, but now,
with the vista of sunny years before
her, she toyed with their confrma-
tions. She was an earnest, inyestigat-i Z
ing woman, and she sickened at the
sham christians OF her day. Women,
whose hearts were callous and indiffer-
ent, she saw kneel meekly at their
seats, clothed in robes of righteous
ness. Men who would not scruple to
cheat their neighbor, fawned upon
their pOmpous minister, paid him lib
orally, and were accepted as immacu-
late. She saw deacons, holy and con-
secrated, who could not have repeated
a passage of scripture through without
getting 1t intricately mixed with stocks
and bonds, tobacco and traffic. Wo-
men, likewise, who on their return
from church undertake to give the
text: "i'Judge not, that you be not
Oh, John, nayy-blue is all the style
Well, that was an excellent sermon
to-day, did you notice that beautiful
ostrich plume on Mrs. IS bonnet?"
These pretending christians disgusted
her by their fallacy, they who, beneath
this moeking gauze of reality, possess
ed tyrannical, unwomanly hearts.
Ruth's recovery was measured and
tedious. Six weeks later, as she arose
and dOnned a bright wrapper, she
looked like ghost OF her former self,
so thin, so pale and 50 waxen-like. The
fresh bloom had paled from her cheeks,
leaving in ITS stead siekly pallor.
The once superbly developed figure
was shrunken into slightness. the
matchless bright curls had been clcse-
ly cut, and now elung in bewitching
amber ringlets around the transparent
brow, the grecian profile was sharpen
ed by suffering, but the eyes were ua-
changed in their fearful liquid bright
ness. She walked to the window and
looked out, but all how changed was
nature. Autumn's bright glories had
paled away, the maple that she last
saw crowned with crimson was now
draped in dead white, the snow lay
heavily on all objects. II is certainly
an impartial visitor. 1t drapes alike
the giant oak, and Insignificant pebble
in its spotless mantle. 1t falls pity
ingly upon an unsightly object as If to
hide its imperfections, and laughingly
upon beautiful one to make 1t yet
more lovely. 1t goes into busy cities
and lays its purity on the diugy walks |
to be trampled underfoot by the null
titudes. Again, as if seeking silence,
il steals into the forest and drapes all
things in its bright, glistening beauty.
Oh the snow, ~the beautiful snow
| do not marvel that you inspired with
rapture the soul of the gifted FaxOn.
| H;s tha,na waa admirably worthv of