St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-03-22

You're on heavy down grade, and the
brakes don't take hold. You'd better
enlist. It's your last chance. IF you
won't do it, jump into the river while
you're entitled to decent obituary.
That's my advice. Good-bye.n
And without waiting for word, his
friend passed on, leaving Mortimer to
recover from the shock and apply the
hard words alone.
"Rogers is brute," he said to him
self; ''but he tells the truth"
He went directly to headquarters and
enrolled his name in an outgoing reg
iment.
sThere's a little conspiracy among
my friends to get me shot," he thought,
"as the shortest cut out of this wretched
tangle called life. But there's no such
good luck for them. The worthless fell
lows bear charmed lives-and I'm heav-
lily insured in that liner
To the war he went, and made a
faithful soldier. But though he never
slirked duty, nor shrank from danger,
he felt no deep interest in the cause.
"I'm burnt-out man." he said to IA
comrade, one day: ''there's no sap nor
heart in me. Morally I'm punk, and
not sound wood"
"That Sewall has the stuff for a SOL
dier in him." said his colonel, "but he
bears paramount allegiance to-the
bottle: good fellow to everybody but
himself"
And so he went through the war
safe only when removed from tempta-
ton; as i'm .rovident, capriciOus, and
unstable as ever. But what the bullets
failed to do, exposure accomplished.
He was stricken with consumption, and
was mustered out of the army only to
face death in another form. ''And this
lOng-range shooting l despise," he said,
in his old half-jocular vein,-"why
couldn't l have been hit, and had it
over"
At the age of thirty-three Mortimer
Sewall went back to his old home to
die. AS he walked feebly up the we'll
remembered path, the sweet scent of
the bending lilacs, the shrill twitter of
the startled birds, the strange stiffness
of the somber evergreens, and the sud-
den hush that seemed to have fallen on
the air, all brought back that other May
day when he saw them bearing the
burden of what had been his father, up
the same winding path.
The trees were larger, and the house
seemed smaller than when he left his
home but the remembered face that
greeted him at the door, and tried to
veil its settled sorrow behind a welcOm-
ing smile, was the same. Years only
deepen the mother-lOok and it is
mother still when the spirit has imaged
itself in the dear dead face in last
smile, that looks from the coffin a calm
bcnediction.
~ thank God that he has brought
you safely home, my son." she said, 81
have been expecting you for many,
many yeals."
at is the best place to die, mother.
1t is the only thing l have prayed for,
fear, since l left you"
"Don't talk of dying until You see
what mothers nursing can do," she
answered, with an effort at smiling that
ended in pathetic failure, us she look
ed upon his wasting frame aud death
stamped features.
In the weary weeks that followed, the
returned prodigal considered seriously,
for the first time, the problem of life.
Propped upon pillows i'll Il position that
commanded IL view of the distant hills,
or wheeled in his easy chair into the
grateful sunshine, he would sit foI hours:
thinking, thinking, thinking, but saying
no word.
1t made the mothers heart ache and
yearn to watch him, but she was wise
enough to wait,-tO wait and to pray,
without intruding even her tender love
upon the sensitive, suffering soul, until
it called for help. There are some bat
ties that must be fought out alone
even Job did not curse God until his
''three friends" came ill-timed to COM
fort him.
"We'll talk it all over some day,
MOTHER" said Mortimer, us he saw her
anxious look sits SO different, find,
to face the record when you know the
books are about to be closed"
He was no coward, to shrink and
tlemble at the thought of any penalty
which might await him in the justice of
another world. He who fears justice
confesses Judgment, and if he have
capacity for suffering is already under
punishment. Mortimer was man en-
dowed by his Maker with strength and
courage for any fate that was inevitable,
here or hereafter. But as he surveyed
his past life it did not seem to have
been inevitable. He had been given
capacities wherewith to create heaven
for himself; and having wasted them,
the bitterness of unavailing regrets was
proving his torment.
"Only to think, mother, that [ am
thirty-three as old as Jesus was when
He died - he said, one day, "and what
have to show for it My life is spread
out like map before me. | can see
nothing else. The roads are all by
paths. | have made no progress on the
journey. l have done nothing that 1
can wish should last. l have gained
nothing that | would not lose. | have
missed getting all that now needw
With gentle urgency the mother
sought to turn his thoughts upward and
beyond, but with no avail. With his
mOurnful eyes, now so unnaturally large
and bright, fixed on vacancy, and his
wasted hands clenched together in the
intensity of his thought, he would con-
tinue his review. On vacancy as it
seemed to others,-but what did not
those wistful, troubled eyes see? The
first false steps of his life, and every
subsequent one all its folly, weakness,
waste and sin. What need, thought
he, to invent hell, fit only to trighten
children, if it can once be made real to
men: this retracing of every devious
way, this re-living of every wanton
hour, this rejection of offered good, this
rehearsal of a wasted life over and
over,-again and again,-perhaps for
ever! How empty seemed all the ser.
mons he had ever heard, how tame all
the hOmilies, how weak all the warn
ings, as he thus sat face to face with
death and his past
at is not remOrse that troubles me,n
he said, 81 have never willfully wronged