The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-02-06
CLARA's QUESTION.
BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.

Clara King laid down her Bible on the
stand, and looked out of the window. 1t
was the 1st day of November, and dull,
cold rain filed the streets with mud;
few Irish women were on their way to
early mass, and here and there a brown
sparrow hoped about looking for his
food; otherwise there were brick walls.
The outlook was not pleasant. Clara
was teacher in one of the city schools,
working hard week days, so hard that
occupation kept her from thinking that
her father and mother and sister all lay
in Falmouth graveyard, and what other
relatives she had less near and dear were
scattered far and wide. But this was
Sunday; and as she finished her morning
reading and looked out of the window,
while she waited for the bell to ring for
breakfast, she could not help dreadful
sense of loneliness settling down on her
heart. It is true there was q Bible full
of comfort before her, but she was tired,
lonely, chilly, and the day was all gloom.
She remembered it was November, the
month of Thanksgiving, and before her
rose like vision the cosy, warm kitchen
at her old home, her mother making pies
at the cross-legged table, father filing
the brick oven-always heated for that
festival use-with long wood shavings;
Matty dressing up the sitting-room with
bitter-sweet and ground pine, while she
herself pared apples, strained squash OF
stirred the cranberry sauce on the stove,
and without the sea sparkled and ,roared
close by, and the low cedars on the
Point rustled and writhed in the keen
wind. Then she had found the old red
house small and inconvenient, and
longed to get away to see more people
nd live lncc OF nd
life; now she would have given anything
she could give to be back there with
those three again. She would have no
Thanksgiving this year; she must stay in
her cheap boarding house, spend the
long day in her chilly room or the dark,
squalid parlor below, and have no ray of
light from past or future to be faithful
for. Nevertheless, Clara was and meant
to be Christian woman. The flesh is
weak many time when the spirit is
willing, and she had not learned the last,
greatest lesson of the Christian life
that we life by daily bread alone; that
even heavenly mamma did not provide
for the morrow's food, only for to-day.
She had been reading the first four
Psalms, and out of them but one clause
of a verse remained with her:
Who shall show us any good?"
She heard this over and over with
curiohs persistency; thinking of what
stretch of hard, lonely work, homeless
old age, a death among strangers. Bit
ter tears rolled down her pale face as she
entertained this spectral trouble, and
pittied herself SO earnestly for that which
as yet was not here. There are thousands
like her, poor child, thousands who bor-
row trouble, millions beside who have it
without borrowing! but of these last she
did not think
Strangely enough, the minister who
preached that day in the church she ba-
~bitually attended, took for his text the
very line that haunted her. He ac-
knowledged that this was common
query among the unhappy of this world,
brt went on to say:
eff we cannot really find any good
which is a proposition I do not mean to
dispute, since a person in the state of
and unwilling, both, to see goodness,
even if it were found for them-let us
look for evil. There is enough of that ly-
ing about us in every path; we are not
any of us, sall alone unhappy though
we are apt to think SO. If there is soul
in this assembly which has never asked
this question in bitterness of spirit, then.
oh, dear soul! let me beseech you this
very day to begin and see what evil you
can find beside your own, to keep it
company. Go and measure your sorrows
by your neighbor's: put plummet and
line to next door or next room miseries,
and find out where in the scale of human
wretchedness you stand. It . is real
comfort to the mind of man to define and
establish its position. If you are once
aware of evil, you can do something to-
wards its mitigation, and your own bit
ter experience will help you to sympa-
thize with others, it may be to help |
them; though that is scarce to be expect
ed from one who disbelieves in good.
This is good day to begin; it is almost
time for the feast of Thanksgiving, and |
you who are not thankful, since the day
gives you no occupation, ought at least |
to discover. others who are also unthank- |
full, and tell them how much less their |
sorrows are than yours. If you are
Christians, or think you are, go and
preach to them these bad tidings of trib-
nlation, and see what audiences you will
I 4 ,<.k