St. Landry democrat., 1886-01-23

tits which leave you in doubt as to where
the humbug ends and the woman begins,
but an earnest soul, one that can not only
laugh when you laugh, but weep when you.
weep. There will be wide, deep graves in
your path of life, and you will both want
steadying when yon come to the verge OF
them, I tell you! When your fortune fails
YOU will want some one to talk of the treas
ures in heaven and not charge upon you
with bitter ~ told y GU So" AS far as
can analyze it sincerity and earnestness are
the foundation of all worthy wifehood. Get
that and you get all. Fail to get that and
YOU get nothing but what you will wish you
never had got.
Don't make the mistake that man of the
text made in letting his eye settle the ques-
ton in which coolest judgment directed by
divine wisdom are all important. He who
has no reason for his wifely choice except
pretty face is like man who should buy
farm because of the dahlias in the front
door-yard. Beauty is talent, and when
God gives it he intends it as benediction
upon woman's face. When the good Prin-
cess of Wales dismounted from
the rail train last summer, and
saw her radiant face, could
| understand what they told me the day be-
fore, that when at the great military hos
pital where are now the wounded and the
sick from the Egyptian and other wars the
Princess passed through, all the sick were
cheered at her coming, and those who
! could be reused neither by doctor nor
| nurse from their stupor, would get up on
! their elbows to look at her, and wan and
wasted lips prayed an audible prayer:
"God bless the Princess of Wales! Doesn't
she look beautiful"
! But how uncertain is the tarrying OF
| beauty in a human countenance. Explo-
| sion of kerosene lamp turns it into scar
! ification, and a scoundrel with the dash of
vitriol may dispel it, or time will drive his
chariot wheels across that bright face, cut
ting it up in deep ruts and gullies. But
there is an eternal beauty on the face of
some women whom a rough and ungallant
world may criticise as homely, and though
their features may contradict all the laws
of Lavater on physiognomy, yet they have
| graces of soul that will keep them attract
i've for time and glorious through all etern-
| ity.
| There are two or three circumstances in
which the plainest wife is queen of beauty
to her husband, whatever her stature or
profile. By financial panic or be-
| trayel of business partner, the man
goes down, and returning to his
home that evening he says: ~
am ruined; am in disgrace forever: l
care not whether live or die" It is an
agitated story he is telling in the house
hold that winter night. He says: "The
] $ba uo tho
social position must co." and from being
sought for obsequiously they must be cold
shouldered everywhere. After he ceases
| talking, and the wife has heard all in ST.
lence, she says: sis that all: Why, you
had nothing when married you, and you
have only come back to where you started.
If you think that my happiness and that
of the children depend on these trappings,
| you do not know me, though we have lived
together thirty years. God is not dead,
and the National Bank of Heaven has not
suspended payment, and if you don't mind
don't care a cent. What little we need
of food and raiment the rest of our lives
we can get, and don't propose to sit down
and NOPE and groan. Mary, hand me that
darning needle. And, John, light one of
the other gas burners. And, Jimmy, open
the register for little more heat. Fanny,
fetch your fathers slippers. l declare! l
have forgot to set the rising for those
| cakes!" And while she is busy at it he
hears her humming Newton's old hymn,
"To- morrow"
It can bring with it nothing,
But He will bear US through;
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe his people too;
Beneath the spreading heavens
No creature but is fed;
And He who feeds the ravens
] Will give his children bread.
Though vine nor fig tree either
Their wonted fruit should bear,
/ Though all the fields should wither
| Nor focks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice;
For while in Him contiding
| 1 can not but rejoice.
The husband looks up in amazement and
says: swell, well, you are the greatest
woman l ever saw. I thought you would
faint dead away when 1 told YOU" And
as he looks at her, all the glories of physi-
ognomy in the court of Louis XIV, or the
modern fashion plates are tame as COM
| pared WIFI tne supelAuAan oPA0Aot" ~
that woman's face. Joan of Arc, Marie
Antoinette and La Belle Hamilton, the en-
chantment of the court of Charles H., are
nowhere.
There is another time when the plainest
i wife is a queen of beauty to her husband.
She has done the work of life. She has
Ireared her children for God and Heaven,
ana though some of them may be little
/ via they win yet come back, for God has
| promised. She is dying and her husband
stands by. They think over all the years
j of their companionship, the weddings and