Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-14

it in gloom. If its occupant cherished GER
tain delicacies of taste and sentiment, somt
refinement of severity prompted him to ex'
clude all sign of them from this plain, bare
cell, and the only soitening touches were
supplied by his young daughters books
and needlework, which claimed place
among works of learning and appliances oi
study, as if with the fearless simplicity Of
their mistress.
The minister was busy at his desk, but
closed his books as the hour arrived for the
visit OF a convalescent stranger, who had
refused TO see him while she lay seriously i'll
at the house of one of his people, but had
lately sent him the message which he now
recalled.
His thoughts were still with his late oc-
cupation, a study of one of the penitential
psalms. rather than with the fortunes of his
unknown visitor. 1t was remarked that
Rev. Justin Anthon dwelt upon the peni-
tential side of the spiritual life with depth
and somberness of tone that plainly pointed
to some personal experience. The wretched-
ness of the sinner, the craving of the sinful
soul for renewed integrity, and the intensity
of that crisis which we call repentance,
were themes that he treated with a singular
fervor. Some urgency of his nature
seemed to direct him to the analysis of
the ethical problems involved in the
human relations that are implied in the
words repentance and forgiveness. He
did not hesitate to strip the idea of re-
pentance of much of its factitious value,
OF
ment, though charity may accept it as such.
While he bade his hearers bow to the de-
cree which announces that in the Divine
mind penitence is counted as the promise
and potency of righteousness, he arraigned
eyil-doers with somber energy that knew
no touch of tenderness, searching their con-
sciences with the stern warning that no
prayers, no tears may arrest the consumma-
tion ofyloiated law God and man NAV par
don the sinner, but perfect peace can never
be his, since restitution must remain incom-
plete, and over the past the Infinite Him.
self has no power. Forgiveness, he taught,
was the highest virtue attsinable by man,
since, in exercising it. he approached most
nearly to the serenity of Godhead, which
knows no wrong, no suffering. He sternly
held every soul amenable to the law of for
giveness, and to the duty of restoring every
penitent sinner to the place from which
he fell. His appeals and promises startled
by their literalness, and impressed his hear
ers with the sense that they might at anY
hour reach the unknown soul among them
to whom they must be rendered and in whom
they would finally arouse the fit response.
He lived with this soul; threw himself into
all its needs and shared its strivlngs and its
aspirations. Yet the charity and forgive
ness that he taught we're somewhat sternly,
though fervently, conceived. The words
were love, but the spirit was law. His peo-
pie noted these contrarieties, acutely per-
ceiving that their pastor preached as dis
cipline that which they could only practice
as love, if haply the hour of trial came to
them. They missed the touch of reality in
his grasp OF the problem, and OWNED that,
with all his searchings, the sentiment which
he inculated was not yet known to him in
its fullness.
Consciously or unconsciously, preachers,
in their most genuine utterances, are often
dealing with themselves; and their teach
ings are now and again seen in light that
reveals them as personal strivings.
Rev. Justin Anthon awaited his visitor.
Though a man of no forbidding aspect, he
was not one to whom guilt or Weakness
would confidently appeal. His features
were set in the lines of resoluteness that
spoke severity, If not harshness. But the
spirit of denial that furrowed the brow and
compressed the lips suggested an introverted
vision, and marked him as ascetic, not as
Pharisee. A pleasure-loving temperament,
Quick with the fullness of physical yigor;
had been slowly chilled into torpor. The
face was not one upon which an observer
would not naturally have looked for those
signs of austerensss and asperity that life
had deeply craven there. In the sharpen
ing of its contours, in the dulling of its
tints, it had become
A pale face that seemed undoubtedly
As If blooming face it ought to be.
A subtle force had been at work, refining,
intensifying, subduing, as some pious me-
dieval fashioner in marble might have
shaped the robust head of an antique Fau-
nus into a rude likeness of the suffering |
Christ.
The late afternoon light was wasting and |
paling when his visitor, worn and weak |
from her illness, entered and stood before |
him. For an instant they faced each other |
in rigid silence. His strained searching /
gaze met her presence, and their mutual |
was like the meeting of the
disembodied in a world of anguish. The /
mans strength failed him, and he sank into
his chair and bowed his face upoa his
hands. The woman fell on her knees before
him with a wordless sob.
Marian" he groaned, forcing himself by
q stern rally Of the will to meet the ewes of
his wife, "kneel to God"
81 have repented before nv God" she
pleaded; "all these years have prayed to
Him to forgive me. | have lived in prayer
and penItence, and His ministers have bid
den me 60 m peace; but, Justin, did not
dare, oh, not even when Law at the point
Of death, to ask your forgiveness.
She PrOund her DqlmS fnoatbar -, |
sion of despair, and her husband trembled.
while the dim room gathered blackness be-
fore his swimming sight. His drawn Inns
worked painfully in shaping themselves TO
ler name.
Marian, for these ten years the thought
IF this meeting has been with me in nv
ying down and in my rising up. Night
md day have lived with it. %
he shIvered in the grasp of deadly chill.
L knew you would come" he whispered,
loarsely.
Justin, Justin, for the love Of God for
i've me, she moaned. ''Ob, He was crueI:
lie would not let me die
Powerlessly, as if in dream, he formed
he words: II do forgive you:" and believed
hat he had uttered them; but no sound
cached her, and with a heavy groan she
,rovelled at his feet.
The action stung his sense of manliness.
nd he found voice in a call.
Rise up, Marion" he commanded. aI
orgive you, for God forgives us all. Have
not learned to forgive in these long vearsP
have tried to forgive him." he said, with
pallor. ''the man who tempted
ou. Where is hep" demanded the hus-
and, in louder tones, while his eyes trav-
led with unhallowed impulse to his fathers
word, that hung high on the wall. "What
lte has overtaken him?''
= A. I'D se Mol /