Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-01-13
A COUNTRY MYSTERY.

| Correspondence OF the Journal Of Commerce.
NEW YORK, November, 1891.
! II have seen it three times, and am sure
it was no fancy. 1t must have been a
ghost.''
So said the dear old lady, and she had
said it go often that people believed, with
her, that there were at times supernatural
| appearances around the old church and
graveyard. She was not given to faDcies.
Quite the contrary, she was practical,
sensible woman who had lived along life on
the comfortable farm she, an only child, had
| in her youth inherited from her father, A
person of more than ordinary mental ability.
full of all gentleness, esteemed by all the
people, and much loved by all The young,
knowing more about farming, and about
| many other objects than any other person
| in tho township, she commanded respect
for what she said. And this respect was
perhaps confirmed by the fact that the old
minister, whom all venerated, felt and was
accustomed to show the highest apprecia-
tion Of her ability and her advice. While
all were her friends, and she proved in con.
stant ways that she was neighbor to all,
she looked to him with peculiar affection
and trust. For he was grown man, pas
tor Of the people, when abe was child, aud
he had bsen herr faithful counsellor in all
her life.
No one could answer the question, some
times put by strangers, never by residents,
"Why did Aunt Mary Robbins never mar
ry?" Sometimes the reply WAS given,
Perhaps the minister could tell. He Knew
her when she was girl" But the minis
ter was never asked.
Her house stood at the foot of the hill on
the road side. As you passed it, going
westward, you began to ascend gentle
slope for few rods, then somewhat more
abruptly to the top of the eminence. Here
a road crossed the main road at right an
giles. On an open space in the northw est
angle stood the church. Behind it was the
graveyard. There was group Of young
trees, just in front of the door, but other
wise no tree OK bush, not fence, nor stone
wall On the hill, except the old stone wall
behind the church around the graveyard.
The hill was not very high. From the up
per windows of the farm house one could
see the crown Of the road passing on, and
the short grass which covered the ground
between the roadway and the narrower
wagon track which diverged to the church
door. If wagon came or went over the
hill it stood out against distant sky.
The church and the farm house were both
very old. Three generations of men and
women, more than three, had met for
worship every Sunday in that old meeting
house. Every one OF the earlier generations
was dead long ago. Most, perhaps all of
them, were in the graveyard. For in those
times there were not, as later, temptations to
move away, but the people lived contented,
if not happy lives, among their kinsfold ard
neighbors, and thought of no emigration,
except through the gate behind the church.
No, their lives were not always happy.
There are troubles and trials in sll lives,
and the country people have their full share
Of them. Every heart knows his own Bit
terness" because every heart has bitter
ness of his own. When you look over an
assembly Of people in city OR country
church you may be very sure that every one
you see has the memory of sorrow. Many
| are sOrrOwe Of which no one else ever knew,
| and all are sorrows whose magnitude no
| stranger ever measured. There are churches
and churches: / speak Of church buildings.
There are some churches in cities and In the
country, for which the people who attend
them have no more affection than for the
| theatres or the lecture halls they occasional
ly attend. This is because they have been
in the habit of going to them only to meet
some pulpit tslker, aud hear what he had
| to say about politics or the last news of the
dag, or his latest vagaries in religious sci-
ence. They have no other memories or as
sociations with them. There are other
churches toward which the hearts of those
who have attended them turn with intense
love. This is because they have gone there
to meet and have there met one to whom
| they have intrusted their innermost secret
sorrows and desires. The personal interest,
| the individual love which the Christian
| alone of all religions teaches as the chief
fssture of the relation of God to man, makes
the church the place where many bring
| their happiness and their grieff their pleas
ures and their pains, for thanks on the one
hand, for help and consolation on the other.
So the church becomes to many the holiest
place among all the places they know Of,
and life is not long enough to wear out the
force of the feeling that draws them toward
it.
Why moi? Docs it seem unintelligibls to
you! That is because it has never happen
ed to you to believe that you had met God
ard talked with him. II you did believe
it, you too would think the place forever
holy in which you had told him ycur secret
and had been sure he heard what you told
him and had helped you. Many and many
man and woman believed that he or she
had hsd such meeting in that old church.
Many had met Him there before going
through the graveyard gate to His country.
One autumn nightthere had been a husk-
ing frolic at the farm house near the church.
The piles Of golden ears were completed BY
the light Of blszing torches, and all the
company, old and young, had eaten Of the
bountifnl supper in the house, and after an
hour or two Of jollity, had gone home over
the hills and across the fields One last
wagon load of people stood in the light of
the full moon before the door, and the old
lady was rtE15iuc nv K ipishipx the otter.