Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-06-05

hours pass away on glad feet. There is
nothing wanting in that home. Religion
! is there and sacrifices on the altar morn
I ing and night. You look in that house
| hold and say: Il cannot think of any
| thing happier. [ do not really believe
! the world is so sad place as some peo-
! pie describe it to be- The scene changes
! Father is sick The doors must be kept
shut. The deathwatch chirps dolefully
IN the hearth The children whisper
Ind walk softly where once they romped.
Passing the house late at night, you see
The quick CHANGING of lights from room
TO room It is all over Death in the
summer house!
THE DARK SIDE AND THE LIGHT.
Here is an aged mother-aged, but not
infrm. You think you will have the Joy
of caring for her wants a good while yet
AS she goes from house to house. to chill
dren and grandchildren, her coming is a
dropping of sunlight in the dwelling.
Your children see her coming through
the lane, and they cry, "Grandmother's
conner Care for you has marked up her
face with many a deep wrinkle, and her
back stoops with carrying your burdens.
Some day she is very quiet. She says she
is not sick, but something tells you you
will not much longer have mother She
will sit with you no more at the table
nor at the hearth. Her soul goes out so
gently you do not exactly know the mo-
ment Of it's going Fold the hands that
have done so many kindnesses for you
right over the heart that has beat with
love toward you since before you were
born. Let the pilgrim rest. She is weary.
Death in the summer house!
Gather about us what we will of COM
fort and luxury, when the pale messen-
ger comes he does not stopto look at the
architecture of the house before he comes
in, nor entering does he wait to examine
the pictures we have gathered on the
wall, or bending over your pillow he
does not stop to see whether there is a
color in the cheek, or gentleness in the
eye, or intelligence in the brow. But
what of that? Must we stand forever
mourning among the graves of our dead
No! No! The people in Bengal bring
cages of birds to the graves of their dead
and then they open the cages, and the
birds go singing heavenward. So Iwould
bring to the graves of your dead all
bright thoughts and congratulations and
bid them think of victory and redemp-
ton. stamp on the bottom of the grave,
and it breaks through into the light and
the glory of heaven.
The ancients used to think that the
straits entering the Red sea were very
dangerous places, and they supposed
that every ship that went through those
straits would be destroyed, and they
were in the l-abit of putting on weeds of
mourning for those who had gone on
that voyage, as though they were actu-
ally dead. Do you know what they called
those straits? They call them the 'tGate
of Tears" Oh, stand today at the gate
of tears through which many of your
loved ones have gone, and want to tell i
you that all are not shipwrecked that
have gone through those straits into the
great ocean stretching out beyond. ~
The sound that comes from that other
shore on still nights when we are wrap-sI
ped in prayer makes me think that the 4
departed are not dead. We are the dead
we who toll. we who weep, we who
sin-we are the dead. How my heart
aches for human sorrow! This sound of
breaking hearts that hear all about me!
This last look of faces that will never
brighten again! This last kiss of lips
that never will speak again! This widow
hood and orphanage! Oh, when will the
day of sorrow be gone?
AN INCIDENT.
After the sharpest winter the spring
dismounts from the shoulder of a south
ern gale and puts its warm hand upon
the earth, and in its palm there comes
the grass, and there come the flowers,
and God reads over the poetry of bird
and brook and bloom and pronounces it
very good. What, my friends, If every
winter had not its spring, and every
night its day, and every gloom its glow,
and every bitter now it's sweet hereafter?
If you have been on the sea, you know,
as the ship passes in the night, there is a
phosphorescent track left behind it, and
as the waters roll up they toss with I'M
imaginable splendor. Well, across this
great ocean of human trouble Jesus
walks. Oh, that in the phosphorescent
track Of his feet we might all follow and
be illumined!
There was a gentleman in the rail car
who saw in that same car three passen-
gers Of very different circumstances.
The first was a maniac. He was care
fully guarded by his attendants; his
mind, like ship dismasted, was beat
Ing against dark, desolate coast, from 7
which no help could come. The train
stopped, and the man was taken out into
the asylum to waste away perhaps
through years Of gloom. The second
passenger was a culprit. The outraged
law had seized on him. AS the cars
jolted the chains ratified On his face
were crime, depravity and despair The
train halted, and he was taken out to the |
penitentiary, to which he had been con-
demned. There was the third 11assen