The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-11-07
II.
Here are two pictI1re,

Here are two pictures:
In the Jetfries house there is a mild
hammered man sitting with is head in his
hands. suffering i'll silent agony He
thinks that the world has used him badly
Nothing has prospered with him. Crops
have promised but have not fulfilled. FAe
has touched his buildings and left them IN
ashes. The fire of the Sky has snitten
his fields, and wthered and dried the
plants growing thereon. The interest of
the mortgage has eaten his substance.
His wife has deserted him and gone with
an uglier mana man no more fortunate
than he had been. one of the children
died after his wife left. Susie, poor girl
or the cares and responsibilities of ma
turity, have been too suddenly thrust upon
her and the heavy load had we'll nigh
crushed her, before she partly recovered
from the weight of it and the shame of i,
Partly recovered; she did not recover en-
trely.
a summer has come again and another
harvest has been passed since the woman
fed. 1t has been poor harvest, with a
small price for its results. The mort
Sagee has not been hard; he has in fact
abated q portion of his interest and has
made long renewal of his loan. There
is no fault on the part of the mortga gee.
But the debt has not been reduced and the
security has been increased until there is
nothing on the farm that it does not have
and hold, subject of course, to the de-
fault which may be made.
Poor Peter Jeffres. sitting disconsolate
i'll the home which the wife had deserted,
thinks nothing of the compensations of
life. The compensations which he has re-
ceived for his misery.
The acuteness of suffering he feels. The
barb in his soul rankles there and breeds
venom The blood of his brain is dark
colored and does not make healthy
thoughts
There is con1pensation thouph. II never
fails The good and the bad. shading and
mlnSiinS like the rays of the spectrum,
are present in every life. And there is a
just balance of them, somewhere.
How blind those animals called men.
How blind is this mortal, Peter Jeffres
Does he not see a figure at the window,
silent, looking out expectantly? VIII he
not look at that figure-the form of his
oldest daughter? Is he afraid that the
spirit Of her mother is within her? Why
will he not look at her-and take comfort ?
Alas, he sees her not. Wrapped within
himself his thoughts are continually of his
nl!sfortunes. The bad harvests he sees.
The increasing burden of debt he feels
there is regret for the wicked, fleeing
woman who has deserted him and the
children.
But, nevertheless, though Peter Jeffries
regards it not, there is a good girl stand
ing at the window.
And for such treasures as this a price
must be paid This is the law of compensa-
ton.
In an Eastern city. at the top of a tene-
ment house. in room poorly furnished, a
woman sits at a table wherein ARE spread
writing materials. The woman is writing
She is showiy dressed in garments suggest
ed by vulgar taste. She seems good natured
ard happy. Mrs. Bryant. this woman calls
herself She is engaged in what she calls
reform work. There is a great hulking
fellow in ill-fitting clothes who appears to
be her husband. He is at least her compan-
ion. She has great labor to keep him pre-
seHtable. Jack Bryant has been so long
disreputable that it is hard for him to keen
up the semblance of dec5ncy. Only the SEM
blance is striven for. Decency itself is not
attempted.
This precious pair join with the others in
melting idlers against the prudent. There
arr meetings of the tramps the dissolute
the Idle, wherein there is a sprinklng of
the men who would work if work was not
hard to get, if the country was not in the
throeS of q panic.
Does the woman feel remorse? Not yet
The novelty of her evil doing is yet pres
ent. Maybe she has convinced herself thai
she is really a reformer. The human mind
is often controlled and dominated by evil
which appears to the one under control to
be good. There is such a narrow, dim, I'M
certain line between sanity and insanity
that we can say of these cranks charitably,
they have passed over the line and are no
longer to be counted among the sane peo-
pie.
"A the farm there is Peter, smarting and
wrthing under his handicap. There are
the children, growing into forgetfulness of
their mother.
There is Susan. clear headed, pure heart
Cd a lily growing out of dung heap; Su-
san the good. the controlling divinity of a
family which would be wrecked but for
her careful pilotage; growing prematurely
old perhaps; growing bitter against certain
popular doctrines that assert as truth the
lie that all men and women are equal that
vice deserves as much as virtue, that indi-
vidualism is to be crowded out, and in its
stead there is to be a commune of medioc-
rity. a dead level of a world without salt
to save it and not worth the saving
Poor girl, she will bear the handicap we'll
She vii not curse her mother, but the clon-
ditions the vile TEACHINGS the noisan ot