St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1894-04-12
GODS DEAREST GIFT.

age, wearing a last winters cloak
and a gown that had seen hard SER
vice. She pushed her way into the
crowded ladies' cabin of the ferry
boat, holding a great bundle in care
4 iul arms The seats in the ladies'
cabin are generally occupied by tired
men at six O'Clock in the evening,
and do not blame them very much
that they are frequently slow to
yield their places to women. l
would not blame them for their
monopoly of sitting room in the very
least were it not for the legend,
Ladies' Cabin" so conspicuously
posted over the door.
But the woman who carries such a
bundle as this one did, never has to
wait long for a seat in any public
conveyance. The bundle appeals for
her, and half-dozen men are ready
to offer her the courtesy accorded by
subjects to a queen. Young, old,
rich, poor, learned, ignorant. it is the
same. Over all these the baby is
king, and the baby and his mother
are treated with Difference, with at
tention, with kindness.
1t is a common thing to see a
pldIH luOIuSi SdII IlS HCl (uliO ia
her arms, but there was that in this
mothers face which lifted the occa-
sion quite out of the commonplace
and dignifed it as extraordinary.
The two, mother and infant, were
next to me, and, perfectly uncon-
scious of observation, the mother
looked into the face of her child. AS
she looked her own face became
absolutely ennobied by the glory of
her love. An xpression-rapt, in
tense, devoted, consecra ted-made
her features rarely beautiful. 1t was
to me as if the Madonna with her
babe were sitting at my side, and
presently grew aware of a curious
hush filling the air and making the
homely place a sanctuary. A young
man opposite. in evening dress with
flower in his button-hole, was
gazing at the little mother with his
heart in his eyes. Something very
sweet and tender was Juggling at
that mans memory. He would go
on his way fortified against tempta-
ton, strengthened in sincere purpose,
by that radiant glimpse into one of
heavens ante chambers-a true
mothers soul. A woman in deep
mourning was shading her eyes with
a tremulous hand as she looked at
the others armful of helpless sweet
ness. Had she carried such burden
once, and had the angel of death
taken it from her to find its wings
the sooner in the purer ether above2
Such yearning, such passion of long
ing, l have seen in the faces of
women whose children sleep under
the snow, or the daisies, and some
times in the faces of women who
have never borne babes.
Two young girls, returning from
their work in a factory, saw my
neiehbor and nudged one another,
with whispered comment, and an
elderly Scotch woman, with grand
mother written in every line of her
sensible countenance, nodded ap-
provingly and sympa thetically. She
understood how "a BARN moves
the mother to the very highest pitch
of ecstacy, especially when the BARN
is a hrst-b born, as this may have been.
To my thought there stole, as if
voice uttered them, some old, old
words from a Book that love: "a
woman when she is in travail hath
sorrow, because HOuI IS COInG,
but as soon a she is delivered of the
child, she remembereth no more the
anguish, for joy that man is born
into the world"
The boat bumped against the dock.
There was rattle of chains, the
hustle of men and women in haste to
land, but my Madonna, who had
never noticed the effect produced by
her presence, so absorbed was she in
her great happiness, went calmly on
her way, every one helping her,
every one keeping the crowd from
pressing too closely against the
precious bundle in 1.-The swaddling
Clothes" And thought, as have
a thousand times, of Gods dearest
gift to a home, the gift of a little
child. No treasure in bank or in
acres, in position or in acquisition,
can be compared with this for one
moment. 1t is life given of God, an
other soul born into Gods kingdom,
another hand to bear the torch of
everlasting love down the ages, and
Gods provision has chosen an earth
ly father and mother to be its
guardians. No honor so distinguish
ed as this, no duty so divine!
Yet there are mothers who shrink
from accepting this heaven-bestowed
gift. They are reluctant to assume
its obligations. They grid at the
confinement and the WEAKNESS it's
care will impose, or, faithless, they
count the cost in our dross OF dollars
and cents There are those who pity
the mother of large family, as
though she were not rich and blessed
among women, and envy the mother
whose one child is growing up a
solitary plant, though she is the one
to be pitied.
The large family has its many adj