The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-12-20
The Pastors Christmas Eve

No one who stops for q moment 10 think
of IL, to look at the varying and suffering
human landscape doubts it's depths. One
Christmas eve, in the year, 1s9-, there
sat in cosy parlor good hearted clergy
man. and he drew for himself some strong
pictures of life as he read over the pages
OF his diary.
There was the little cripple boy "Joe";
how CHEEKY he seemed to make life, but
how hard il must be to hobble along on
that hard ciutch; how sore that shoulder
OF his n ust be, and how deep was the
sish. True, Joe seldom sighed, but when
he did SO, it seemed as II some cord
around his heart snapped. Tten there
was Joe's mother-a small woman, not
very bustling in her manner, and life
seemed very hard thing for her to
understand. There were two other child
rem, but they were too small to do any
thing. but eat, and annoy their mother by
pulling her apron, literally and figura-
lively holding her back in her fight with
poverty. Still those children, had they
been roses of the freshest hue, could not
have been lovelier things in their
mothers eyes, and well the man OF faith
knew 1t. Joe's whistle was a merry one.
You could not hear it without your blood
coursing in swifter way through your
veins. Did you hear it of q colder night
it seemed grander than organ music;
well might it, too. for it was the music
of the divinest symphony possible to
reach mortals, the harmony of a lovely
spirit in broken body. Its holy Joy was
grander than the music of the TIE Dsum
that Joe heard one Sunday when the
grand doors OF the Cathedral were open.
The lad was also a dreamer, and the hsr-
mony of his soul that bore forth at his
lips was the reflex OF his day dreams.
But there were dry orusts, and the
store windows looked 80 pretty; but more
beautiful were the stars, and from the deep
well Of his soul they shone as truth, and
though the prospects of gifts were few
there was a song in his heart happy as the
day was long.
Another home the pastor knew was
where an old scholar sat linking his days
away. Hard and cruel had been tie les
son OF life to him. The wealth of knowl-
edge had he won by toilsome study. The
deeds of nan in many chimes were as fa-
miliar TO him as the articles in the last
evenings newspaper TO the ordinary man.
The things men had accomplished and
what they had striven to do were ell at
his fingers end; to be counted as easily
as an accountant does the fingers on his
ledger. The proud bo castings of men had
fallen on his ears, ana he could calmly
weigh the differences between what was
accomplished and what had been prom
ised. The present, through its daily les
sons, seemed beyond him; he was watch
ing the clouds, and the common flowers
grew at his feet and he watched them
not. The beauty OF the season only made
his heart colder and he drew his coat
more firmly around him, lest some OF his
cynical feelings might be lost.
In still another home there was an old
lady sitting; the sands OF life had nearly
run their way out of the glass. Death
was slowly leading her home. For years
her gracious deeds of charity had made
the paths OF others brighter, and few
were there that the pastor knew that
sorrow visited without sne went in its
train as the corsoler.
White haired some said she was, but to
the poor it seemsn that the color was OF
silver, and that the next change would he
to gold, fairer than that of youth; for
the adornment was to be for another
world. The rosary OF her year was nearly
told, and the last Christmas had come,
were about to open where summer and
eternal youth were evermoro to be her
attendants.
Then, too, just within his parish wero
large tenement blocks. Oh, the squalor
and the poverty of them. DesoIation
seemed as great there as it could have
been in the days before the message Of
peace came to men. The poorest Of the
poor lived there, and very little could
they see OF the beauty of life. The kind.
hearted man knew the places we'll Bold
and strong as he was to speak to vice-to
tell IL, no matter how 1t was clothed,
that it was n danger to the worl6-yet in
its presence OF poverty his heart was
touched and the reprimand died upon his
lips.
There, too, was the great hospital where
oher poor ones lay faint and dying and
he knew, though the doctors gave differ
ent names to the diseases of the patients,
that lack Of nourishment, disapl lointments
that desden the heart but are not kind
enough TO kill, were the reasons why SO
many sought shelter there. That old man
who had told him the story % life of
rare purity and sorrow had 70 ccnsump-
tion sapping his life awayit was only
the Loneliness that loss of dear ones had
brought him.
That afternoon he had seen on the neat
tables near oil the patients beds beau.
tiful rose and the old man had told him
how the rose had ever been typical 10
him of the Ross of Sharon. ne who left