The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-26
THE WANDERERS RETURN.

The WANDERERS RETURN.
Twenty years ago he went away.
He left his village after having lost
what was most dear to his heart-his
wife and children-and he has suffered;
his heart is broken with sorrow; he is
very poor; his legs give way under the
fatigue of a-many years walk, and
the poor old silvery- haired man who
has become tramp, falls upon the
cold earth at the entrance Of the viii
lage where he was born and where he
shall die.
Oh, how cold it isl The Christmas
snow is falling in thick, numberless
white flakes, and the poor, suffering,
old man looks with an anxious ex-
preston of chagrin at the cosy CHM
neyS that send their capTiciOuS volumes
of black smoke towards the gray
heaven. He knows that in the houses
everyone is seated at the hearth, near
a nice, blazing fire; but everyone has
abandoned him; they know him no
more; and ne shall remain alone and
without friends, stretched upon the
white snow.
He should certainly go-would he
dare-tO rap at door, but if it was
opened to him, his old friends would
refuse to recognize him. He is so poor
and so changed; and, besides, are not
all of his relations dead? His wife and
children are no more. His friends?
He would have them yet if he had
wealth; but he is poor. Therefore, he
shall hade to do without anyone. Yes;
he is alone, all alone! All how cold
is the wide world, thus, without the
love of anyOnel
a.
About 80 years ago-Ohl how brilliant
that happy day seems to him as he
calls it back from the old past-he was
married in this very village with the
little Julia, a sanity woman, who pre-
scented him with three beautiful chill
dren- His joy were they. Well. these
poor babes! So pretty. they were too
good to live; and God, who has taken
pity upon them. has recalled them to
him, because he did not want them to
suffer long; and besides, their place
was in heaven! He can recall that
when they died, hallelujahs and hymns
of graces were sung in the church; but,
as to him, his heart was bleeding.
His good wife also, whom he had
known when a child, who had played
and grown UP with him, and who, later
on, had become his tender and adOred
spouse-she had left him as the others,
and she rests there, yOnder in the lit
tie graveyard of the village, under the
shadow of that huge. black cypress
that he can very we'll perceive from
this place where he is now sitting in
despair. All! he has often felt jealous
of God, who can see his wife and chill
dren every day, and he feels so now.
g @ g
How glad he should be to go back
to them! But God does not want him.
Has he, then, been wicked? But he
goes vain7y over his past life and seeks
in the depths of his conscience. He
cannot find anything wrong, and it
seems to him that they forget him
very long upon the earth, and that they
let him suffer without cause. Oh, Godi
how glad he would be to die and en-
brace again his dear, sanity Julia and
see his three angelsl
Poor old fellow! No. God has not
forgotten thee! He is watching in this
very moment over thee Thou hast
lived here, a life Of Indebtedness, but
in heaven thou shalt have thy ceIes-
tial recompense. Gomez The two
elected souls OF thy Julia and myself
viii remain for the ages to come.
Wrapped in an eternal embrace of love,
whilst thy three cherubs shall come
with their angelic wings, fan in eternal
bliss your two reunited spirits,
g 2 g
The Almighty's hand who foresees all
things, mortal and immortal, will upon
that Christmas eve, grant to this body
of thine, that thou leavest behind thee.
the most beautiful sepulture, the one
which he gives only to the elected and
the just; it is the snow-nantle, symbol
of Immaculate innocence, that he is just
now spreading upon thy remains that
can suffer no morei
@ e. g
A few days after, some children who
We're playing at snowballs discovered
the body of the old tramp, buried under
q thick layer of heavens white dawn.
God had not lied to him. He had in
his everlasting justice clad him in the
virgin mantle to give time to his old
friends to recognize him, now that he
was no more; and they carried him
into the cemetery OF the valley, close
to his dear ones sleeping there.
g @ %
Don't pray for him; he has no need
of it. The just are saved without
prayers! V. 3. DE LONG.