Mexico weekly ledger., 1897-01-21

A Letter From N. R. Pittman.

among Dioomlng HoWerS OF Southern
Florida delights and refreshes me in
January. A week ago when I left
Mexico a winter storm with brush of
icicles was making traceries like
labyrinthine embroidery on the win
dow panes. The contrast of that
weather with this at Tampa suggests
to me the extremes of experience
which mark even our ordinary and
commonplace human lives.
There on the Goth of December at
nine O'Clock at night l stood in the
First Baptist Church encompassed
with all the suggestions of life and
joy and home. Electric fountain was
playing among bowers of flowers.
Wealth and beauty and youth were
there. The gates of love were open
ed by sweet little girls. Wedding
marches were played and wedding
choruses thrilled a great throng OF
happy people. In radiant youth, in
wealthful hope of the years to come,
in tender and beautiful love, William
q. Wilkins and Gaysena Yancey ap-
preached the marriage altar. stood
amid that scene of indescribable love-
Illness and joined them in marriage.
Before the day dawned stood in the
presence of death in my home. On
that same night "Mother" Smith
gentle, patient, noble sufferer-was
taken from her children, and the
bridal bouquet graced with infinite
fitness her tranquil bosom, for she
had gone to the great wedding sup.
per in the Unseen Holy.
And when the new year came with
its richness of hope and with its ap.
peals of memory, when the noon houl
of its first day was calling the hos
pitable world to refreshment, ,weplace6
the good woman's form in grave in
Mt. Mora Cemetery in st. Joseph by
her husbands grave, which was made
fifteen years ago.
The contrasts of icicles and roses
and of storm and calm are sometimes
vividly real in our eventfui lives.
Last winter Editor r. M. White
wrote of the charmfulness of Florida't
genial and sunshiny winter. / spent
a day in Jacksonville and three ol
four days at st. Augustine. attend.
ed the Florida Baptist Convention ir
the "Ancient City" 1 met many
people with whom I was we'll &C.
auainted. I made several of my
best speeches. I had five delightful
tours on a bicycle. I rode severa
miles along the seashore to Anastatis
lighthouse and South beach, and the
white foam of the tumbling sea now
and then would strike the rim of my
wheel and I fancied I could move the
pedals in harmony with the myster'
ious threnody of the ocean.
Mr.. White told me to visit the
Memorial Presbyterian Church in st
Augustine. This structure, costing
| over $500, 700, is the gift of multi
millionaire Flagier in memory Of hi
| daughter. 1 attended Eve services
last Sunday and one of them was il
| this curious and wonderful sanctuary
The preachers voice goes echoine
round and round. The First Baptis
Church in Mexico is not surpassed b,
any church for the purpose of speak
| ing and hearing.
/ am now at Tampa, a days rid'
southwest of st. Augustine. Herr
are $1,000 Americans and 10,00
Cubans. Here is the gateway t.
Havana. l heard a man the othe
day pray with tears and patheti'
pleading for the freedom of Cuba
There is in me bias towards givin.
a hand-a right hand-for Cuba Rbre
But I must turn my face northwart
in a day or two more and be in m.
pulpit next Sunday morning. 1 al
most wish / had Mexico down here
among the palms and roses, the treel
| with emeral crowns and the refresh
ing breezes that blow off gulf and sea
until April rains soothe flowers il
spring; and then and maybe befor,
| I'd want to move back to Missouri.
N. r. PITTMAN.