The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1898-04-15
NATURES CHURCH.

IL nupponeu many springs akO'
Half life time and half . CONT
nent lie between that time and
place and the present, and yet,
with the first warm days Of
spring. the memory of it rises in
the mans mind as the sap rises
in the trees. and with it comes
the same longing to run away
from set forms and ceremonials,
and let his soul play truant. He
WAS then only little freckle-
face country boy. living in little
country town, and had been
brought up after the strictest
sect of the Pharisees. Every
Sunday morning, with scrubbed,
shining Sunday face and Sunday
clothes that made him the most
miserable little sinner alive. he
was marched to the ugly, bare,
white village meeting house. y
and there sat like Patience on q
monument through the long dull
sermon. No bicycle had then
been devised to lure people down
howery lanes instead of up church
aisles. 1t would not have been
held respectable. Everybody
went regularly to church, except
the village tramp and outcast.
The boy never knew how he
summoned up enough courage to
do it, bat one Sunday morning
he played truant and spent the
long, happy day in the heart of
the woods. 1t was the spring
calling to hint was a siren
tempting with mods ard becks,
and wrea1hed smiles, and he fol.
lowed her. He knew well enough
it was wrong-that he should be
found out and punished for 1t !;
but he only set bis little, square,
childish chin and his soft, little
mouth, and went on. 1t was so
beautiful. The faint green of the
trees met overhead, a little brook
ran by, laughing as it went /; the
flowers sprang up to greet him as
he passed. The boy had never
been told anything about imagin-
alton. but pretty soon he began
to fit the scenes about him to the
scenes he had left, and to weld
them together in his family. He
had been reared on Bible texts,
and he wondered which one the
preacher would take to-day. Just
above his head, where he lay on
the grass, bird had built her
nest, The mother bird vas cir
cling about it with soft cooling
and twittering. Faint cries an.
swered her. and within the nest
tiny uatledged birdlings stretch
ed their Intellectual wings and
tried to fly. Presently one fell
to the ground. within an inch Of
the boys hand. The old birds
twittering turned to a tone of
piteous entreaty. The little yell
low nesting seemed the most
useless. the slightest thing in all
the great world; yet the boy soft
ly rose and placed it safe once
more within the shelter of the
nest, and, as he did SO, it seemed
to him that he had new and IL
Illuminating sense of Gods tend
erness and the power that does
not permit even the sparrow to
fall to the ground unheeded. On
and on he wandered. Once he
saw a tree SCARED and riven by
lightning, about which vine had
wound tender arms of green, and
he saw that where the storm had
swept the little valley the flowers
we're already raising up their
heads, and it came to him that
1.-The bruised reed he will not
break" There was a kind of
reverent awe upon him, and it
seemed to him that in every up
land field, where the green of the
young spring was triumphing
over the dry and dead stubble of
the winter, that he saw the mira
Gle of the resurrection taking
place before his very eyes. 1t
was almost dark when he reach
ed home, and when they asked
him where he had been he said
that he had been to church. 1t