Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1899-12-28
BY
OLIVE
SCHREINER.
A TALE OF LIFE IN THE
BOER REPUBLIC.

l
the devil might leave us alone. There
presently he comes.
'Is 1t right there should be chosen
1 people? To him who is Father to all
should not all be dearT'
How can we answer him? We were
feeling so good till he came. We put
our head down on the Bible and blister
! it with tears. Then we fold our hands
over our head and pray till our teeth
grind together. Oh, that from that
spirit world, so real and yet so silent,
that surrounds us one word would
come to guide usi We are left alone
with this devil, and God does not whis-
/ per to us. Suddenly we seize the Bible,
| turning it round and round, and say
hurriedly:
SIT will be Gods voice speaking TO
us, his voice as though we heard it,
We yearn for token from the mex
orably silent One.
/ We turn the book, put gour finger
down on n page and bend 70 read by
the moonlight. 1t is Gods answer. We
tremble:
"Then IL years after went up again
/ to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took
/ Titus with me also"
For IN instant our Imagination seizes
1t. We are twisting, .twirling, trying to
make an allegory., The Ia wears are Ia
months; we are Paul, and the devil is
/ Barnabas; Titus is Then sudden
/ loathing comes to us. We are liars
| and hypocrites. We are irving TO de-
ceiye ourselves. What is Paul to us
1 and Jerusalem? Who are Barnabas
. and Titus? we know not the men.
/ Before we know we seize the book.
| swing 1t round our head and fling It
with all our might to the farther end
of the room. We nut down our head
! again and weep. Youth and Ignorance
/ lis there anything else TINT can weep
so? 1t is as though the tears were
drops of blood congealed beneath the
eyelids. Nothing else sis like those
tears. After long time we are weak
| with CRYING, and lie silent. and by
/ chance we knock against the wood that
| stops the broken pane. It falls, Upon
our hot, stiff face a sweet breath of
/ wind blows. we raise our head and
| with our swollen ewes look out at the
beautiful still world, and the sweet
night wind blows in upon us. holy and
gentle, like a loving breath from the
i lips Of God. Over us deep peace
comes. a calm. still joy. The tears
| now flow readily and softly Oh the
! unutterable gladness!. At last, at last,
we have found 1t! 1.-THE peace with
God" "The sense of sins forgiven"
/ All doubt vanished, Gods voice in the
soul, the Holy Spirit filling us! We feel
him, we feel him! o Jesus Christ,
through you. through you. this joy! We
press our hands upon our breast and
look upward with adoring gladness.
Soft waves of bliss break through us.
1.-THE peace with God, /" ."The sense of
sins forgiven" Methodists and reviv-
alists say the words, and the hooking
world shoots out its lip and walks by
smiling Hypocrite!"
| There are more fools and fewer
hypocrites than the wise world dreams
OF. The hypocrite is rare as icebergs
IN the tropics, the fool common as but
tercups beside water furrow. Wheth-
er you go this way or that you tread
on him. You dare not look at your
own reflection In the water. but you
see one. There is no. can't phrase, rot
ten with age. hut 1t was the dress of
a living body, none but at heart it sig
miles real bodily or mental condition
which some have passed through
| After hours and nights of frenzied
fear of the supernatural desire to ap-
pease the power above. fierce CULVER
ing excitement in every inch Of nerve
and blood vessel, there comes time
when nature cannot endure longer, and
the spring long bent recoils. We sink
down emasculnted. Up creeps the
deadly delicious calm:
II have blotted out as cloud thy
sins and as thick cloud thy tres
passes anil will remember them no
more forever"