Connecticut western news., 1900-06-07

her from her fathers home promised love and kindness and protection, yet nothing but sympathy and prayers and forgiveness before they are asked for; no bitter words when the family Bible goes for rum and the pawnbroker's shop gets the last decent dress. Some day, desiring to evoke the story of her sorrows, you say, Well, how are you getting along now?" and, rallying her trembling voice and quieting her quiv ering lip, she says, Pretty well, I
 thank you; pretty we'll" She never
 will tell you. In the delirium of her last sickness she may tell all the other secrets of her lifetime, but she will not tell that. Not until the books of eter nifty are opened on the throne of judg ment will ever be known what she has suffered.
 True Charity.
 Oh, ye who are twisting a garland for the victor, put it on that pale brow. When she Is dead, the neighbors will beg linen to make her a shroud, and she will be carried out in a plain box with no silver plate to tell her years, for she has lived a thousand years of trial and anguish. The gamblers and swindlers who destroyed her husband will not come to the funeral. One car riage will be enough for that funeral one carriage to carry the orphans and the two Christian women who presided over the obsequies. But there Is flash, and the opening of a celestial door and shout, Lift up your head, la cfi fl lot iny' And Christ will step forth and say: Come in! Ye suffered with me on earth, be glorified with me in heav- en-" What Is the highest throne in heaven? You say, "The throne of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb." No doubt about 1t. What Is the next highest throne In heaven? While I speak 1t seems to me 1t will be the throne of the drunkard's wife, If she with cheerful patience endured all her earthly torture. Heroes and heroines! find also in this roll the heroes of Christian charity. We all admire the George Peabodys and the James Len oxes of the earth. who give tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to good objects. But I am speaking now of those who, out of their pinched pow erty, help others-of such men as those Christian missionaries at the west,
 who proclaim Christ to the people, one of them, writing to the secretary In New York, saying: "I thank you for that $25. Until yesterday we have had no meat In our house for three months. We have suffered terribly. My chill dren have no shoes this winter" And of those people who have only half
 loaf of bread, but give piece of 1t to others who are hungrier, and of those who have only scuttle of coal, but help others to fuel, and of those who have only a dollar in their pocket and give % cents to somebody else, and of | that father who wears a shabby coat and of that mother who wears faded dress, that their children may be we'll appareled. You call them paupers or ragamufflns or emigrants. I call them heroes and heroines. You and I may
 not know where they live or what their name Is. God knows, and they have more angels lowering over them than you and I have, and they will have a higher seat in heaven. They may have only cup of cold water to give poor traveller or may have only picked a splinter from under the nail of child's finger or have put only two mites into the treasury, but the Lord knows them. Considering what they had, they did more than we have ever | done, and their faded dress will be- come white robe, and the small room will be an eternal mansion and the old hat will be exchanged for coronet of | victory, and all the applause of earth
 and all the shouting of heaven will be drowned out when God rises up to 1 give his reward to those humble work l CTS in his kingdom, and to say to them, | "Well done, good and faithful serv- | ant"
 l The Most Deserving.
 l You have all seen or heard of the ruins of Melrose abbey. I suppose in some respects they are the most ex- l quisite ruins on earth. And yet, look | ing at 1t, I was not so impressed-you
 may set 1t down to bad taste, but
 was not so deeply stirred-as was at a | tombstone at the foot of that abbey, the
 tombstone placed by Walter Scott over
 the grave of an old man who had serv- ed him for good many years in his house, the inscription most significant,
 and defy any man to stand there and read 1t without tears coming into his l eyes-the epitaph, "Well done, good and faithful servant" Oh, when our | work Is over, will 1t be found, be- | cause of anything we have done for
 God or the church or suffering human | ity, that such an inscription Is apprp- priate for us? God grant it!
 Who are those who were bravest and
 deserved the greatest monument-Lord | Clayerhouse and his burly soldiers or
 John Brown, the Edinburgh carrier,
 and his wife? MT. Atkins, the perse-
 cuted minister of Jesus Christ, in Scot
 land, was secreted by John Brown and
 his wife, and Claverhouse rode up one
 day with his armed men and shouted
 In front of the house. John Browns | little girl came out. He said to her.
 Well, miss, Is MT. Atkins here?' She
 made no answer, for she could not be-
 tray the minister of the gospel. "Haw
 Claverhouse said. "Then you are a chip
 of the old block, are you? I have
 something in my pocket for you. It Is
 a nosegay. Some people call 1t a
 thumbscrew, but I call it nosegay."
 And he got off his horse, and he put 1t
 on the little girls hand and began to
 turn 1t until the bones cracked and she
 cried. He said: Don't cry, don't cry.
 This isn't a thumbscrew; this is a
 nosegay." And they heard the child's
 cry, and the father and mother came
 out, and Claverhouse said: "Ha, it
 seems that you three have laid your
 holy heads together, determined to die
 like all the rest of your hypocritical,
 canting, sniveling crew. Rather than
 give up good Mir. Atkins, pious Mr.
 Atkins you would die. I have a tele-