The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-01-04


large. The beautiful ancient ballad of
THE Marriage of st. Gawain' describes
how the cavalier of old took to himself
in marriage a hideous woman called the
''loathly lady" merely because no one
else would marry her. AS soon as the
'loathly LADY, was welded she imme-
diately changed into a bride of the most
winsome lovliness, because-so goes the
story-that marriage ring was able to
enchain a malignant enchanter who had
been cursing her life heretofore. Alas
The Marriage of Sir Gawain'' has been
reversed in many of our lives. Most of
us came forth fair and beautiful from a
Christian mothers nursery. Fair and
beautiful though we once were, we ac-
cepted for our guide the proffered hand
of sin. Then in the sight OF God and all
heaven we became like the the '1oathly
lady," accursed by the evil past In
which we had lived No matter how pure
and bright our nativity may have been,
we have all sinned in the sight of God.
There is none that doeth good, no, not
one, not one The brightness of a gos-
pei sunrise has been darkened by the
stormy clouds of a sinful midnoon.
The Lives of Others.
The hero of each tale, whether fictitious
or no, has his life entwined in the ex-
istence of many other lives. We find
this thought best illustrated In Wilkie
Collins Dead Secret or mo Name or
THE Woman in White" or of Anna
Katharine Green's "Leavenworth Case"
or of Conan Doyles famous and strange
wanderings of Sherlock Holmes. These
and similar authors we read not for their
epigrammatic sayings, as we do the writ
ings of William M. Thackeray, but we
read them for the deft way in which they
dsentangle the snarled skein of human
plot. No sooner are their chief charac-
tiers born than the authors let them
worm their way through intricate and
weird surroundings until at last they
lead them to the marriage altar, or, IL
the story be tragedy, into the gaping
mouth of an open grave. Some one Ian
Maclaren to task for creating so many
dissolute characters in his books. The
author of Bonnie Brier Bush" answered
Man. how can L help creating so many
dissolute characters? After my charac-
tiers are once born they live their own
lives and do whatever damage they
please. Some Of them will get drunk;
some of them will lie and steal; some Of
them will break their loved ones hearts.
My characters, after they are once born,
dominate me. l cannot control them.
Every true story of life must repre-
sent 1t as mixed up In the lives of many
others. This is always so. You may
have seen in some art gallery a picture
of Three Parcea," the fates that are
supposed to decide the destinies of every
man. Clotho is there pictured as q
beautiful woman, holding the birth spin
die out of which the thread of life Is to
be drawn. Atropos Is a mans life to be.
Lachesis is an Old bag, with a pair of
sharp shears cutting that thread and
making an end of that mortal life. But
l want to remind you today that In the
story of life every mans life Is entwined
in other lives. Before that thread is cut
1t passes into the worlds loom, among
and around other threads, adding its
textile strength to the warp and wool.
In the nursery the fates are not alone
the three in the picture, but a multitude
which are weaving that thread. What
mother does may decide to a great ex-
tent what her children will do In the
dining room there are more than three
fates influencing the lives of young men.
What the father does may decide what
his boys may do. A wifes position upon
the temperance question may decide
whether or no her husband shall die of
delirium tremens. The tale Of human
life is a plot in which the happiness of a
mother, a father brother, a sister. a
wife, a child, friend, may be dependent
upon the purity and the nobility of one
man. When the heart OF the old oak Is
eaten out. not only does the mighty tree
fall, but also all the clinging vines which
have clambered UP the sides of the tree;
all the birds nests in which the feather
ed mothers have laid their eggs; also, all
of the leaves which are kissed of the
sunlight and are rustlinG with joy. In
the story of life. when the hero does
wrong, it brings disaster upon every life
with whom that hero comes in touch.
Our lives are all intwined with other
lives.
The Lights and Shadows.
Every tale. whether fictitious or no,
has its depressions as well as it's eleva-
lions. 1t has its disappointments and
heartaches and sorrows, and often Its
graves, as well as it's Joys and reunions
and happy marriage affairs. 1t has Its
dark nights and quicksands and preci-
oices and often its murderers and high
waymen as well as its cities of refuge
and gardens of Eden and Utopias and
rescuers and, If l might reverently use
the word, it's saviors or redeemers 1t
may have its Frankensteins, its Wan
dering Jews and its merciless Javerts
as well as its Bishop Myriels and Its
Jean Valjeans and its Christians and
its Eternal Cities" 1t has always been
so. An auditor would not sit hour after
hour as the ancients used to do, lis
old if lights and shadows had not con-
tinually chased each other across their
fictitious heavens.
But. though every story, whether fic-
titous or no. may have its ups and
downs, yet the general rule is, the great
err the danger and the blacker the sorrow
and the more overwhelming and immi-
nent the threatening destruction the
nearer is the appearance of the deliverer
the saviour or the redeemer. 1t is when
all hope seems to be forever gone that
we are relieved by the entrance of some
character who Is able to chase away the
black winged demon of despair and lead
forth the white robed angel of hope You
may remember an illustration of this
rule in Lord Lytton's famous historical
novel. THE Last Days of Pompeii."
While old Mount Vesuvius was writing
in agony and belching forth reservoir
of burning lava and while the heavens
We're raining a tempest of fire and the
midday was as black as the darkness of
the Egyptian plague did not the blind
girl Nydia take her lover by the hand
and lead him forth out of the doomed
city, out past the Roman sentinel who
stood by the gate, preferring to die
rather than to desert his post, out to
the blue waters of the Mediterranean, in
which there was safety? Is not this
statement true of the beautiful story Of
Dickens Tale of Two Cities" or of
SCOTS "Ivanhoe." of Coopers path
finder" of Shakespeare's king Lear
and true of almost any of the works Of
the ancient story writer's as well as the
stories written by the authors of the
present day?
So general is this rule that the psalm
let may have had II In mind wha, ba