The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1907-08-09
CHAPTER XIV.
How the World Did Not Come to
an End

the day when the earth should be
purified by fire, the wicked swept from
the land, and the lost tribes of Israel
restored to their own. Now was to
come the Son of Man who should
dwell in righteousness with men,
reigning over them on the purified
earth for thousand years.
He watched Che mild winter go,
with easy faith; and the early spring
come and go, with a dawning I'm.
eaSiness. For the time was passing
with never the blast of a trumpet from
the heavens. He began to see then
that he alone, of all AMAZON, had kept
his faith pure. For the others had
toolishly SOwn their fields, as if an
other crop were to be harvested,-as
If they must continue to eat bread
that was earth-grown. Even Prudence
had strangely ceased to believe as he
did. Something from the outside had
come, he knew not what nor how, to
tarnish the fair gold of her certainty.
She had not said so, but he OWNED it
when he shrewdly observed that she
was seeking to comfort him, to sup.
port his own faith when day after day
the Son of Man came not.
1T will surely be in another month,
Daddy-perhaps next week-perhaps
tomorrow" she would say cheerfully.
And you did right not to put in any
crops. 1t. would have been wicked to
doubt"
His hope lasted hardly until the
year ended. Before the time was over,
there had crept into his mind a con.
viction that the Son of Man would not
come; that the Lords favor had been
withdrawn from Israel. He knew the
cause.-the shedding of innocent
blood. They might have made war:
indeed, many of the revelations to
Joseph Disseminated even between
murder and that murder in which
innocent blood should be shed; but
the truth was plain. They had shed
innocent blood that day in the Mead.
ows. Now the Lords favor was with.
drawn and His coming deferred, per.
haps another thousand years. The
torture of the thing came back to him
with all its early cOlOring, so that his
days and nights were full of anguish.
lie no longer dared open the Bible to
that Redeemed page. The cries al.
ready rang in his ears, and he knew
not what worse torture might come if
he looked again upon the stain: nor
could he free himself from these by
the old expedient of prayer, for he
could no longer pray with an honest
heart; he was no longer unselfsb,
could no longer kneel in perfect SUBJ
he was wholly bound to this
child of her mother, and the peace of
absolute and utter sacrifice could not
come back to him. Full of unrest
feeling that somehow the end, at least
for him, could not be far off. he went
north to the April Conference. He
took Prudence with him, not daring
to leave her behind.
She went with high hopes, alive
with new sensations. Another world
lay outside her valley of the noun.
talns, and she was going o'peep over
the edge at its manifold destinations.
She had been there before as a child.
now she was going as a woman. She
the city, bigger and
grander than fifty Amalons, with mag.
nlficent stores filled with exotic nov.
elites and fearsome luxuries from the
land of the wicked Gentle.
More fondly did she recall two won.
derful evenings at the theater First
mad been the thrilling Robert Ma.
calre," then the romantic "Pizarro"
IN which Rolla had been a being of
SUCH overwhelming beauty that she
had felt he could not be of earth
And there were strange new faces
TO be seen, people surely of a different
world, of a different manner from
those she had known, wearing with
apparent carelessness, garments even
more strangely elegant than those IN
Lhe shop windows, and speaking in
strange, soft accents. She was told
mat these were Gentiles, tourists
across the continent, who had ven.
Iured from Ogden to observe the won.
1ers OF the new Zion. The thought of
me railroad was in itself thrilling. To
oe SO near that wonderful highway to
me land Of the evil-doers and to q
and, alas! of so many strange de.
lghts. She shuddered at her own
"lckedness, but fell again and again
and was held in bondage by the al.
urements about her. So thrilled To
Ter souls center was she that the
OF it hurt her, and the tears
would come to her eyes until she felt
she must be alone to cry for the awful
oy of it.
The evening brought still more to
endure, for they went to the play II
vas play that took her out of her.
'elf, so that the crowd was lost to her
rom the moment the curtain went nm
n obedience to little bell that tin.
lied mysteriously,-either back on tba
tage or in her. own heart, she was not