The Mena weekly star., 1907-12-19

awful. Then the church bells rang
 and at the sound I aroused myself
 and said: Mason, I'm going to
 church. You are in pretty rough lshape for church. he replied. There were very few in the room
 when entered but within twenty
 minutes the immence auditorium was packed, for Dr. Darby was then
 in the heighth of his popularity and
 drew immensely. After the opening
 prayer mother arose t. sing her solo.
 This was my principal reason for coming but had no idea of what she was going to sing. She would, if possible, have avoided it after the mornings developments, but she had been announced in all the papers and nothing new had been rehearsed, so she must, perforce, sing what surely lacerated her soul at every word. As l have already told you 1t was the first time 1 had heard it. "At the first line, Where is my wandering boy tonight" the audi ence, who knew all the sad truth, was wonderfully affected.
 Mother did not dream that was present but supposed was yet in the hotel. All her gentle. patient. loving nature stood revealed in the painful moan of those first words. Oh how l hated myself for making it possible that she should sing those words from the heart! dropped my head in my hands and rocked like tree shaken by the wind. Every word struck deeper and deeper into my soul. began to pray. l asked God to forgive me for bruising that tender, loving mothers heart. l called myself an ingrate. matri- eide; for her tones impressed my incoherent brain with the thought that she was dylng.
 "The refrain, peculiarly composed as you know, gives the impression of a vail; and when she reached it a second time, l thought should shriek aloud.
 Then I remembered that 1 had sinned, not only against mother but against God. I asked his pardon and got it, just as she reached the last stanza:
 "Go for my wandering boy tonight,
 Go search for him where you will; Bring him to me with all his blight
 And tell him love him still. ,
 Then came the refrain:
 70 where is my boy tonight,
 o where is my boy tonight"
 "When she sang the second where with all the emphasis her genius, her longing, her mother heart could give it, the agony of her soul drew me to my feet and walked up the aisle toward her with my arms out stretched. Further words died on her lips. For the briefest moment, silence, then 1 sobbed like child, Here 1 am, mother.'
 How could carefully studied | melodrama have been better acted? Mother came hastily down the choir steps and folded me in her arms.
 Then Dr. Darby took one hand and father the other, and almost as one voice the congregation burst the doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow and think they sang it about ten times while they were shaking hands with me. All that was more than two years ago. l date a different life from that night. "
 But you have never heard the song under quite such dramatic cir cumstanceS, Harry.
 'I am not so sure about that. l heard my own words to my mother repeated last summer under vastly different circumstances, though per haps you will say they were as re- markable as what have juse related. |
 Last summer I was making a horseback survey in southern Ken lucky. A local preacher by the name of Logan was guiding me, and l was to stay at his home one night. Several days previous he had come upon a party of gamblers in the woods. His son, Thomas. was one of the members, but he had in- partially reported all to the grand | jury. They had heard of it and had | been in hiding ever since. With | Spartanlike determination he had l resolved that his son should suffer with the rest, but his wife was deep- ly grieved at the circumstance and felt indignant that father should immolate son in such way.
 After supper we sat in the soft June moonlight, and Mir. Logan