The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-02-20
"THE CIRCUIT RIDER's WIFE"

"THE CIRCUIT RIDERS WIFE,"
This weeks issue of the Saturday
Evening Post will contain the conclu-
sion of the story called THE Circuit
Riders Wife" It may be called a
story, because it relates a succession Of
incidents. But 1t is a great deal more
than that. It IS a human document of
more value than anything that has been
published by any magazine or paper in
the past ten years. The authors name
is withheld by the publishers; but the
authors talent cannot be concealed.
There IS an Episcopalian woman who
marries an enthusiastic and devout
young Methodist minister, and goes
with him to that service which begins
and ends ION the circuit" She has left
untold the years Of Williams strength.
when he held pulpits in towns and
cities, but every problem that can
veX the struggling minister who gets
poor pay and walks in perfectness be-
fore his God are depicted with skill
power which seems fairly to illumine
the simple words. Through all Of It
the woman retains the standards Of
measurement birth and training gave
her. Religion was not to her the tragic
and intense life-phase as to her nus
band and his fellows. She is reverent,
unfailingly pure and pious; but she
never leaves the earth in her experience
and her husband rarely comes down
to IT,
Religion pure and undehled" has
rarely been better described than in
the words of this gifted writer. She
never "agonized in prayer" and she
never had the witness of the spirit, ="
in the sense of that rapture which
leads TO shouting. But here is a passage
taae wtIl Illustrate her Thought 70 the
Father:
was tired and discouraged with be-
ing up so much at night and with anX-
iety for fear William would have to
give up his work. A preacher in our
church cannot get even the little 1t at
fOrds from the superannuate fund until
he has been on the supeTannuate list a
year; and if he gives up his work in
the middle of the previous year that
means he must go, say, eighteen months
without resources. That is a long time
when you have not been able to save
anything and when you are old and sick.
So, 1 was sitting in the kitchen door
Of the parsonage one morning after
! William had had a particularly bad
night, wondering what God was gOing
TO DO about if, for felt we could not
expect help from any other source. The
agnOstics may say what they please,
| but If you get cOrnered between old
age and starvation you viii find out
that there is a real sure-enOugh good
/ God, who numbers the remaining hairs
of your head and counts the sparrow
fall. William and I tried Him, and we
know. There were terrible times toward
the last, when We never could have
made it II it had not been for just God,
Tie story in the main is not somber,
as that extract might make you think.
It is not particularly merry, but the
/ quality of humOr is not all strained cut,
/ And very often ono reads IT with that
mingled laugh and sob which pays the
/ highest possible tribute to good writing,
The Circuit Riders Wife" has made
! a sensation among American readers;
and it is like to live long. For 1t is a
whole page Of human nature-and a
| fairly intimate view into the country
from whose bourne no traveller e'er
returns"