The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1917-07-28
GOING TO CHURCH

that you are at home?
Do you recognize that peaceful
hush, that orderly, quiet stirring
that subdued but earnest cheerful
ness, that you can find no where else
AS you sit on one side, about half
way down the church, and watch the
people come in, and see the grown
men and women who were Sunday
school beginners when you were e
regular attendant years ago, do YOU
realize how fast the world has
grown?
As you realize the oft-smiled al
Sunday best" in manners and clothes
do you take tumble to the fact that
Sunday best" is very good thing
indeed?
Do you understand better than YOU
ever did before, or could understand
elsewhere, that clean clothes and
clean skins make cleaner souls?
| When the music, most likely some
familiar hymn, begins, don't your
ears, wearied with opera, ragtime,
topical song and even the national
anthem, feel rested?
Is there anything, except your
mothers lullaby song, that fits near.
er home than the old-fashioned church
hymns? Even though you be an I'M
believer, they soothe, they comfort,
they cheer, they open springs in your
heart that hadn't trickled in so long
that you had forgotten their sources.
Tho you hadn't been in ten years
or dozen or score, do you notice
that your feet and legs know when
to stand up and let you sit down
again just at the right times?
When the sermon begins, do you
settle yourself to listen to another
| exposition of the lesson you learned
by heart, and then forgot, years ago.
Or do you feel that the figures have
all been put down and the sums add
ed for you for all time, and that you
prefer to lean back and watch the
people there land not there) and
think about them?
Don't you feel friendly toward
them all, and glad to be with them,
the girls and boys, the ladies, even
the ordinary but useful men? AS
your eyes stray along the pews and
into the corners, do they subcon-
sciously remind you how so-and-so
sat there years ago, but, if his faith
was well founded, is twanging a harp
in the New Jerusalem now?
Do you remember how you sat in
the same place score or more of
years ago and watched the girls ?
Can you shut your eyes and call back
between the pupils and the lids the
white brows under the hat brims, the
demure faces, the eyelashes that
fiickered like blue birds wings as the
eyes under them shot sidelong
glances at the boys, the tiny ears that
showed like rosebuds thru the dainty
foliage of hair?
Perhaps there was one in particu-
lar you watched for and was restless
until she came. And after she came
you took little note of the others, but
put in your time stealing chances at
her face. And if she flashed a sell
dom glance at you and then looked
down and let just a CLEAN of smile
shine across her face, you knew you
might wait for her by the church
door.
The stately woman in black with
silver threads in her dark hair, and
her husband whose face despite work,
work and grief, is yet handsome, who
are sitting just across the aisle from
you, were bride and groom then, and
the road of life was easy beneath
their 'unaccustomed feet. Rock strewn
and twisted has been the road, but
they tread it together yet. The smil-
ing, comfortable woman, in the next
seat, then looked just exactly like the
pretty little girl that leans against
her now. The pretty and tastefully
dressed young lady, whose face shows
mind and soul, was then a brown
haired tot, who during the sermon
slid out of her mothers lap and
climbed into her fathers, and back
again with great regularity. The
well-dressed lady with dark brown
hair, whose correct and pretty young
daughter sits by her and wonders
how long after dinner - will come
in his auto for her, was then a reg
ular baby doll in her white dress and
long fiaxen curls.
And there are many others, boys
and girls, young men and women
then, who are middle-aged or more
now, who have come along meantime,
living regular, ordinary American
lives, each doing his or her little bit,
the aggregate of which made the old
town better, and added some at least
| RI tho or1-iTo h. ho&