Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE IVORY PALACES Dr. Talmage on the Glories of the World to Come. ATTRACTIVENESS OF CHRIST Who Opens the Way For His Faithful Followers. The Chris tian's Guide to Heaven. In this discourse lIr. Talmage sets forth the glories of the world to come and the attractiveness of the Christ, who opens the way; text, Psalms xlv, 8, "All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and eassa out of the ivor: palaces. Among the grand adornments of the city of Paris is the Church of Notre Dame, with its great towers and elabo rate rose windows and sculpturing of the last judgement, with the trumpet ing angels and rising dead; its battle ments of quatre foil: its sacristy, with 1'bbed ceiling and statues of saints. B-.t there was nothing in all that build ing vhich more vividly appealed to my plain republican tastes than the ZostlY vestments which lay in oaken presses robes that had been embroidered with gold and been worn by popes and arch bishops on great occasions. There was a robe that had been worn by Pius VII at the crowning of the first Napoleon. There was also a vestment that had I been worn at the baptism of Napoleon II. As our guide opened the oaken presses and brought out these vest- I ments of fabulous cost and lifted tiiem up the fragrance of the pungent arom aties in which they had been preserv- 1 ed filled the place with a sweetness that was almost oppressive. Nothing t that had been done in stone more vivid- t ly impressed me than these things that had been done in cloth and embroidery i and perfume. But today I open the z drawer of this text and I look upon the i kingl robes of Christ, and as- I lift < them, flashing with eternal jewels, the t whole hous3 is filled with the aroma of these garments, which "smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces." In my text the King steps forth. His ropes rustle and blaze as he advan- 1 ces. His pomp and power and glory overmaster the spectator. More brilli- 1 ant is he than Queen Vashti. moving I amid the Persian princess: than Marie 3 Antoinette on the day when Louis XVI i put upon her the necklace of 800 dia- i monds; than Anne Boleyn the day I when Henry VIII welcomed her to his I palace-all beauty and all pomp forgot- I ten while we stand in the prese jce of this imperial glory, King of Zion, King I of earth, King of heaven, King forever I His garments not worn out, not dust I bedraggled, but radiant, and jeweled, and redolent. It as if they must have t been pressed a hundred years amid the flowers of heaven. The wardrobes fram which they have been taken. must have been sweet with clusters of camphire, and frankincense, and all manner of precious wood. Do you not inhale the odors? Aye, aye, "~They smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces." Your first curiosity is to know whyt the robes of Christ are odorous with myrrh. This was a bright leafed Ab yasinian plant. It was trifoliated. The Greeks, Egyptians, Romans and Jews bought and sold it at a high price. The first present that was ever given to Christ was a sprig of myrrh thrown on his infantile bed in Bethle hem, and the last gift that Christ ever had was myrrh pressed into the cup of his crucifixion. The natiyes would take a stone and bruise the tree, and then it would exude a gum that would saturate all the ground beneath. This: gum was used for purposes of merchan-] dise. One piece of it no larger than a chesnut would whelm a whole roo~m with odors. It was put in closets, in. chests, in drawers, in rooms, and it.. perfume adhered almost interminably to anything that was anywhere near it. So when in my text I read that Christ's garments smell of myrrh I immediately conclude the exquisite sweetness of Je su.1 I know that to many he is only like any historical person -another John Howard, another philanthropic Oberlin, another Confucius, a grand subject for] a painting, a he~oie theme fer a poeir, a beautiful form for a statue, but to those who have heard his voice arid heard his voice and felt his pardon an'd received his benediction he is music and light and warmth and thrill and eternal fragrance, sweet as a friend sticking to you when all else betray, lifting you up while others try to pushI you down, not so much like morning glories that bloom only when the sun is coming up, nor like '!four o'clock's" that bloom only when the sun is going down, but like myrrh, perpetually ar omatic, the same morning, noon and night, yesterday, today, forever. It seems as if we cannot wear him out. We put on him all our burdens and affict him with all our griefs and set him foremost in all our battles, and yet he is ready to lift and to sympathize and to help. We have so imposed up on him that one woule think in- eternal affront be would quit our soul, and yet today he addresses us with the same tenderness, dawns upon us with the same smil6, pities us with the same compassion. There is no name like his for us. It is more imperial than Caesar's, more musical than Beethoven's, more con quering than Charlemagne's, more elo quent than Cicero's. It throbs with all life. It weeps with all pathos. It groans with all pain. It breathes with all perfume. Who like Jesus to set a broken bone, to pity a homeless orphan. to nurse a sick man, to take a prodigal back without any scolding, to illumine a cemetery all plowed with graves, to make a queen unto God out of the lost woman, to catch the tears of human sorrrow in a lachrymatory that shall never be broken? Who has such an eye to see our need, such a lip to kiss away our sorrow, such a hand to snatch us out of the fire, such a foot tc trample our enemies, such a heart to embrace all our necessities? I struggle "or some metaphor with which to express him he is not like the bursting forth of a full orchestra; that is too loud, Hie is not like the sea when lashed to rage by the tempest; that is too boisterous. He is not like the mountain, his brow wreathed with the lightn'ngs: that isi too solitary. Give us a softer type, a gentler comparison. We have seemed to see him with our eyes and to hear him with our ears and to touch himi with our hands. Oh, that today hc might appear to some other one of our five senses! Aye. the nostril shall dis cover his presence. lie comes upon us like spice gales f:"om heaven. Yea, his garments smell cf lasting and all per vasive myrrh Would that you all knew his sweet ness! How soon you would turn from all other attractions! If the philoso houyh the street" becausi he had undi the .lution of a mathematical oroblem, .ov will you feel leaping fr.n h fountain of a Saviour s mercy and rardon, washed clean and made white is snow. wrien the question has been olved. -llow can my soul be saved?" Naked, frostbitten, storm lashed soul, let Jesus this hour throw around thee the --arments that smell of myrrh and loes and cassia out of the ivory pal ices. Your scecod curiosity is te know why the robes of Jesus are oderous with aloes. There is some difference f opipion about where these aloes zrow. what is thc color of the flwet. what is the particular appearance of the herb. Suffice it for you and me to know that aloes m:an bitterness the world over. and when Christ comes with arments bearing that particular odor they suzgest to me the bitterness of a Saviour-s sutierings. Were there ever such nihts as Jesus lived through nights on the niintains, nights on the ea nights on the desert? Who ever had such a hard reception as Jesus had? A hostelry thc first, an unjust trial in )yer and termniner and terminer anoth r, a foul mouthed, yelling mob the ast. Was there a space on his back is wide as your two fingers where he vas not whipped? Was there a space n hi-: brow an inch square where he ras not cut of the briers? When the ;pike struck at the instep, did it not go lcar through to the hollow of the foot? .h, long, deep. bitter pilgrimage! 1locs. aloes! John leaned his head on Christ, but who did Christ lean on? Five thous LUd men fed by the Saviour. Who fed r, Tos? The sympathy of a Saviour's ieart going out to the leper and the Ldulteress: but who smothed Christ? Ie had a fit place neither to be born ior to die. A poor babe! A poor lad: . poor young man! Not so much as a aper to cheer his dying hoirs. Even he candle of the suti snutied .ut. as it not all aloes? --Our sins, sor *ows, bereavements, losses and all the Lgonies of earth and hell picked up as a one cluster and squeezed into one up and that pressed to his lips until he acrid, nauseating, bitter draft was wallowed with a distorted countenance nd a shuidder from head to foot and a urgling strangulation. Aloes! Aloes! Kothing but aloes! All this for him elf? All this to get the fame in the vorld of being a martyr? All this in a pirit of stubbornness, because he did iot like Caesar? No. no! All this )eeause lie wanted to pluck me and ou from hell. Because he wanted to 'aise me and you to heaven. Because ve were lost and he wanted us found. 3ecause we wera blind, and he wanted is to see. Because we were serfs, and le wanted to see us msnumitted. 0 e in whose cup of life the saccharine as predominated; 0 ye who have ad bright and sparkling beverages, iow do you feel toward him who in our stead and to purchase your disin hrallment took the aloes, the unsavory Loes, the bitter aloes? Your third curiosity is to know why hese garments of Christ are odorous ith cassia. This was a plant which ~rew in India and the adjoining is ands. You do not care to hear what rind of a flower it had or what kind of stalk. It is enough for me to tell o that it was used medicinally. In hat land and in that age, where they tnew but little about pharmacy, cassia vas used to arrest many forms of dis ~ase. So, when in my text we find Christ coming with garments that smell >f cassia, it suggests to me the healing d curative power of the Son of God. Oh," you say. "now you have a super uous idea! We are not s'ek. Why lo we want cassia? We are athletic )ur respiration is perfect. Our limbs ire lithe, and on bright cool days we reel we could bound like a roe.' I eg to differ, my brother, from you. one of you can be better in physical ealth than I am, and yet I must say we are all sick. I have taken the di ignosis of your case and have examin all the best authorities on t he sub eet, and Iihave to tell you that you ire full of wounds and bruised and putrefyir g sores, which have not been bound~up or mollified with ointment." rhe iarasmus of sin is on us, the pal sy, the dropsy, the leprosy. The man that is expiring tonight in the next street-the allopathic and homeopathic otors have given him up and his riends now standing around to take his Last words-is no more certainly dying is to his body than you and I are dying anless we have taken the medicine From God's apothecary. All the leaves f this Bible are only so many pres riptions from the Divine Physician, written, not in Latin, like the prescrip tions of earthly physicians, but written in plain English so that a "man, though a fool. need not err therein." hank God that the Savior's garments mell of cassia' Suppose a man were sick, and there was a phial on his mantlepiece with medicine he knew would cure him, and he refused to t ake it, what would you ay of him? He is a suicide. And what do you say of that man who, sick in sin, has the healing medicine of od's grace offered him~ and refuses to take it? If' he dies, he is a suicide. People talk as though God took a man nd led him out to darknes and death, is though he brought him up to the aliffs and then pushed him off. Oh, no' When a man is lost, it is not be cause God pushes himi off: it is because he jumps off. In olden times a sui eide was buried at the crossroads, and the people were accustomed to throw stones upon his grave. So it seems to me there may be at this time a man who is destroying his soul, and as though the angels of God were here to bury'him at the point where the roads of life and death cross each other, throwing upon the grave the broken law and a great pile of misimproved privileges so that those going by may look at the fearful mound and learn wiat a su'icide it is when an immortal soul for whjeh Jesus died puts itself' out of the way. When Chrsst trod this planet with foot of flesh, the people rushed after him-seople who were sick and those who, being so sick they could not walk, were brought by their friends. Here I see a mother holding up her little chid, crying: --Cure this croup. Lord esus! Cure this scarlet fever:" And others: "Cure thisophthahnia! [Give ease and rest to this spinal distress! Straighten this club foot!" Christ miade every house where he stopped a dispensary. I do not be lieve that in the 10) centuries which have gone by since, his heart has got hard. I feel thas we can come now with all our wounds of soul and get his bnediction. U Jesus. here we are! e> want healing. We want sight. We want health. We want lifc. "The whole need not a physician, but they: that arc sick." Blessed be God that: Jesus Christ comes through this assem blage now, his "garments smelling of myrrhi"-that means fragrance-"and aloes'-they mean bitter sacrificial memories-" and cassia"-that means medicine and cure.1 of thi i-,ory paia&es. ioul3ow, ori you do not know. I will tell you now that some of the palaces of olden time were adorned with ivory. Ahab and Solomon had their homes furnished with it. The tusks of African and Asiatic elephants were twisted into all manners of shapes, and there were stairs of ivory and chairs of ivory and tables of ivory and floors of ivory and windows of ivory and fountains that dropped into basins of ivory and rooms that had ceilings of ivory. Oh, white and overmastering beauty! Green tree branches sweeping the curbs. Tapestry trailing the snowy floors. Brackets of light flashiag on the lustrous surround ics. Silvery music rippling on the beach of the ar-bes. The mere thought of it almost stuns my brain, and you say: "Oh, if I could have walk cd over such floors! If I could have thrown myself in such a chair! If I could have heard the drip and dash of those fountain?!- You shall have some thing better than that if you only let Christ introduce you. From that place he camo. and to that place he proposes to transport you. for his "garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces." What a place heaven must be! The Tuiler ie of the French, the Windsor castle cf the English, the Spanish alham bra, the Russian kremlin, are mere dun geons compared with it! Not so many castles on either side the Rhine as on both sides of the river of God-the ivory palaces! One for the angels, insuffer ably bright, winged, fire eyed, tempest charioted; one for the martyrs, with bloo' red robes from under the altar: one for the King, the steps of his palace the crown of the churh militant; one foi the singers, who lead the one hun dred and forty and four thousand; one for you, ransomed from sin; one for me plucked from the burning. Oh, the ivory palaces! Today it seems to me as if the win dows of those palaces were illumined for some great victory, and I look and see climbing the stairs of ivory and walking on floors of ivory and looking from the windows of ivory some wlom we knew and loved on earth. Yes, I know them. There are father and mother, not 82 years and 79 years as when they left us, but blithe and young as when on their wedding day. And there are brothers and sisters, merrier than when we used to romp across the meadows together. The cough gone. The cancer cured. The erysipelas healed. The heartbreak over. 0) how fair they are in the ivory palact: And your dear little children that weint out from you-Christ did notlet one f them drop as he lifted them. He di i not wrench one of them from you. N . They went as from one they loved w 11 to one whom they loved letter. If I should take your little child and press its soft face against my rough cheek, I might keep it a little while; but when you, the mother, came along it would struggle ta go with you. And so you stood holding your dying child when Jesus passed by in the room and the little one sprang out to greet him. That is all. Your Christian dead did not go down into the the dust and the gravel and the mud. Though it rained all that funeral day and the water came up to the wheel's hub as you drove out to the cemetery, it made no difference to them, for they stepped from the home here to the home there, right into the ivory palaces All is well with them. All is well. It is not a dead weight that you lift when you carry a Christian out. Jesus mkaes the bed up soft with velvet prom ises, and he says: 'Put her down here very gently. Put thait head wtich will never ache again on this pillow of halle luiahs. Send up word that the proces sion is coming. Ring the bells. Ring! Open your gates, ye ivory palaces!" And so your loved ones aie there. They are just as certainly there, having died in Christ, as that you are here. There is only one thing more they want. In deed, there is one thing in heaven they have not got. They want it. What is it? Your company! But, oh, my brother, unless you change.your tack you cannot reach that harbor! You might as well take the Southern Pacific railroad, expecting in that direction to reach Toronto, as to go on in the way some of you are going and yet expect to reach the ivory palaces. Your loved ones are looking out of the windows of heaven now, and yet you seem to turn your back upon them. You do not seem to know the sound of their voices as well as you used to or to be moved by the sight of their dear faces. Call lou der, ye departed ones! Call louder from the ivory palaces! When I think of that place and think of my entering it, I feel awkward. I feel as sometimes when I have been ex posed to the weather, and my shoes have been bemired, and my coat is soiled, and my hair is disheveled, and I stop in front of some fine residence where I have an errand. I feel not fit to go in as I am and sit among the guests. So some of us feel about hea ven. We need to be washed, we need to be rehabilitated before we go into the ivory palaces. Eternal Goa, let the surges of thy pardoning mercy roll over us! I want not only to wash my hands and my feet, but, like some skilled diver standing on the pier head, who leaps into'the wave and comes up at a far distant point from where he went in, so I want to go down, and so I want to come up. 0 Jesus, wash me in the wavs of thy salvation! And here I ask you to slove a mys tery that has been oppressing me for .30 years. I have been asking it of doc tors of divinity who have been studly ing theology half a century, and they have given mc no satisfactory answer. I have turned over all the books in my library, but got no solution to the q!ues tion, and today I come and ask you for an explanation. By what logic was Christ induced to exchange the ivory palaces of heaven for the crucifixion agonies of earth? I shall take the first thousand million year in heaven to study out that problem, meanwhile and now, taking it as the tenderest, mighti est of all facts that Christ did come, that he came with spikes in his feet, cae with thorns in his brow, came with spears in his heart, to save you and to save me. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" Oh, Christ. whelm all our souls with thy compassion! Mow them down like summer grain with th" hiarv esting sickle of thy grace! Ride through today the conqIueror, thy wmeinnt. smelling "of myrrh and aloes and e-asia out of the ivory palaces!' Knew They Were There. A dispatch from Wellsburg, W. Va., says four masked burglars forced their way into the lod!y farm house of D~r. Joseph Paukinson some time during the night, and after blindfolding, binding and gagging the inmates, who were all women, a careful search for valuables was made. The robbers secured govern ment bonds valued at 810500 875 in money and a lot of sliverware and jewelry. They then locked the women in an upstairs room and hastily drove ting in the still, dark room. She gave a littlc start as Mrs. Carter entered. "Oh," she said, in a low voice, "I'm real glad to see -you, Mrs. Carter. No, don't take that chair-that's Andrew's, and I can't bear it. This rocker's eas' ier to your ba k. Undo your shawl, do." "I had to come over, Marietta seemed as if I must. I couldn't bear the thought of your sitting here all alone. I wish I could help you---O Marietta, I wish I could!" Mrs. Gamble locked up from her knitting quickly. "Yes. it is lone some with Andrew gone," she said, quietly. She was a slight, sweet.faced woman, and the loose wisps of hair, turning gray, curled around her face. For a very little space neither of the women spoke. The subdued creak of their rockers sang a dirge in the visi tor's ears. She was wondering how Marietta could knit stockings, and look so composed, and curl her hair! Still she had been crying. Her eyes looked reddened. Then the visitor spoke in a sharp whisper, drawling the words cut sol emnly. "Wasn't it dreadfu'. sudden Marietta?" "Yes, it was sudden. Still, I'd been expecting as likely as not it might happen. He's never been real hearty." "No?" Mrs. Carter assented, with a doubtful, upward inflection. Andrew had looked hearty, very. "Ever since he sprained his knee joint last fall he's been ailing especial ly; it seemed to use him up." "I never noticed that he limped." "Well, he did, going up-hill and coming home af ter a long trip." Auother pause, and another stanza of the creaking dirge. "When did-it happen, Marietta?" whispered Mrs. Luther Carter then. "Tbree o'clock this morning, or a few minutes past. We were up all night with hini. I didn't get a wink of sleep." "Poor child!" Mrs. Carter softly patted the knitting needles. "Did did--he suffer much?" "No. I guess not. That was a mer cy. He didn't seem to sense anything all night. We did everything we knew how for him-everything. Laudanum didn't seem to do any good." She be gan to cry suddenly. "I was so fond of him!" she sobbed, apologetically. "Yes, yes, do cry, Marietta-it'll do you good. You ought to cry. It's a mercy you can." "I don't know how we're going to get along without him, Mrs. Darter." "it's a great loss to the neighbor hood. We all feel it," Mrs. Carter murmured. "Luther and I were all struck in a heap. He read it in the paper. Just think of our finding it out in the newspaper!" Mrs. Gamble lifted her drooping head with an air of solemn pride. "Yes," she said, "they put it in the paper right away. When Andrew's Uncle Andrew died, they got that into the paper, too." It was warm in the room, and Mrs. Carter took up a paper from the table to fan herself. She folded it neatly and set it waving with slow, steady strokes. "When are you goin to--to-when will you-bury him, Marietta?" she asked at length, gravely. Mrs, Gamble took up her knitting work, "Oh, we buried him this morning as soon as it 'twas real light. We thought we might as well get it done with, and we wouldn't feel so bad when 'twas over." "Why, Mrs. Gamble! Why, I never heard of such a thing in my born days -I never!" She spread out the news paper fan in abstracted agitation, and stared at it absently. Her face ex pressed the utmost amazement ar~d hor ror, Suddenly her eye fell on one of the items in the paper. She read it hasti ly once-twice. Then she glanced at the paper's date. It was that week's paper, and the notice in it was of the "lamentalle loss our respected towns man, Andrew Gamble, has sustained as we go to press--in the death of his valuable and petted chestnut horse," etc., etc. Mrs. Luther Carter crumpled the paper in her fingers and rose. "Well, Marietta, I must be g oing. I'm real sorry for you and Andrew, but 'tain't as if 'twas one of the fam'ily gone, you know. Grood-by." She went rapidly home, and finding the borrowed paper, thrust it into Luther's hand unceremoniously, point ing to the date. For the first time they noticed that it was old and timestained and exhaled a faint musty odor. They had read its mention of the death of Andrew Gamble's uncle. Luther Carter read and re read the date. T1?hen he got up and went out of the house. When at supper-time he came back, he remarked briefly to Cyrus as he went through the kitchen. "I've subscribed for the newspaper myself, Cyry, so I guess you won't need to go borrowing any more." Druxmmers and the Trusts. Wherever American drunimers mcet in conventjon trusts are denounced first, last and all the time. In Albany, the National League of Commercial Travelers recently considered the trust question earnestly and thoroughly. President Dowe announced that 36,000 druimers had been thrown out of work by the trusts, and that 33,000 others had their salaries reduced. The New York Journal some time since of. fered a gen'!e suggestion that the drum mers would soon wake up to the trust question, and regret some of their form er shouts and yells for McKinley, Ho bart and prosperity. The drummers were earnest advocates of McKinley and the advance agent of prosperity as long as they were well paid advance agents of tobacco houses, hardware houses, etc. Now that their business is taken away from them, their opinion of the Ohio advance agent is not quite so high. Wa repeat that the trusts are doing the grea~test possible good to the cause of' Damioeratic progress in many ways, amion g others by making malcon tents and agitators of tens of thousands of cowumercial travelers. These are all intelligent, energetic men. Once de prived of .their livelihoed, reduced to ordinary labor, they will become the advocates of Gov'ernment ownership, and of "prosperity" for all, instead of a class. In all democratic movements and in all reform movements, what is usually lacking is brains and energy of a successful kind, says the New York Journal. The drummers have such brains. We arc glad to know that, in stead of riding about in Pullman cars, urging such and such a competitive and miore or less adulterated brand on little country merchants, they will hereafter engage in the useful work of promoting democracy and the welfare of the majority. Hanged by Alabama Mob. Solomon Jones, a negro, was hanged by a mob near Forrest, Ga., for attempt ng to assault aoyonng white woman. BORROWING A NMwSFAAz. An Article that Should Be Read by al Borrowers "Did you get the paper, Cry?" Mr. Luther Carter put his head out of th( sitting room door and spoke sharply. "Yep," Cyruq approached with easy moderation and held it out. "Well, I guess you stopped. to print it on a hand-press. I don't know wherc in the world you take your slowness from." Mr. Luther Carter recrossed the room to his easy chair, adjusting his spectacles on the way. His mo tions were all deliberate, and suggested a probable reason for little Cyrus' slow Hiess. Mrs. Luther Carter glanced up de pre.,atingly from her mending. "Now, Luther," she said, with meek disap probation in her voice. "Now Luther. you haven't been borrowing Andrew Gamble's newspaper again?" "That hitting the nail higher on the head than you ever did before. Jane Ellen!" "But you borrowed it last week, Luther, and the week before, and the week before that." "And week before that-keep her agoin, Jane Ellen. I guess you can go as far back as the flood." Mr. Carter's laugh cackled unmelodiously behind the paper. "But it's deradful mortifying to me, Luther, anyway. It does seem as if we might take a newspaper ourselves, and lend instead of borrow, a spell. Then we'd see how it feels." One spectacled eye appeared above the paper's rim, followed shortly by its mate. Little Mrs. Luther withered under them. She fumbled for a new needle, clicking the scissors and spools together nervously. She had never entured upon so bold a suggestion before. and already was deeply repen tant. ".Jane Ellen, you better d.rn those stockings, and I guess you can do it easier if you keep your lips shut-to." In at the open window stole pleasant, flower-sweetened wafts of summer air. Incessant, keen insect voices buzzed and clicked and sang. Within, for a while, there was no sound but the gentle crackle of Andrew Gamble's newspaper; then Luther Carter spoke with a gruff attempt at apologetic good humor. "When I'm in Andrew's luck, and tAe uncle I never had and wasn't ined after dies and leaves me a pret y little mess of money, I'll take the paper, Jane Ellen. I guess till then twont hurt Andrew if I do bonow his." "That was a good while ago. I should have thought Andrew'd spent it all long ago, Luther, building barns and things as he did." Luther Carter suddenly laid down the paper. le gave a startled cry. "My good land, what is it, Luther? You look all struck in a heap!" ex claimed his wife. "He's dead, Jane Ellen!" "Who's dead!" Her voice rose shrill and anxious. "Andrew is-Andrew Gamble! He died this morning-'as we go to press, it says. There's a black mark all round the notice. I guess Marietta was think ing to send it to Jon's folks. It clean takes my breath away!" "Andrew Gamble dead! I can't be lieve it, Luther-It isn't possible! I guess we shouldn't have to find it out in the newspaper." "Well, read it for yourself, then, Jane Ellen." They huddled over the paper, read ing the lines together with scared, dis tressed faces. It was a small sheet, whose local columns stood out, boldly prominent. Andrew Gamble dead! Andrew Gamble! Why, he lived .iust a house or two beyond. How could he die and they not know it at once? But there it was: "As we go to press, the pain ful news reaches us of the sudden death of our much-esteemed and ,vell-known citizen, Andrew Gamble. It is to' late to obtain particulars of the saLd event for to-day's issue." Luther Carter went to the door and called. "Cyry! Cyry!" imperatively. Cyrus shuffled slowly in and sat on the edge of a chair, awed by the solemnity in his parents' faces. "Cyry, did you see An-did you see the folks when you went to borrow the paper?" Mis. Carter groaned softly and wiped her eyes on Cyrus' undarned sock. "'Nope-guess there wasn't anybody at home. It looked all kind of shut up. - Mrs. Carter groaned again. "Dinn't you see anybody. Cyry?" persisted Luther. "Now you think real hard. Who came to the door?" "Nobody did. I walked in, after I'd kept knocking a while." "But who gave you the newspaper, Cyry? Now you think." Cyrus began to look embarrassed un der this fire of mysterious questions. "Well, nobody gave me the paper, I took it. {'-s always lying on the table waiting to be taken. I guess Mrs. Gable's got sick of getting it for nos, ad last time she told me to go into the si-tiniz room and get it myself. I had to hubt all round. It was under the sofa. Say, pa, why don't we tarke our own paper?" "Did she look as if she'd been cry ing. Cyry?" quavered Mrs. Carter. "I didn't see her, I said-only her picture hanging up. That looked real solemn. 1I guess somebody was crying, though, somewhere. I heard a sniffy sound, real loud." Luther and Mrs. Luther gazed grave ly at each other, sighing. "Marietta's such a sensitive woman -poor Marietta'." murmured little Mrs. Luther, tearfully. She rose suddenly, upsetting the darning-basket. "I'm going right down there," she said. "I feel as if I'd ought to. If I can't be any other omfort to Marietta, I can wash up the dinner dishes and trim lamps. Cyry, you run and get my shawl." She looked down thoughtfully at her fwer-sprigged dress. "Yes, I s'pose I'd better put on a black dress. I s'pose so, out of respect for Marietta's feelings." Soberly begowned ard ladWld, Mrs. Carter a few minutes laer tap'ed gently at tx- (G ')W bacek door. She notic dI ti a t, Minds were nearly all -los' 1 .u ile shades down. An air of Lu,hed solemnity brooded over all tiings, animate and inanimate, in the small dooryard. Poor Andrew's choice lymouth Rock hens went about as if on tiptoe, with drooping tail-feathers. To Mrs. Carter's sensitive ear, even the old cock's crowing had a doleful, drawnout wail in it. She tapped again softly. Nobody re sponded. Then adjusting the corners of ncr mouth to appropriate droops, she stole gently in the kitchen. There was no one there. The little room had on its prim afternoon dress and looked unsocial and stiff. The faintest possible hint of clicking knit tigneedles drew the visitor unconsci ously toward the sitting-room. A PARTINO, "Uood-by, then'i -and he turned aWay, No other word between them spoken; You hardly would have guessed that day How close a bond was broken. The quick, short tremor of the hand That clasped her own in that brief parting, Only her heart could understand Who saw the tear-drop starting. Who felt a sudden surge of doubt Come rushing back unbidden o'er her, As, at the words, her life without His presence loomed before her. The others saw, the Others heard A calm, cool man, a gracious woman, A quiet, brief farewell unstirred By aught at all uncommon. She knew a fatal die was cast; She knew that two paths hence musL sever; That one familiar step had passed Out of her life forever. To all the rest it merely meant A trivial parting, lightly spoken; She read the bitter, mute intent, She knew a heart was broken. -BARTON GREY. A MIDNIGHT TRYST. "The age of miracles is past," re marked Charley Ingram, giving a meditative glance to his long legs, as if they were somehow responsible for the present dearth of miraculous oc currences, and thus kindly, if uninten tionally, affording me an opportunity to admire his resolute profile, the boy ish freshness of his complexion, and I 'other details that went to make a picture of earnest young manhood. "The age of miracles is past. Ravens or other thoughtful birds no longer 3 fly about desirous of feeding the de- 1 serving poor. I must go to work." In other words, he must tear him self from my enthralling presence and ] betake himself to a distant state, there g to embark in a mining venture-a plan 3 of ancient date in his life, and upon which we built our Utopia of future 4 bliss. "I am going, Rose, soon." I suppose I looked like Grief on a monument turning up her nose at Pa tience, for he said: "Oh, you'll get arong all right. The dust of my footsteps won't have been blown by the wind before Tom, Dick and Harry will be spooning here." I left his side and walked to the tall glass suspended between the end win dows of the old parlor that had wit nessed so much of our love-making. 3 It seemed worth while to take a fresh inventory of my charms, in view of the imminence of my conquests. "Was it mad?" he mocked, coming behind me and trylig to meet my eyes in the mirror. "You see, I envy them -confound 'em! See here, suppose you go into a nunnery till I come back." "Thanks! not even to oblige your Sultanic Majesty. I'll compromise, though; I will go into a nunnery, if ybu don't come back." "Will you?" encouragingly. "I will give you five years of graceless free dom, and if I don't come back in that time, make your vows (in -an austere,1 sepulchral tone), and, coifed and clois tered, pray for the repose of my rest less soul; for if I don't come back it will be a very restless soul." He brushed my cheek with his soft mustache, which, despite his assured ] carriage and his fierce self-assertion, gave him such a naif, adolescent air. t Thea slipping his arm around me, and surveying our prepossessing fig-t ures: "What a strikingly handsome couplet we are! You have a way of drawing me to this mirror to harrow my soul1 with that picture." "If you could only conjure this old mirror-fix that image there, visiblei to me only-I could steal in here, and,t looking at it, persuade myself that maybe you had not laid your gold mine at the feet of-" I paused from deficiency of informa-f tion, not knowing whether senoritas or gentle savages predominated in thed gold mine regions. "What lots of fun we had at thist mirror Halloween, a year ago-don'tr you remember? See here"-with a sud-t den change of manner-"are you in 1 earnest about my showing up theret some time in the future?" "All right; I will make an engage ment with you. Let's see-this is Jan nary-say next Halloween, the nighta of nights. If you want to see me, and 1 you have not forgotten me, look in this glass next Halloween, and my face will appear there as sure as fate." l "Nonsense!" 1 "Nonsense? You don't know any- z thing about it. Why, I had a grand- s mother who could do the queerest things you ever heard of. You just f come in here on the night of the 31st of next October. Come alone, at mid night; come in the dark, remember; stand here, strike a match, light the candle you will have with you, raisea It above your head, look right in there, and-can you do aaything as heroic as that?" "Oh, yes, if that's all," I said, flip- 1 pantly. "All right; dance, flirt, break as many hearts as you please; but if in 1 the meantime you do not join the great majority-I mean that big majority of your sex who are inconstant-come in here on the 31st, at midnight. and f there Is a bathtub in Boonville, a Chinese laundry, a barber and a haber :asher, you'll see me right ther'e (pointing), fresh as a daisy, and wearing the handsomest four-in-hand n Boonville. You promise?" "I promise; but supposing you have not inherited your grandmother's skill n necromancy?" "But I have; I know it; I am certain of It. You must think about me, of course; have faith, above all; obey di rections Implicitly, and-you'll see what you'll see!" "I generally do," I said, sapiently. A few days after our memorablet conversation Charley bade me good by, and full of courage and hope, and with many promises and assurances for the future, set out on the long journey to his distant field of labor and enter irise. Silence fell between us, for myt parents objected to any correspon dence between us. I danced and flirt ed; the misc en scene of my life called for such diversion, In fact; but on the 31st of the following October I de clined the most seductive Halloween parties, in order that, alone, at mid night, in front of the old mirror, Ia might keep my tryst.. t Had he forgotten me, amid strang ers and in the ardor of money-getting? Had some other woman already led astray the heart too young to have anchored all its hopes upon one wo man, albeit myself? What did I expect? It was a piece of folly; and yet, on the night of. the 21t of October. the mystic niight when ___________c AmLVTNELY YI Makes the food more del trange things usea to ve tnougnt PrC ible, and weird influences were sup )osed to rise in their might to weave heir puzzling manifestations about ondering, flesh-incumbered mortals )n that night I slipped from my bed 'oom a few minutes before 12 o'clock, .nd with a fast-beating heart I felt ny way down the stairs, through the tall to the long parlor which opened ipon it. I reached the door, felt for the knob, ;ently turned it, and opened the door ioiselessly. As I did so I could have ;worn that someone glided behind it. I was in darkness, but involuntarily turned my head toward the door. Had iot someone closed it? I could have wooned with terror. Nonsense! At L11 events, it was as bad to retreat as o go forward now. Again I turned my head to listen. My knees touched at last the marble ;helf which held the mirror; I stooped, tnd struck a match upon its under urface, lit the candle with which I vas provided, raised it well above my iead, and looked into the mirror's epths. No sound of joyous awe escaped rom my lips-hardly, while that look f fascinated horror filled my eyes. My :nees gave way like props suddenly withdrawn. I should have fallen, but hat a strong man's arms were about ne; my head fell, perforce, upon his reast, being unable to sustain itself. "In heaven's name, control yourself," ie whispered, and neither face nor oice was Charley's. This adventure ought to have cured ne of all desire to keep unhallowed alloween trysts; but on three succes ive anniversaries I looked in the old nirror at midnight. I might ask, as I lid on the first occasion, what did I xpect? and repeat what I said then; hat it was a piece of childishness. But o renounce it seemed like renouncing 'harley. I did it half playfully, half oyally, wistfully too, as a sort of me norial service to his image, which still ived in my dreams and threw its ra iance over my reveries. As the years ent by the sentiment assumed a tinge f superstition, and the little midnight ervice became obligatory. What had become of him? I knew ot; darkness and silence had swal owed him; but the sea sometimes ields up its dead, and was it not just ossible that beside the antique mirror, rhere he had promised to meet me, aughingly swearing that he never roke his word-was not it just possi 1e some message, some revelation night come to me? October had come again, the fifth ince Charley had left me. He had had 1most five years to cultivate an aura nd collect his auriferous deposits. "See here, Charley," I said, as the st night of the year's sweetest month as waning, "I am going to give up ysticism for' matrimony. I'll have o marry to get rid of this awful habit f expecting the 31st of October. I'll ave to accept Tom Alin in self-de nse. There's insanity in this mad ess." I got up from the lounge on which had thrown myself face downward, nd, despite my bravado, there were ars of desperate longing in my eyes. The clock was striking the last quar. er before twelve. I looked disheveled, Lnd I felt forlorn, and yet, contradic orily, there swept over me something ke an emotion of hatred for him when thought that in all likelihood he was ;ay and happy and heart-whole, while was on the eve of my yearly de otional ceremony-my dark and rembling pilgrimage downstairs. The tility, the imbecility of it made me eartsick. I pressed my fingers to my eyes iercey as if to wipe his features from y retina. In vain; I shuddered with elight, for he seemed to be right there eside me, and every trail and charmi at 'had won my soul appealed to it sistlessly again. Indeed It was as if e eloquent page one has learned to ve had revealed fresh features, sub ler meanings, in type and text. I glanced at the clock; five minutes one. I threw off my wrapper, as med a Louis Quinze gown and stuck ~bunch of roses (an offering from my is alier, Tom) in my corsage. One minute of 12! Heavens! Suppose I should be too ate; suppose he had come and gone ~oked In the mirror, and, not seeing ie, vanished! And yet, if I fell down tairs and broke my neck Charley rould'be my murderer. To save him 'om this ghastly res nsibility I mod rated my speed. IfI had been in loomers I would have slid down the anisters. I was in front of the mirror now, d a town clock boomed 12. I was > excited that its reverberations shook ie like a rough hamd. I could scarce hold the candle (It was blessed, by he way), but up abov, my head I car led it at ease, while my eyes searched he mirror; and, believe it or not, from ts clear depths, as if from the waters f the past, looked Charley. "Rose!"~ and the voice was Charley's. "Oh, Charley," and the arms that ~nfolded me were Charley's. A brief interval, all that life ever rields us, was given to rapture, and hen realism ramped upon the scene. temembering my first trying vigil, I urmured with awe: "How did you get in?" "Just as I did four years ago." "Four years ago-" "Fact! I never break an engagement 'ith a lady, even my sweetheart; but am as polite as punctual (at times), .nd as another gentleman had you in is embrace on that occasion I very onsiderately (as I thought) retired. I ok the 4 o'clock train that morning .nd went back to--well, Dante's In erno," he said, joyously. "But, trange to say, that man is the cause if my being here." "Oh, Charley!" with a shudder at hat frightful episode; "I don't under tand-explain! What did make you ome at last?" "Well, it seemed worth while to ake a little journey of two or three housand miles for the sake of a few xplanations. Best reason of all, I 'anted to see you, to hold you in my rins. Saddest reason of all, I wanted > get on my knees and beg your par-, on. I felt like shooting myself when knew. It was temperament, and I ouldn't stop myself." "But tell me, how did he-who is he -what has he to do with it?" "To-morrow, sweet--" "No, to-night." "Well, about twc nionths ago a man ailn hm-eir Hona Armistead LBAMINO IRE cious and wholesome came to Boonvilie. ie was a tall, handsome, melancholy individual, very reckless, very wild - fascinating, though; a sort of careless style about him, a certain nonchalant frankness that would make you share your last crust with him and give him your last red copper. What are you blushing about? And honestly I am glad that - urgent private business compelled him to pass, on a flying trip, incog, but I am anticipating. "Mr. Armistead very promptly got into a difficulty in Boonville, when it fell in my way to render him a slight service. Six weeks ago or thereabouts he dropped in on me one evening, bag in hand, to bid me good-by, and to thank me for what he was pleased to call my kindness to him. "He was going-by the way, he didn't say what was his destination no matter! Your picture was hanging over the shelf that served as a mantel in my rude quarters (you see, I had left it there, hoping it would make a good' woman-hater of me), and as soon as he saw that picture he made a sudden movement toward it-almost a jump it was. He controlled himself and sat down again, but he could look at noth ing else. "'That is a striking likeness,' he said, at last; 'it might have been taken for her-of the most beautiful woman I ever saw. I spent but one hour in her society, but I will never forget her.' "'Interesiing, romantic,' I murmur ed. 'It strikes me I would not have been satisfied with one hour; I would have continued the acquaintance.' "There must have been something compelling in my desire to hear that story, for he added: "'It happened this way: I was a fugitive. Why? No m'tter'-and hb looked dreamily at the curling smoke of his cigar, as if it might be the wraith of that past to which he re ferred. 'I was passing in disguise through a strange city. To elude those who were spying upon me, I entered at night a certain house in a quiet quarter of the town. I did it in the most natural way in the world; I simply raised the latch of a door which, through some oversight, per haps, had been left unlocked. It was a roomy old place, and there didn't seem to be many people about; in fact it was occupied by an elderly coupl,,,' and their daughter. Toward midnight I left my hiding place and entered the parlor. "'I had been there a short tinie when, providentially, as it turned out, a lady stole in. She had some difficul ty in getting about in the dark, but she finally struck a match, lit a candle, and looked into a bigmirror that was z hanging at one end of the room. What in the mischief she did it for I can't conceive-can you? I have wondered. a hundred times what brought her . there! it was my good angel, I sup pose. "'I shall never forget her look of terror when, as she held the candle above her head, she saw me behind her. I didn't want any outcry, and I did not want to terrorize her; I put my arms about her, for she could 'hardly stand, and grasping the canidle, I beg ged her to be calm. When she be- - came so, I threw myself upon her mercy. I begged her to look upon me - as a fellow-creature in misfortune, not to judge, but to help me. Shean swered my prayer in letter and spirit. I left the house, walked out of the city, and attained a place of safety.' "I don't think I gave a sign of life during that narration; I was a statue; but a statue that would wake to lie, rest assured of that. "When he was gone--and I wished him Godspeed with all my heart-I thought I would jump on the first train and come right back here; but a bet ter plan suggested itself, and I decided to defer my return a few weeks. "I remembered your promise to look in the old mirror on the 31st of Octo ber; and just suppose, I said to myself, ju~t suppose I should surprise her, Im probable as It seems, before that old mirror on next Halloween! She'lbe - obliged to forgive me in self-defense. COURAGE OF A COWBOY. He Swung Hinself and His Horse Over a Tawning Chasm With a Rope. "Speaking of the dare-devil char acteristics of western cowboys," said an old plainsman, "I recall an adven ture that might have proved fatal to myself and a man named Henry biut for the great presence of mind display ed in an emergency by my cool-headed companion. The incident happened in Montana some years ago. We were traveling along a narrow trail on the border of 1.heGrande Ronde river when we suddenly came to a landslide that" was about twenty-five feet across and left no trail in the smooth, precipitous rock. The trad was so narrow that our horses could not turn back and, realizing that It would be folly to ex pect the animals to jump the chasm, it looked as though we were trapped. But directly above the twenty-five foot break In the trail there was a huge rock which was split In the centre. Henry saw the crack in the rock and having a strong riata seventy feet long on his sadale, swung the rope over his head and uien hurled It high in the air. Being an expert in the use of the riata, it went true to the mark and was soon firmly fixed in the crevice of the "While I was wondering what he was going to do with the rope he took in the slack and 'aound it around the horn of his saddle, which was very strong and supplied with double inches. Then he urged his horse to the edge of the precipice. "The faithful beast stood firm. He would not step ovei', but Henry again orew up the slack and pulled with all might. inch by inch he drew the straining horse forward till hIs feet slipped and he swung over the yawn ing chasm. For a moment I held my breath and shut my eyes, expecting to hear the slender rope snap and its burden disappear into the raging river "When I did open my eyes he had swung across the gap and, dismount ing, he backed up the trail and tugged at the reins to aid the horse In gaining his feet. ie pulled hard and the ani mal lunged up into the trail, with the chasm far behind. "Safe on the other side, Henry urged me to make the perilous trip in the same way as he had done. For some time I couldn't muster up the neces sary courage, but at last, when I real ized that there was no other way of continuing the journey, I consented to swing myself across the chasm. After Iannding on the other side Henry re turned for my horse and having swung Lhe beast safety across the gap, we"' rodde away and left the rope dangling for the use of the next wayfarer who hanc tcome that way.