In reading the "Christmas Reality," my heart was sad for Nina, and I could not help but wish that the poor girl (seeing that she was a reality and not merely a creature of the author's brain), would have the pleasure of reading the beautiful story, "In Larger Perspective," by the same author who had told her (Nina's) life-story. I also felt that I would like to read to Nina the following, from the piece on "The Months," by Henry Ward Beecher: "You have not lost what God has only hidden. You lose nothing in struggle, in trial, in bitter distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves; if the affections be driven back into the heart, as the life of flowers to their roots, yet be patient. Thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered boughs again. Thou shalt shoot forth from thy roots new flowers. Be patient. Wait. When it is February, April is not far off. "Must it be thus in everything, that June shall rush toward August? Or, is it not that there are deep and unreached places for whose sake the probing sun pierces down its glowing hands. There is a deeper work than June can perform. The earth shall drink of the heat before she knows her nature or her strength. Then shall she bring forth to the uttermost the treas ures of her bosom. For there are things hidden far down, and the deep things of life are not known till the fire reveals them." Some people condemn the reading of stories, but I am not among the number, provided the stories convey a good moral and the sentiments are elevating. I remember full well the real pleasure which I had recently in reading the story of David Ha rum. When a boy I read "The Reveries of a Bachelor," by Ik Marvel (Donald G. Mitchell). I enjoyed the sentiments so beautifully expressed in the "Reveries" very much indeed, and many a tear filled my eyes while reading portions of this beautiful little book. I know my spirit was softened by its perusal and there has been a warm spot in my heart ever since for Donald G. Mitchell. It would be one of the delights of my life if I could have the pleasure of meeting him. A friend of mine says she has seen him often. He is now about eighty years old, has a very benevolent face, white hair and a kindly look. His home, just out of New Haven, he calls Edgewood, where his prefaces to the "Reveries" and "Dream Life" are dated. Mr. Mitchell's power of descrip "The heart of a man, with affection is not a name, and love a mere passion of the hour, yearns towards the quiet of a home, as toward the goal of his earthly joy and hope, and as you fasten there your thought, an indulgent, yet dreamy fancy paints the loved image that is to adorn it and to make it sacred. "She is there to bid you-God speed! and an adieu, that hangs like music on your ear, as you go out to the every At evening she is day labor of life. there to greet you, as you come back, wearied with a day's toil; and her look, so full of gladness, cheats you of your fatigue; and she steals her arm around you with a soul of welcome that beams like sunshine on her brow and that with tears of twin fills eye your gratitude-to her and Heaven. "She is not unmindful of those oldfashioned virtues of cleanliness and of order, which give an air of quiet and Your wants are which secure content. the fire is burning all anticipated; brightly; the clean heart flashes un Your very un der the joyous blaze; the old elbow- "She is gentle;-keeping your love as she has won it, by a thousand nameless and modest virtues, which radiate from She steals like a summer over her whole life and action. She is kind;-shedding her kindness Who indeed as Heaven sheds dew. could doubt it?-least of all, you who are living on her kindness, day by day, as flowers live on light! There is none of that officious parade, which blunts the point of benevolence; but it tempers every action with a blessing. "If trouble has come upon you, she knows that her voice, beguiling you into cheerfulness, will lay your fears, and as she draws her chair beside you, she knows that the tender and confiding way with which she takes your hand and looks up into your earnest As she lingers, face, will drive away from your annoy- more full of kindness than the loudest your tears only can tell. "She is good:-her hopes live where Her kindness and the angels live. gentleness are sweetly tempered with that meekness and forbearance which Trust comes into are born of Faith. her heart as rivers come to the sea. And in the dark hours of doubt and foreboding. you rest fondly upon her buoyant faith, as the treasure of your common life; and in your holier musings you look to that frail hand, and that gentle spirit, to lead you away from the vanities of worldly ambition, to the fullness of that joy which the good inherit." After reading over the above and enjoying it almost as much as if I had not read it at least twenty or thirty times before, I have decided to quote Mr. Mitchell's remarks on "Letters," as they are equally as beautiful and touching as the foreThey are as follows: going. ers. LETTERS. into whom the are the "Blessed the letters!-they monitors, they are also the comforters. and they are the only true heart talkYour speech and their speeches, are conventional; they are molded by circumstances; they are suggested by and remark, the observation, fluence of the parties speaking is addressed or by whom it may be overheard. Your truest thought is modified half through its utterance by a look, a sign, smile, or a sneer. It is not individual; it is not integral; it is social and mixed,-half of you, It bends. it sways, and half of others. it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens. "But it is not so with letters:-there you are, with only the soulless pen, and the snow-white virgin paper. Your soul is measuring itself by itself, and saying its own sayings; there are no sneers to modify its utterance,-no scowl to scare, nothing is present but you and your thought. Utter it then freely-write it down-stamp it-burn it in the ink! There it is, a true soulprint! "Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passion of a letter! It is worth all the liptalk of the world. Do you say it is studied, made up, acted, rehearsed, contrived, artistic? Let me see it then; let me run it over; tell me age, sex, circumstances, and I will tell you if it be studied or real; if it be the merest lipslang put into words, or heart-talk blazing on the paper. "I have a little packet, not very large, tied up with narrow crimson ribbon, now soiled with frequent handling, which far into some winter's night I take down from its nook upon my shelf, and untie and open, and run over, with such sorrow and such joy, such tears and such smiles, as I am sure make me, for weeks after, a kinder and holier man. "There are in this little packet, letters in the familiar hand of a mother; what gentle admonition-what tender affection. God have mercy on him who outlives the tears that such admonitions and such affection call up to the eye! There are others in the budget, in the delicate and unformed hand of a loved and lost sister;-written when she and you were full of glee; and the best mirth of youthfulness; does it harm you to recall that mirthfulness? or to trace again for the hundredth time, that scrawling postscript at the bottom, with its i's so carefully dotted, and its gigantic t's so carefully crossed, by the childish hand of a little brother? "I have added latterly to that packet of letters: I almost need a new and longer ribbon; the old one is getting too short. Not a few of these new and cherished letters, a former Reverie has brought to me; not letters of cold praise, saying it was well done, artfully executed, prettily imagined-no such thing: but letters of sympathy-of sympathy which means sympathy. "It would be cold and dastardly work to copy them; I am too selfish for that. It is enough to say that they, the kind writers, have seen a heart in the Reverie-have felt that it was real, true. They know it; a secret influence has told it. What matters it. pray, if literally there was no wife, and no dead child and no coffin in the house? Is not feeling, feeling, and heart, heart? Are not these fancies thronging on my brain, bringing tears to my eves, bringing joy to my soul, as living as anything human can be living? What if they have no material type-no objectIve form? All that is crude.-a mere reduction of ideality to sense-a trans 1 formation of the spiritual to the earthly-a leveling of soul to matter. "Are we not creatures of thought and passion? Is anything about us more earnest than that same thought and passion? Is there anything more real, -more characteristic of that great and dim destiny to which we are born, and which may be written down in that terrible word-FOREVER? Let those who will, then, sneer, at what in their wisdom they call untruth-at what is false because it had no material presence: this does not create falsity; would to heaven that it did. And yet, if there was actual, material truth, superadded to Reverie, would such objectors sympathize the more? No!-a thousand times, no; the heart that has no sympathy with thoughts and feelings that scorch the soul is dead also-whatever its mocking tears and gestures may say-to a coffin or a grave! Let them pass and we will come back to these cherished letters. one. but coldness. but who "A mother who has lost a child, has, she says, shed a tear, not many-over the dead boy's And another who has not, trembles lest she lose, has found the words failing as she reads, and a dim, sorrow-borne mist spreading over the page. Another, yet rejoicing in all those family ties, that make life a charm, has listened nervously to careful reading, until the husband is called home, and the coffin is in the house-"Stop!" she says; and a gush of tears tells the rest. Yet the cold critic will say "It was artfully done." A curse on him! it was not art; it was nature. "Another, a young, fresh, healthful girl-mind, has seen something in the love-picture-albeit so weak-of truth; and has kindly believed that it must be earnest. Ay, indeed is it fair and generous one-earnest as life and hope! Who indeed, with a heart at all, that has not yet slipped away irreparably and forever from the shores of youthfrom that fairy-land which young en thusiasm creates, and over which bright dreams hover-but knows it to be real? And SO such things be real, till hopes are dashed, and death is come. Another, a father, has laid down the book in tears. God bless them all! How far better this, than the cold praise of newspaper paragraphs, or the critically contrived approval of colder friends! "Let me gather up these letters carefully, to be read when the heart is faint, and sick of all that there is unreal and selfish in the world. Let me tie them together, with a new and longer bit of ribbon, not by a love knot, that is too hard-but by an easy slipping knot, that so I may get at them the better. And now they are all together, a snug packet, and we will label them, not sentimentally (I pity the one who thinks it) but earnestly and in the best meaning of the term-REMEMBRANCES OF THE HEART." I have written considerable, including quotations which I have made, and yet I have said practically nothing on the subject of which I intended to write, namely the two stories in the Journal by Sister Christine D. Young. While reading "One Christmas Reality" and looking at the illustration of "And Oh, How I Cried!" and also while thinking of Nina and Richard, I recalled that desolate spot Fort Polacca, which I remember well, and endorse the description, "No tree, no shrub, no stretch of green, juicy grass; sand, nothing but sand with a few discouraged settlers and-Indians," and am reminded of Whittier's words: "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, "Deep in unfathomable mines He treasures up His bright designs, "Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take! "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, "His purposes will ripen fast, And scan His work in vain; And He will make it plain." Particularly would I commend to them stanzas four and five, as I am confident that they would have a wonderful effect in aiding all such The saddest are these, 'It might have sufferers to be more contented with Also: been.'" their station in life. I have not a and serve Him, and also that He will However, in thinking of Whittier's lines and of Nina and Richard, the thought came to me that while the above words are applicable to a person lacking a knowledge of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, they do not apply to those of us who know the Gospel is true and follow There is no tellthe path of duty. ing but that the greatest trials are in reality the greatest blessings either for us or our posterity, as portrayed in the story, "In Larger impressions as the narration of perportrayed in the story, "In Larger Perspective." I wish that Nina and sonal experiences; therefore, in corPerspective." I wish that Nina and roboration of Sister Young's story all those who may be called upon to "In Larger Perspective," I have suffer disappointment, as she has done, could remember the sentiments pleasure in relating some of my own so beautifully expressed in the fol- experiences in connection with those my mother and brother. lowing hymn, contained on page 28 of our hymn boook: "God moves in a mysterious way, of Nothing is so powerful to carry My mother forsook a good social position and the comforts of life and incurred the displeasure of her relatives to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She entered plural |