Recitations for the Social Circle Part 7

"Keep watch of the pa.s.sengers," thus I pray, "For to me they are very dear, And special ward, O gracious Lord, O'er the gentle engineer."

MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.

Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful words in the English language. And truly I think that they may be well called so--what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one to whom they look and trust for protection.

A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who rejoiced with us in our suns.h.i.+ne, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.

The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.

The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.

Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted to s.h.i.+ne--not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.

Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care, and burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and quietness.

Heaven! that land of quiet rest--toward which those, who, worn down and tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled waters of life, and after a long and dangerous pa.s.sage, find it--safe in the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the grave. There the friends.h.i.+ps formed on earth, and which cruel death has severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again, never more to be separated.

It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in Heaven, our eternal _home_, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father, and go no more out forever.

PRAYING FOR SHOES.

BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

_A True Incident._

On a dark November morning, A lady walked slowly down The thronged, tumultuous thoroughfare Of an ancient seaport town.

Of a winning and gracious beauty, The peace of her pure young face Was soft as the gleam of an angel's dream In the calms of a heavenly place.

Her eyes were fountains of pity, And the sensitive mouth expressed A longing to set the kind thoughts free In music that filled her breast.

She met, by a bright shop window, An urchin timid and thin, Who, with limbs that shook and a yearning look, Was mistily glancing in At the rows and varied cl.u.s.ters Of slippers and shoes outspread, Some s.h.i.+mmering keen, but of sombre sheen, Some purple and green and red.

His pale lips moved and murmured; But of what, she could not hear.

And oft on his folded hands would fall The round of a bitter tear.

"What troubles you, child?" she asked him, In a voice like the May-wind sweet.

He turned, and while pointing dolefully To his naked and bleeding feet,

"I was praying for shoes," he answered; "Just look at the splendid show!

I was praying to G.o.d for a single pair, The sharp stones hurt me so!"

She led him, in museful silence, At once through the open door, And his hope grew bright, like a fairy light, That flickered and danced before!

And there he was washed and tended And his small, brown feet were shod; And he pondered there on his childish prayer, And the marvelous answer of G.o.d.

Above them his keen gaze wandered, How strangely from shop to shelf, Till it almost seemed that he fondly dreamed Of looking on G.o.d Himself.

The lady bent over, and whispered, "Are you happier now, my lad?"

He started, and all his soul flashed forth In a grat.i.tude swift and glad.

"Happy?--Oh, yes!--I am happy!"

Then (wonder with reverence rife, His eyes aglow, and his voice sunk low), "Please tell me! Are you G.o.d's wife?"

RUM'S DEVASTATION AND DESTINY.

BY HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.

[In a discourse delivered before the Ma.s.sachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, on the twenty-third of May, 1832, Hon. William Sullivan, one of the vice-presidents of the society, gave an account of the discovery of the art of distilling wine from brandy, showing that it was made some five or six hundred years ago, by an alchemist who was in search of the means of acquiring "inexhaustible riches and perpetual youth." After having spoken of the origin of alcohol, the speaker imagines it to be "the office of history to announce the future, instead of recording the past," and a.s.suming to stand beside the man who made the discovery, delivered the following eloquent address detailing the melancholy consequences of this discovery, and forecasting the blessings which shall result from the final overthrow of the rum fiend.]

In your researches after that which you should, at once, have known to be impossible, by the laws of nature, you have opened a fountain of misery which shall flow for ages. You have not contented yourself with pressing out the juices of the fruits bestowed upon you, and converting these into strong drink which you needed not,--but you have taken this strong drink, and the harvest, which was given to you for food, and have drawn from these a liquid which is not food and which will not nourish nor sustain your earthly frame. This liquid shall be a curse upon you and your descendants.

It shall be known wherever the arts of civilization are known. You shall call it the _elixir of life_. You shall believe it to be nutritious to the body and gladdening to the soul. The love of it shall grow with the use of it. It shall soothe the solitary hour and cheer the festive board. It shall charm away your griefs, and be the cause of your rejoicings. It shall be the inducement to communion and the bond of friends.h.i.+p. It shall be prized alike by the high and the low. It shall be the joy of princes as well as of the meanest of mortals. It shall be the stimulant to laborious toil, and the reward for labor done. It shall be bought and sold, and make the dealer therein rich. It shall yield abundant revenues to sovereignty. Hospitality shall be dishonored in not offering it to the guest, and the guest shall be disgraced in not receiving it at the hand of his host.

But----it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the honorable their good name, and shall make the strong and the vigorous to totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit, designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn, unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has pa.s.sed, unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carca.s.s, that hurries to the grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth into that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine and murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness, at the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of _religious homage on a scaffold_, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in disgust. It shall attract the pestilence that walks, even at noon-day, in darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the far-sighted birds of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to run with their blood to innocent descendants.

The wise men, who a.s.semble in the halls; of legislation, shall be blind to this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much thereof shall be sold for the "PUBLIC GOOD."

This minister of woe and wretchedness shall roam over the earth at pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among them, but by the hands of Christians.

The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes, and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin.

Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of _Heaven_ and of _Earth_ to convert the fruits of the soil into poison.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT.

BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.

An opulent lord of Ispahan, In luxury, lolled on a silk divan, Dreaming the idle hours away In a cloud of smoke from his nargile.

Weary with nothing to do in life, He thought, as he watched the smoky whirls, "'Twill be diversion to choose a wife From my peerless bevy of dancing-girls.

There are beauties fair from every land-- l.u.s.trous eyes from Samarcand, Dusky forms from the upper Nile, Teeth that glisten when red lips smile, Gypsy faces of olive hue, Stolen from some wild wandering clan, Fair complexions and eyes of blue, From the sunny isles of Cardachan, Regal beauties of queenly grace And sinuous sirens of unknown race; Some one among them will surely bless Hours that grow heavy with idleness."

Then the slave that waited his lightest need, Fell on his knee, by the silk divan, And the swarthy, listening ear gave heed To the will of the lord of Ispahan.

"Send hither my dancing-girls," he said, "And set me a feast to please the eye And tempt the palate, for this shall be A wedding breakfast before us spread, If the charm of beauty can satisfy And one of their number pleaseth me.