drawn, she began to think of confessing that she was a woman; but
she was relieved at once from her terror, and the shame of such a
discovery, by a stranger that was passing by, who made up to them,
and as if he had been long known to her, and were her dearest friend,
said to her opponent, “If this young gentleman has done offense, I
will take the fault on me, and if you offend him, I will for his sake
defy you.” Before Viola had time to thank him for his protection, or
to inquire the reason of his kind interference, her new friend met
with an enemy where his bravery was of no use to him; for the officers
of justice coming up at that instant, apprehended the stranger in
the duke’s name to answer for an offence he had committed some years
before; and he said to Viola, “This comes with seeking you;” and then
he asked her for a purse, saying, “Now my necessity makes me ask for
my purse, and it grieves me much more for what I can not do for you,
than for what befalls myself. You stand amazed, but be of comfort.”
His words did indeed amaze Viola, and she protested she knew him not,
nor had ever received a purse from him; but for the kindness he had
just shown her, she offered him a small sum of money, being nearly
all she possessed. And now the stranger spoke severe things, charging
her with ingratitude and unkindness. He said, “This youth, whom you
see here, I snatched from the jaws of death, and for his sake alone I
came to Illyria, and have fallen into this danger.” But the officers
cared little for hearkening to the complaints of their prisoner, and
they hurried him off, saying, “What is that to us?” And as he was
carried away, he called Viola by the name of Sebastian, reproaching
the supposed Sebastian for disowning his friend, as long as he was
within hearing. When Viola heard herself called Sebastian, though the
stranger was taken away too hastily for her to ask an explanation,
she conjectured that this seeming mystery might arise from her being
mistaken for her brother; and she began to cherish hopes that it was
her brother whose life this man said he had preserved. And so indeed
it was. The stranger, whose name was Antonio, was a sea-captain. He
had taken Sebastian up into his ship, when, almost exhausted with
fatigue, he was floating on the mast to which he had fastened himself
in the storm. Antonio conceived such a friendship for Sebastian, that
he resolved to accompany him whithersoever he went; and when the youth
expressed a curiosity to visit Orsino’s court, Antonio, rather than
part from him, came to Illyria, though he knew if his person should be
known there, his life would be in danger, because in a sea-fight he had
once dangerously wounded the Duke Orsino’s nephew. This was the offence
for which he was now made a prisoner.
Antonio and Sebastian had landed together but a few hours before
Antonio met Viola. He had given his purse to Sebastian, desiring him
to use it freely if he saw anything he wished to purchase, telling him
he would wait at the inn, while Sebastian went to view the town: but
Sebastian not returning at the time appointed, Antonio had ventured
out to look for him; and Viola being dressed the same, and in face
so exactly resembling her brother, Antonio drew his sword (as he
thought) in defence of the youth he had saved; and when Sebastian (as
he supposed) disowned him, and denied him his own purse, no wonder he
accused him of ingratitude.
Viola, when Antonio was gone, fearing a second invitation to fight,
slunk home as fast as she could. She had not been long gone when her
adversary thought he saw her return; but it was her brother Sebastian
who happened to arrive at this place, and he said, “Now, sir, I have
met with you again? There’s for you;” and struck him a blow. Sebastian
was no coward; he returned the blow with interest, and drew his sword.
A lady now put a stop to this duel, for Olivia came out of the house,
and she too mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, invited him to come into
her house, expressing much sorrow at the rude attack he had met with.
Though Sebastian was as much surprised at the courtesy of this lady as
at the rudeness of his unknown foe, yet he went very willingly into
the house, and Olivia was delighted to find Cesario (as she thought
him) become more sensible of her attentions; for though their features
were exactly the same, there was none of the contempt and anger to be
seen in his face, which she had complained of when she told her love to
Cesario.
Sebastian did not at all object to the fondness the lady lavished on
him. He seemed to take it in very good part, yet he wondered how it
had come to pass, and he was rather inclined to think Olivia was not
in her right senses; but perceiving she was mistress of a fine house,
and that she ordered her affairs and seemed to govern her family
discreetly, and that in all but her sudden love for him she appeared in
the full possession of her reason, he well approved of the courtship;
and Olivia finding Cesario in this good humor, and fearing he might
change his mind, proposed that, as she had a priest in the house, they
should be instantly married. Sebastian assented to this proposal; and
when the marriage ceremony was over, he left his lady for a short time,
intending to go and tell his friend Antonio the good fortune that he
had met with. In the meantime Orsino came to visit Olivia; and at
the moment he arrived before Olivia’s house, the officers of justice
brought their prisoner, Antonio, before the duke. Viola was with
Orsino, her master, and when Antonio saw Viola, whom he still imagined
to be Sebastian, he told the duke in what manner he had rescued the
youth from the perils of the sea; and after fully relating all the
kindness he had really shown to Sebastian, he ended his complaint with
saying, that for three months, both day and night, this ungrateful
youth had been with him. But now the lady Olivia coming forth from her
house, the duke could no longer attend to Antonio’s story; and he said,
“Here comes the countess: now heaven walks on earth! but for thee,
fellow, thy words are madness. Three months has this youth attended
on me;” and then he ordered Antonio to be taken aside. But Orsino’s
heavenly countess soon gave the duke cause to accuse Cesario as much
of ingratitude as Antonio had done, for all the words he could hear
Olivia speak were words of kindness to Cesario; and when he found his
page had obtained this high place in Olivia’s favor, he threatened
him with all the terrors of his just revenge: and as he was going to
depart, he called Viola to follow him, saying, “Come boy, with me. My
thoughts are ripe for mischief.” Though it seemed in his jealous rage
he was going to doom Viola to instant death, yet her love made her no
longer a coward, and she said she would most joyfully suffer death to
give her master ease. But Olivia would not so lose her husband, and she
cried, “Where goes my Cesario?” Viola replied, “After him I love more
than my life.” Olivia, however, prevented their departure by loudly
proclaiming that Cesario was her husband, and sent for the priest, who
declared that not two hours had passed since he had married the lady
Olivia to this young man. In vain Viola protested she was not married
to Olivia; the evidence of that lady and the priest made Orsino believe
that his page had robbed him of the treasure he prized above his life.
But thinking that it was past recall, he was bidding farewell to his
faithless mistress, and the _young dissembler_, her husband, as he
called Viola, warning her never to come in his sight again, when (as it
seemed to them) a miracle appeared! for another Cesario entered, and
addressed Olivia as his wife. This new Cesario was Sebastian, the real
husband of Olivia: and when their wonder had a little ceased at seeing
two persons with the same face, the same voice, and the same habit, the
brother and sister began to question each other, for Viola could scarce
be persuaded that her brother was living, and Sebastian knew not how to
account for the sister he supposed drowned, being found in the habit
of a young man. But Viola presently acknowledged that she was indeed
Viola, and his sister under that disguise.
When all the errors were cleared up which the extreme likeness between
this twin brother and sister had occasioned, they laughed at the lady
Olivia for the pleasant mistake she had made in falling in love with a
woman; and Olivia showed no dislike whatever to her exchange, when she
found she had wedded the brother instead of the sister.
The hopes of Orsino were forever at an end by this marriage of Olivia,
and with his hopes, all his fruitless love seemed to vanish away,
and all his thoughts were fixed on the event of his favorite, young
Cesario, being changed into a fair lady. He viewed Viola with great
attention, and he remembered how very handsome he had always thought
Cesario was, and he concluded she would look very beautiful in a
woman’s attire; and then he remembered how often she had said _she
loved him_, which at the time seemed only the dutiful expressions of a
faithful page, but now he guessed that something more was meant, for
many of her pretty sayings which were like riddles to him, came now
into his mind, and he no sooner remembered all these things than he
resolved to make Viola his wife; and he said to her (he still could
not help calling her _Cesario_ and _boy_), “Boy, you have said to me a
thousand times that you should never love a woman like to me, and for
the faithful service you have done for me so much beneath your soft
and tender breeding, and since you have called me master so long, you
shall now be your master’s mistress, and Orsino’s true duchess.”
Olivia, perceiving Orsino was making over that heart, which she had
so ungraciously rejected, to Viola, invited them to enter her house,
and offered the assistance of the good priest, who had married her to
Sebastian in the morning, to perform the same ceremony in the remaining
part of the day for Orsino and Viola. Thus the twin brother and sister
were both wedded on the same day: the storm and shipwreck, which had
separated them, being the means of bringing to pass their high and
mighty fortunes. Viola was the wife of Orsino the Duke of Illyria, and
Sebastian the husband of the rich and noble countess, the Lady Olivia.
QUAINT OLD GARDEN OF OUR CHILDHOOD.
CLARA THWAITES.
Quaint old garden of our childhood,
Where we played from chime to chime,
Haunted by the mournful music
Of the belfry’s broken rhyme!
Hither came the swell of anthems,
Floating through our leafy glades,
Here the “Amen” from the cloisters
Died among our mulberry shades.
Hither came the joy of bridals,
Clash and laughter of the bells;
Hither came the muffled sorrow,
And the sob, of last farewells.
Sombre chestnuts held their torches
White, in deep funereal gloom,
O’er the sunken, mould’ring headstones,
O’er the latest daisied tomb.
Solemn curfew of our childhood,
Closing each day with a sigh,
Ringing through our peaceful slumbers
Like a tender lullaby!
Daisied meadows of our childhood,
Once a battle-field of pain!
Ah, we never dreamed of dolor
As we weaved our daisy-chain!
Shining river of our childhood,
As I watched thee ripple by,
Still I deemed thy joy and glitter
Sweetest of life’s prophecy.
See, it widens to the ocean!
See, the river overflows!
Shining river of my childhood,
Life is fullest at its close!
* * * * *
“To find fault, some one may say, is easy, and in every man’s power;
but to point out the proper course to be pursued in the present
circumstances, that is the proof of a wise counselor.”—_Demosthenes._
THE W. C. T. U. BORN AT CHAUTAUQUA.
The origin of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was prepared, and
read by Mrs. W. A. Ingham, of Cleveland, Ohio, before the national
convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, held last month
at Louisville, Ky.
The handful of corn upon the tops of the mountains grew apace after its
wonderful planting in Ohio during the winter and spring of 1873-4.
The fruit thereof shook like Lebanon throughout the Middle and Western
States, and in August of that year, many of the seed-sowers had
gathered upon the shore of Lake Chautauqua for a fortnight in the woods.
In the primitive fashion we dwelt in tents, or sat in the open air
about the watchfires kindled at the first National Sunday School
Assembly.
Women who had drawn near to God in saloon prayer meetings felt their
hearts aflame again as they recounted the wonders of the great uprising.
It was at Chautauqua, the birth-place of grand ideas, that our Union
originated.
It is time the story of its beginnings was written, and there is no
more fitting place for its rehearsal than in this goodly presence—the
city of Louisville, where South and North meet beneath the palm to
rejoice over its achievements and consecrate anew its altars.
One bright day a very few ladies were in conversation upon the subject
that filled their hearts, inspiring the thought that the temperance
cause needed the united effort of all the women of the country.
The suggestion came from Mrs. Mattie McClellan Brown, of Alliance,
Ohio. Mrs. G. W. Manly, leader of the praying band of Akron, accepted
the idea, and it was said: “Why not take steps here toward its
formation?”
Upon further consultation it was decided to call a meeting, notice of
which was read from the platform of the Auditorium by Rev. Dr. Vincent.
Mrs. Jennie F. Willing, of Illinois, a guest of the Assembly,
maintained that so important a movement should be controlled by women
engaged in active Christian work.
In order to arrange the preliminaries of the announced meeting, Mrs.
Willing invited Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Manly, Miss Emma Janes, of Oakland,
California, and Mrs. Ingham, of Cleveland, to meet her in a new board
shanty on Asbury Avenue.
The Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union was born, not in a
manger, but on a floor of straw in an apartment into which daylight
shone through holes and crevices.
In a half hour’s space every detail was prepared, including a proposed
formation of a Committee of Organization, to take place that very
afternoon succeeding the regular three o’clock session of the Assembly.
At the temperance prayer-meeting at 4 o’clock, p. m., under the canvas
Tabernacle, were, perhaps, fifty earnest Christian women; of them
were several from Ohio, Mrs. H. H. Otis, of Buffalo, Mrs. Niles, of
Hornellsville, and Mrs. W. E. Knox, of Elmira, N. Y.
Mrs. Willing was leader of the prayer service, and acted as presiding
officer of the business session, convened afterward. At this conference
women were chosen to represent various States; an adjournment being had
to the following day.
At the hour appointed, August 15, 1874, a large audience had gathered,
Mrs. Jennie F. Willing in the chair, and Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller
secretary.
As results of the deliberation, the committee of organization was
formed, and the chairman and secretary of the Chautauqua meeting were
authorized to issue a circular letter, asking the woman’s temperance
leagues of the North to hold conventions for the purpose of electing
one woman from each Congressional district as delegate to an organizing
convention, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, November 18, 19 and 20, 1874.
The call duly appeared, to which the following names were appended,
preceded by those of the chairman and secretary: Mrs. Dr. Gause,
Philadelphia; Mrs. E. J. Knowles, Newark, N. J.; Mrs. M. M. Brown,
Alliance, O.; Mrs. W. D. Barnett, Hiawatha, Kas.; Miss Auretta Hoyt,
Indianapolis, Ind.; Mrs. Ingham Stanton, LeRoy, N. Y.; Mrs. Frances
Crook, Baltimore, Md.; Miss Emma Janes, Oakland, Cal.
The writer of this paper was nominated from Ohio, but withdrew her own
name, substituting that of Mrs. Brown, who was known to have made the
original suggestion.
The convention assembled November 18. Mrs. Willing was chosen
president. Sixteen States were represented by grand women. Lovely
crusaders of the city secured entertainment for three hundred
persons; one of them, Sarah Knowles Bolton, looked after the baggage
of delegates and visitors. The Second Presbyterian Church, Superior
street, held the gathering. An address of welcome was delivered by Mrs.
L. D. McCabe, of Delaware, O., President of the Ohio State Union, which
had been organized at Springfield, September 27, 1874.
The daily press pronounced the executive ability of the women to be of
high order, all unused as we were to deliberative assemblies. Universal
comment was excited by the remarkably thorough and able administration
of the presiding officer through three difficult days. The following
ladies were chosen to serve during the year:
President—Mrs. Annie F. Wittenmeyer, of Pennsylvania.
Vice-Presidents—One from each State represented.
Recording Secretary—Mrs. Mary C. Johnson, New York.
Corresponding Secretary—Frances E. Willard, of Illinois.
Treasurer—Mrs. W. A. Ingham, of Ohio.
As a reward of merit our four faces appeared not long after, engraved
on wood, in the _Morning_, an enterprising herald of reform.
Vicissitudes have occurred during the eight years passed, but all tend,
in our onward march to the fore-front of battle, to bring nearer that
which overcoming faith and labor are sure to win—victory!
An agency thereto which should here be recognized is the election,
in 1879, at Indianapolis, of Frances E. Willard as President of the
Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union. She leads to glorious
struggle the hosts of Miriam and of Deborah in a new crusade for God
and home and native land.
Our present officers are capable and faithful. Our borders are extended
until now forty-four States and Territories are each represented by a
Vice-President. We have within this area three thousand auxiliaries.
The work is divided into thirty-three departments superintended by
practical women.
The novices in parliamentary usage of the Cleveland Convention are now
experienced and intelligent leaders in the grand reform.
Independent, organizations, with large membership, have multiplied on
both sides of the ocean until a score are in active operation as the
outgrowth of the great awakening.
More than all, better than all, the “Rock of Ages” women are proving
themselves worthy of the title, and are praying to-day even more
earnestly than when with sublime faith they went out into the streets
and saloons of Ohio, believing that ere long our Lord will say to us,
“O, woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
GOD’S IDEAL OF A MAN.[E]
By Rev. B. M. ADAMS.
Before I announce the text I desire to clear the road for it a little.
We are never reasoned out of that we are never reasoned into. A
prejudice is an unreasoning thing, and oftentimes even the Scripture,
holy as it is and much as we reverence it, excites prejudice. We say,
“Well, I don’t know whether that can be or not.” The truth is, we read
our Bibles small, when we ought to read them large. I ask you this
morning to disabuse your minds of all prejudice against my subject, and
wait until I am through. Do not wait until I am through, but if God
sends a word to you, be hospitable to it, open to it your heart. If it
is true, accept it; if it is not true, reject it.
The text that I shall read is in Genesis, seventeenth chapter and first
verse: “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared
to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and
be thou perfect.”
The word perfect is the one that excites prejudice. Now, open the door,
and if there is anything in it that is good and for your peace, take
it. I most devoutly pray that God will help me to present this passage
so it will do you and me good.
“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to
Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and
be thou perfect.” It is followed by several other passages, referring
to the covenant which God would make with him. You know something
of the history of Abram, how God spoke to him in Ur of the Chaldees
and called him out to go into a land that he knew not of. It appears
that he listened to the call, and started with his family for his
destination, “not knowing whither he went.” The Lord directed him. But
he hesitated, so Stephen says, on the borders of the Land of Canaan, in
which were located the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, who were hostile, cruel, rapacious tribes. For some reason,
not unlikely Abram’s love for his father, he tarried on the border of
the land, and did not go over into it immediately. He hesitated, as
hundreds and thousands of God’s people have hesitated on the brink of
some great cross, or some great necessity. Abram was my brother, and
yours.
He hesitated until his father Terah died, and then went over into the
Land of Promise. After going up and down the land for some time, until
two-thirds of his life was gone, this appearance came to him. I do not
know how God appeared. If that poor slave-woman says the Lord spoke to
her, and her hoe-handle shone with his glory, and she heard a voice,
“Thy sins are forgiven,” I can not dispute it. God can speak to every
heart, and he has his way of doing it. God appeared to Abram, God spoke
to him. This is the record, “God appeared to Abram, and said unto him,
I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.”
This word “perfect” charmed Abram. He opened his heart unto it like a
rose to the sun. It is a singular thing that this word perfect excites
prejudice in Christian people concerning its attainment. Yet it is the
word. It has been impressed upon me for one reason, perhaps, because
it is in the line of the Chautauqua idea. There are three thoughts
at Chautauqua, aspiration, inspiration, attainment. In other words,
seeking perfection, looking after it, striving for it. The artist
sets before his mind perfection, the mechanic seeks perfection, the
statesman and the social economist seek perfection, the housekeeper
seeks perfection, the farmer seeks perfection, all classes and kinds
of people are seeking this one thing. Why should it be ruled out in
religion? Can you answer? It is impossible that there should be such
a thing as perfection of the artist or mechanic, for God is the only
perfect artist and mechanic, but it is not impossible for men to please
God; it is not impossible for them to be so perfect as to please him.
Look at the limitation of the text. It does not say, “walk before your
fellow-men and be perfect.” I will defy you to do that. The Lord Jesus
Christ could not walk perfect enough to please men, and they hung
him between two thieves. You may not be able to please your husband,
or your wife, or your employer, in all things. No one Christian ever
walked so straight as to give perfect satisfaction all around. They
that will walk and live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Our dear brother said this morning, “When you please everybody, look
out, there is something wrong.”
The man that is at the bottom does not please the man at the top. He
who is at the bottom of the ladder does not know how it looks at the
top, but the man at the top understands the bottom, because he has been
there. You have seen the boys chase a wagon, and one only is swift
enough to get on, and the others, filled with envy, cry, “cut behind.”
That is human nature. The unsuccessful throw stones at the successful;
the people who are up are envied by those who are down. Mark the
limitation of the text, not walk before your fellow-men, or even before
yourselves to give satisfaction. I thank God for this part of the
passage, “Walk before me and be thou perfect.”
God is not hard to please. God is not so hard to please as men; it is
easier to please God than to please men. The most unselfish things you
do sometimes are the things that are most misunderstood. But when God
sees you with a serious intent to please him, he is pleased with it.
Let me illustrate this: God calls that perfection which is our best,
doing the best we know how, and trusting simply in him, is what God
in this text calls perfection. I will venture in the presence of a
great deal of scholarship present here this morning, to say that the
word perfection means vital conviction. The margin puts it “sincere,”
“sincerity.” The true thought is, being true to your best thought, and
that pleases God.
There are a great many things, of course, that are impossible to us. We
can not have absolutely perfect actions, because there is no such thing
as a perfect judgment, there is no such thing as a perfect intellect,
we do not see clearly. God knows all about that; he understands it. See
in the 103d Psalm the wonderfully comforting words he says: “Like as a
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.”
Take a teacher: he has a boy that wants to learn to write. He sets him
a copy of straight marks, and the little fellow is bound to do his
best. Watch him as he goes through his contortions. The teacher tells
him how to hold his pen, but he never holds it right; it is covered
with ink; he sets his mouth and takes aim at his copy. He works slowly
down the page, and there is a blot here and a blur there, and a great
many crooked marks upon it, but the teacher knows he has done his
best, and he says “well done.” The next time he does a little better.
Finally, after a week upon straight marks, (there are none of them
really straight or true) he brings in the book, and the teacher says
it is perfect. It is far from perfect, but it is the best that little
fellow can do.