THE COURIER.
IO
MUSINGS.
(Written torTHECoCBiKBl
"Meditation here may think down hours
to moments.
Here the heart may give a useful lesson
to the head.
And Learning wiser grow without his
books."
Who has not dreamed over and over
again of the beautiful faces beautiful
to us because of the tender associations
and loved scenes of the "long ago'? Who,
in his most deeply meditative moments,
particularly those of introspection, is
not haunted, both in his day and night
dreams, by visions of the songs ho used
to sing, the books he used to read, the
pictures he used to gaze upon, the trees
that used to throw their lengthening
shadows over his pathway, before the
heart had learned the depressing lessons
of sorrow and disappointment taught by
that ruthless instructor Time? The
memorials of the days passed in the
careless freedom and unalloyed delights
of childhood are not to be buried in
oMivion. Indeed, the mind too willingly
reverts to those bright hours, and calls
up the old abiding joys which are but
the warp and woof of present existence
the background that gives all the
coloring to the landscape of today.
The beautiful tints of the many colored
rainbow of home, a mother's tender
love and Christian influence that filled
up all the interstices of the young
minds with thoughts which were the
seeds and roots of wisdom, but which;.,
alas, gave no prophetic instinct; the in
nocent sports, and wildly extravagant
ambitions this rain-bow of peace and
joy which spanned the horizon of youth
ful vision, never fades away; not even
though the sun of hope may occasion
ally dispel the lowering clouds whereby
we catch glimpses of the clear, blue
plains of heaven.
cannot, I dare not believe that shadow,
darkness and despair come to us of our
own seeking 'twere a travesty upon
the purity and unexcelled joys of child
hood's hallowed influences to entertain
the thought Once, all was brightness,
and gloom was unknown. Whence are
they now? Once, we could freely par
take of happiness and claim it as our
own; later death lurks even in the
sunbeam. Whence this change?
f VlflKE OPUft toteE
PRANK C. ZEHRTJNG, Manager. r' '5 '
Experience tells many tales of sadness;
and unless your pathwaj has wound,
and wound yet again, among the jagged
rocks and briery byways, you may not
know of the thorns that everywhere
protrude to pierce and mangle the ten
der flesh. No, these paths are not of
our conscious choosing, neither are they
ours through inheritance but,
rather forced upon us by a chain of ap
parently unavoidable circumstances,
and how can we escape? Then, what
must be the state of the soul that may
not feel the pain and great weight of
sorrow laid upon it by influences entirely
outside of itself?
COMING ATTRACTIONS:--
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8.
v..
How many there are, alas, who live in
the past in the time when our morning
hopes awoke before us smiling, among
the dews and exuberating airs of quiet
home; and fancy colored them with
every hue of heavenly loveliness. Child
hood is the one oasis of life to which the
mind may ever turn for refreshing experiences-
Deceit, impurity, treachery,
unfaithfulness, injured love, lurked not
beneath the sacred roof to crush the
trembling sensibilities of the trusting
soul. For every wound there was a
balm, and the sunny days sped as on
the wings of the eagle with meteor-like
swiftness.
Oh, reader, be not so ready to censure
the soul that suffers. If you have joys
not intermingled with pain, share them
with your weeping brother. You may
reach him and lift him to a plain where
joy is seen in the glistening dew-drop
and glowing flowers through love and
tenderness, but never through cold,
stinging reproof. When you feel a soul
cry out in the agony of its despair:
"Backward, flow backward, O tide of the
'-., years!
I am so weary of toils and of tears;
Toil without recompense, tears all in
vain,
Take them, and give me my childhood
again.
I have grown weary of dust and decay.
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away.
Weary of sowing for others to 7eap;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rockh- to
Bleep; SATURDAY
be assured that unsought and untoward v '
winds have riven the little bark from its
chosen and loved moorings, and that it
floats upon the uncertain ocean of life
without helm, tcssed by the restless
billows.
Mvka E. Olmstead. (
WAR SONG CONCERT
Directed by Mrs. !!? V. IM. Raymohdi
WEDNESDAY, MAY 15.
Bdouard JHtemonyi,
THE HUNGARIAN VIOLINIST.
ED. A. CHURCH, Manager.
COMING ATTRACTIONS:-
FRIDAY, MAY 10.
"SIDETRACKED" '.
r-
MAY 11.
-IN-
ap-
But passing out upon life's rugged
highway, without a slumtering thought
of the pain and anguish that thicken the
air, what wonder that the poison shafts
that fly hither and yon find sheathing
in the unsuspecting heart? And what
wonder that the wounds therefrom,
incurable, eat and corrode the soul
until life is bitter and hard to live?
Oh, tell me not that we think somber
and melancholy strains because of
inheritance! Nay: what occasion for
gloomy thoughts when the atmosphere
is rife with joy and gladness; not that
joy which is everywhere, and at all
times to be found in Nature; but that
inner gladness of the soul that ever
proclaims it in harmony with its sur
roundings, and which may be denom
inated as our especial and individual
belonging? Only when the unarmored
soul unarmored through the tender
solicitude of the dear ones under child
hood's roof -tree engages in the raging
battle of life on its own account can it
appreciate either pure joy or deep pain.
SUGGESS.
(Written for The Cocrter.)
Success is not the rabble's loud
plause,
The wreaths and tributes of the
clain'rous throng
Whose erring judgment is more often
wrong
Than right, poor playthings of the
wind, like straws
Blown here and yon. The mediocre
draws
More noisy comment from the crowds
along
Life's thoroughfares, that sympathy is
strong
Twixt things alike is one of nature's
laws.
To fix a standard that is high and true.
Forever straight toward that mark to
press,
A path o'er every obstacle to hew.
To be content with nothing that
less,
To do the best 'tis given thee to do.
This is the very acme of success.
Isabel Richey
W
14.
TUESDAY, MAY
EMILY BANCKER
-IN-
0iR YiKX.
"TRILBr
IS
She Was an Observer.
"
AND
When deception tricks the guileless
one into its fiendish clutches, and
injured love is the sacrifice upon the
altar oh, who can understand such
anguish but the pierced heart? No, I
"You have brought new sonshine into
my heart," he said, rapturously.
"Do you mean that," she said, timidly.
"Of course I mean it. Can you doubl
me?"
"Oh, of course I know you wouldn't
intentionally misrepresent. But you
know a young man so often thinks a
girl has brought sunshine into his life
when, in reality, it's only moonshine."
pfvssute
SttOVl
"3
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