A MORNING RAMBLE.
What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened heart.
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live.”
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live.”
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live.”
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,
I thank Thee that I live.”
Clouds there are; but, oh, how much of sunshine! Sorrow there is; but, in every cup is mingled a drop of balm. Over our threshold the destroying angel passeth; yet, ere the rush of his dark wing sweepeth past, cometh the Healer.
Here is a poor, blind man basking in the sunshine, silently appealing, with outstretched palm, to the passer-by. Through his thin, gray locks the wind plays lovingly. A smile beams on his withered face; for, though his eyes are rayless, he can feel that chill Winter has gone; and he knows that the flowers are blossoming—for the sweet west wind cometh, God-commissioned, to waft him their fragrance. Some pedestrians gaze curiously at him; others, like the Levite, “pass by on the other side.” A woman approaches. She is plainly clad, and bears a basket on her arm. She has a good, kind, motherly face, as if she were hastening back to some humble home, made brighter and happier by her presence. Life is sweet to her. She catches sight of the poor old man; her eye falls upon the label affixed to his breast: “I am blind!” Oh, what if the brightness and beauty of this glad sunshine were all night to her veiled lids? What if the dear home faces were for ever shrouded from her yearning sight? What if she might never walk the sunny earth, without a guiding hand? She places her basket upon the side-walk, and wipes away atear; now she explores her time-worn pocket; finds the hardly-earned coin, and placing it in the palm of the old man, presses his hand lovingly, and is gone!
Poor Bartimeus! He may never see the honest face that bent so tenderly over him; but, to his heart’s core, he felt that kindly pressure, and the sunshine is all the brighter, and the breeze sweeter and fresher for that friendly grasp, and life is again bright to the poor blind man.
“Oh God! I thank Thee that I live!”
“Oh God! I thank Thee that I live!”
“Oh God! I thank Thee that I live!”
“Oh God! I thank Thee that I live!”
How swiftly the ferry-boat ploughs through the wave! How gleefully that little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business men, going back to their quiet homes; and pleasure-loving belles, returning from the city. Pacing up and down the deck is a worn and weary woman, bearing in her arms a child, so emaciated, so attenuated, that but for the restless glance of its dark, sunken eyes, one would think it a little corpse. The mother has left her unhealthy garret in the noisome lane of the teeming city, and paid her last penny to the ferryman, that the health-laden sea breeze may fan the sick child’s temples. Tenderly she moves it from one shoulder to another. Now, she lays its little cheek to hers; now, she kisses the little slender fingers; but still the baby moans. The boat touches the pier. All are leaving but the mother and child; the ferryman tells her to “go too.” She says timidly, “I want to return again—I live the other side—I came on board for the baby,” (pointing to the dying child). Poor woman! she did not know that she could not go back without another fee, and she has not a penny. Loathsome as is her distant home, she must go back to it; but how?
One passenger beside herself still lingers listening. Dainty fingers drop a coin into the gruff ferryman’s hand—then a handful into the weary, troubled mother’s. The sickly babe looks up and smiles at the chinking coin—the mother smiles, because the baby hassmiled again—and then weeps, because she knows not how to thank the lovely donor.
“Homeward bound.”
Over the blue waters the golden sunset gleams, tinting the snowy, billowy foam with a thousand iris hues; while at the boat’s prow stands the happy mother, wooing the cool sunset breeze, which kisses soothingly the sick infant’s temples.
“This earth is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live!”
“This earth is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live!”
“This earth is very lovely. Oh, my God,I thank Thee that I live!”
“This earth is very lovely. Oh, my God,
I thank Thee that I live!”