UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
Class Book Volume
F 11-20M
l'\])HR THE (iAS-LlGHT:
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
STATE CAPITAL OF ILLINOIS.
B Y I) . L E I B A M B R O S K ,
l CITY K.mroK SAN<;AMO MONITOR.)
SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
T. W. S. KTDD, PUBLISH KR.
L879.
Entered 'according to act of Congress, in the yeur 1879, by D. I-KIH AMUKOSK. in tin-
office of the Librarian of Congress, :it Washington.
I. W. KOKKKK, HINDKK.
DEDICATION.
TO TIIK MEMOIiV OK 1IKK WHO IX I. IKK
WAS HIS Gl IDINC; STAR,
AM) WHO TO-DAY WEARS TIIK ETERNAL
CROWN OK WOMANHOOD,
THIS VOLUME IS TKXDKRLY INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR.
192408
I ~nder the Gas-L,ighfs glare ami s/iectt,
The Rambler rambled, facts to glean.
He satv in the shades of the night,
Pictures gloomv and pictures bright.
PREFACE.
This volume, as the reader beholds it. embraces the results
of a series of rambles in the State Capital of Illinois, which
have appeared in the Monday morning issue of the DAILY
.A MO MONITOR during the past year. If there be found
one sentence that will create a cheerful feeling, or swell the
soul to a lofty -entiment. the rambler will feel rewarded for
hi- work.
Only a part of the rambles are presented those which, in
humble judgment, were deemed the most worthy. Many of
these have received additions suggested by further observa-
tion and thought^ What vou see before vou is roar* to ap-
prove or disapprove. The work, in the main, was accom-
plished in busy hours, and therefore in its perusal a generous
consideration is invoked.
D. L. A.
Springfield, 111., Nov. 14, 1879.
UNDER THE GAS-LIGHT.
RAMBLE I.
"IPjE pass along a prominent street. We see here a pal-
ace and there a cottage. There is an " Under the
Gas-light" in the one, but in the other a modest lamp
emits a modest light. Ingersoll says : " Burns was a cottage
and Shakespeare a palace, but about the cottage were more
flowers and of a sweeter perfume than about the palace."
From what we have observed in our life and in our ram-
bles may we not paraphrase and say, "Yonder is a cottage
and yonder is a palace, but in the cottage is more heart and
of sweeter perfume than in the palace;" yet we cannot do
without the one any more than we can do without the other.
From each come lessons telling many of life's stern and es-
sential duties. From each comes a hope. The cottager
hopes for a better condition in life, and through the inspira-
tion of that hope toils on in the even tenor of his way. The
man in the mansion, under the glare and glitter of the gas-
io Under the Gas-Light.
light may hope for that which the cottager possesses health
and happiness.
It is now late. The man in the palace has a call for charity,
but the call is not heeded. The cottager has the same call ;
O *
he lends a' listening ear. He had read in a book of Christian
cherishing, "the chiefest among these is charity." It was re-
membered that such was the teaching of Christ, and that the
fruit thereof was sunshine, not shadows; hope, not desolation;
affection, not bitterness; flowers, not thorns; and the suppliant
was put in a "condition of thankfulness. There was more
heart in the cottage' and of a sweeter perfume, than there was
in the palace, and all because there had not been as much
contact with the world, and as much hurtful friction.
An out-of-the-way place is entered, where is seen a justice
of the peace, a constable, and a candidate for office. Officials
in these times seem to take many official liberties, and candi-
dates hunt for votes in many strange places. The day pre-
ceding, these men had much to say about modern civil service
and its corruptions.
"Here's success to you," says one to the other, and up their
hands go. "The chiefest of these is charity," is the text of
the great gospel, and therefore we will say no more at this
time.
A stranger stands upon the post-office corner. A word or
two from him reveals the fact that he is an old soldier a vet-
eran of '6 1.
Under the Gas- Light. n
"Can you tell me where Lincoln's old residence is?"
"Yes," was the reply, and then followed the directions.
"During the day I visited the Monument at Oak Ridge."
"And you found it a pleasant place ?"
"Very pleasant, indeed."
"But before I leave on the midnight train I must see where
the martyred president lived ere -he rose to fame, power and
immortality."
The man was cultured and appreciative. A guide con-
ducted him to the place where he desired to go, and gazing
for some time upon the house that will for ages be a historic
landmark, he turned away, saying: "A hundred years from
to-night the visitor and the pilgrim will see different sur-
roundings, and the then people of Springfield will appreci-
ate this place more than they of to-day do."
Sunday night and the rambles are resumed.
We take it that those out early this evening "under the
gas-lights" are church goers. There may be some excep-
tions, and more perhaps than there should be.
It is said that church goers are more numerous in this
country than in any other, owing perhaps to the more liberal
distribution of intelligence among the people. In fact, church
going has long been considered one of the requirements
of our civilization, and the requirement was well met by
our church people in this city yesterday and last night.
Standing under the gas-light, we saw pass, Methodists, Catho-
12 Under the Gas-Light.
lies, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Congregationalists
and Christians. There was a pausing to reflect over the di-
versity of sects, and yet it is claimed that all sects preach
Christ, and in their efforts toward human salvation, and hu-
man elevation, promulgate alike the principles of mercy,
peace and love. Whatever may be said of other places, the
observation is that in Springfield there is a commendable
charity exhibited in religious things. A Methodist and a
Catholic pass along arm in arm, having come together in
returning from their places of worship. This suggested that
iron-bound creeds and rigid theology had spent their
exacting force before reaching our present civilization.
Under the Gas-Light. 13
RAMBLE II.
the heavens no stars are to be seen. Clouds hang low,
and a chill wind creeps about. Upon a quiet street the
rambler rambles. Attention is directed to a house
humble in appearance. There is a light in the window, shin-
ing as brightly as though the clouds in the heavens did not hang
low and the winds were not chill. The curtain is not wholly
closed, and through the opening is seen a company of bright-
faced, and bright-eyed children, surrounding a mother. It is
a picture of love, and a scene of affection. There was matur-
ity in the midst of childhood, and it appeared that a blessing
was being imparted in the character of instructive lessons.
The impression obtained at once that this was a heart home.
While we paused a good strong, man came down the street,
and, turning in at the gate, knocked for admittance. "Who's
there?" was the quick response. The reply was uttered in a
manly voice, in a tone that was familiar, and in a moment
the door was open, and the "tree a vine was clinging to,"
passed in from the darkness and the chill wind. It was plain
that, in the best sense of the word, he was, in that home, the
defender of the faithful. From under the gas-light was
14 Under the Gas-Light.
heard the pattering of little feet, and the music of God's best
divinity as it existed in the heart and soul of childish inno-
cence. No matter now if in the outside world their raged a
tempest and existed a restless discontent. To this man at
this period such conditions were of no moment. He lived
now in a kingdom of his own, surrounded by an unlimited
loyalty, begotten in the secret chambers of the heart and soul.
The rambler wraps his coat closer about him, and amid the
outward elements, fringed with discomfort, he passes on to
other points and other scenes.
On a southwest corner he pauses, and pausing, looks up,
and through the darkness, and the overhanging branches of a .
tree, far above the earth where space is cheap, and where ex-
istance is less costly, a light is seen. It conies through a
window more modest than those below, but nearer the
clouds, and nearer the stars. The window has the character
of a door and is now slightly ajar. Through it comes a strain
of music floating as it were upon golden cords through the
air. The song was in the English mother tongue, and there-
fore English mothers' sons could appreciate it. It had a
sentiment had a soul, and the beauty of that sentiment, and the
debth of that soul was easily comprehended. Its drapery
and finish was of a clear Saxon brand a drapery and fin-
ish that surrounds the best songs and music, which, in all the
ages, has been developed in the human heart. The song that
came from that humble yet lofty window, or from the soul
Under the Gas-Light. 15
behind it, partook of divinity, and carried with it a melody
infinite in conception. A step or two below might have ex-
isted an infatuation for the artistic, combined with the grand
harmonies, but this infatuation w r ould leave the soul in a con-
dition of barrenness, that is, the English speaking, and the
English understanding soul. After all there must be had a
charity for tastes, and be yielded a concession to diverse opin-
ions. This we have, and this we do, but under that gaslight
on that southwest corner there came to us from that attic
window, upon an angle of forty-five degrees, the song and
the music bound to move a midnight rambler:
"Rest for the weary hands is g-ood
And love for hearts that pine,
But let the manly habitude
Of upright souls be mine."
These lines were the ones that had been wedded to music,
and the music did not lord it over the lines, nor did the lines
beat the music.
It is now past the midnight hour, and as we count time the
boundary 'twixt Saturday and Sunday has been passed. As
Christian civilization views it, a holier period in time has
been reached. We pass on within the shadow of a building
containing a sanctuary. The words of the song that floated
from the attic window are still remembered, and the rambler
pauses to wonder if in that sanctuary, or in any sanctuary in
this city, would be preached during the Sabbath a Gospel
more cheering.
1 6 Under the Gas- Light.
RAMBLE III
| HE streets are crowded. It is the Saturday evening
before the election, and many men are exhibiting their
interest. A large number are full of fire, and therefore
unbalanced. They congregrate in mobs and assume to ex-
pound economic principles; but the expounding soon merges
into an incoherency, and in many instances the incoherency
into an inextricable blindness. Now we hear a story, now an
insinuation, and then an imputation. To believe them all
would be to believe the worst possible things, and to have
one's faith in humanity reduced to a slender thread. The
gin-mills, the fountains of modern political inspiration, are
running at full blast, and the inveterate bummers and dead-
beats are clinging to candidates like Christian faith clings to
the hope of immortality. The scene repulses the senses and
sickens the heart, causing the sober, reflective citizen to
weaken in his admiration for the elective system in the ma-
chinery of republican government. Men are drunk to-night
who for many a day have stood aloof, and from under the gas-
lights we hear this expression: ."Well, boys, here goes,
election times are not always with us." The reflection was,
Under the Gas- Light. 1*7
that if these times could not come and pass without being made
periods of beastliness, and without being embraced as oppor-
tunities for wasting the best substance of human life, then it
would be better if they would never come. It points to no
purity in government, and tells of no condition, redeeming in
character, in the preliminary workings of our political system.
But enough of this. We will pass.
We hear a voice in Reform Club Hall. Ascending the
stairway we behold a man standing, in the attitude of a
speaker, on the platform. He speaks words of cheering im-
port. They are the words of kindness, and they flow with
an impetuous force, as the language of the heart always flows.
"O, friend! strong in wealth for so much good, take my
counsel. In the name of the Saviour I charge you to be true
and tender to mankind." He would have all men come out
from Babylon into manhood, and love and labor for the fallen,
the neglected, the suffering, and the poor. He would bid the
lover of arts, customs, laws, institutions and forms of society,
love those things only as they help mankind, and despise
them when they cause a flowing of tears and a bleeding of
the soul. He would draw men to him and not repulse them;
he would make friends and not enemies; would soften
the human heart instead of steeling it against the mollifying
influence of agencies, pure and saving in all their essential
forces. He tells us that he is a hater of evil, but not a hater
of men; that he is unfriendly to instrumentalities that lead
1 8 Under the Gas-Light.
into thorny paths, but friendly to the humanity that
suffers thereby. He would battle temptation, but pause to
sympathize with, and to help the tempted, pointing him away
to a place, and a condition, where the eye never sees, the ear
never hears, the mind never knows, and the heart never feels
the form or voice, the thought or sense of any temptation.
Ere the rambler passed out into the open air his thought was
that it was a grand thing for man to be able to understand
man, and to adjust himself for a given time in another's place
to stand as he stood, and feel as he felt. When judging a
friend or a brother it is a very good rule not to look simply
on one side. In the jostling headlong race of life man is-
liable to be selfish in his views and judgments. We do not
always know how much this one or that one has "struggled,
and fought, and striven;" how much this man or that man
was tempted and tried, ere he was forced to embrace the
wrong that he did.
"There's many a man crushed down by shame,
Who blameless stands before God,
But whom his fellows have utterly scorned,
And made to "pass under the rod;"
Whose soul is unstained by the thought of sin.
Who will yet find saving grace,
And who would be praised where you now condemn,
If you would "put yourself in his place."
The closing day has been "All Souls Day," as indicated by
the command of an ancient church. Prayers have been offer-
ed for the alleviation of restless souls, and for their redemp-
tion from thralldom. There has been a looking away into
Under the Gas-Light. 19
the realms of a spiritual existence. Contemplating the faith
that penetrates the darkness, and grasps the conditions beyond
the veil, the rambler is lost in the traditional mysteries. Round
about he is told that there are restless souls. Going his way
he meets those in thralldom, fit subjects for redemption.
Who prays for their alleviation to-night? It may be a mother,
a wife, or a sister, who comprehend not the established teach-
ing which comes up from the eighth century. "All Soul's
Day" sounds well. There is so much soul about it, is the
reason. Everything that tells of the soul, or even alludes to
the soul, calls for man's attention. Yonder sits a tramp on
the Court Park curbing. Has the day just passed been to
him a soul day ? Wonder if he went about during the day to
say, as did the village children during the middle ages:
"Pray, good mistress, for a soul cake."
He may have gone about seeking food, but whether he ob-
tained any "soul cake" is questionable. Upon these points
the rambler cares not to interrogate him. To all appearance
his history is a' sealed scroll, and what is contained therein is
his own. He has a soul, and the indications are that it has suf-
fered. He may have been repulsed from his home a home
in which was taught an iron-hooped theology. Hismother,
good and true, may have gone to heaven years ago. Ser-
mons may have been preached to him from the words, "The
greatest of these is charity," and which was never made prac-
2o Under the Gas-light.
tical. The boy may have wondered and doubted. He may
have met with struggles and temptations, and then the scorn
of the world, which conditions tended to the desolation of the
soul's sanctuary. And now, while he sits there within the
shadow of one of the Park trees, and while the moon's soft
beams fall through the over-hanging branches, he may be
plotting some transgression against society, from which he
may now be an outcast; and who knows but what a few
"soul cakes" might cause him to cease his plotting, and to
drop his hands, which may forsooth be raised against what
seems to him to be an exacting society.
Under the Gas-Light. 21
RAMBLE IV.
JITHOUT faith in humanity there could be no such
thing as faith in God; no such thing as a developed
Christian civilization, and no such thing as a crowning
glory of genius. There would be no searching for heaven ; no
grasping for an eternal reward ; and no struggling to attain a
mastery and knowledge of all material forces.
Passing under an all-night gas-light we enter a narrow
way. There are bunks ranged about, which, here and there,
are occupied by men, who seem to have unfortunately drifted
to the losing side of the battle of life. For convenience sake
we will call this place "The City's Charity." Though
charity is counted the chiefest of virtues, this charity is not,
by a large degree, the chiefest of charities. However, it af-
fords a shelter and preserves life. There is no gas-light here,
for that has some how or other been decreed a luxury. The
dingy stove, and battered coal bucket, constitutes the furniture
of this retreat. A man rises from a bunk and sits upon the
outer edge. He looks contemplatively into the low burning
fire. There is something about the man that attracts the
rambler's attention. His ayes show a brilliancy, and his head
22 Under the Gas-Light.
the marks of an intellectuality. He speaks little, and very
slowly. He shows that he has a memory, and that it is full.
Conversing with him the impression obtains that he has been
an observer of things. "My friend," said he, "Want is a bit-
ter and a hateful thing. Its virtues are not understood ; how-
ever, a condition of need has brought to a full perfection many
things, which could not have been done under other circum-
stances." Having listened to these words, the rambler fancied
that he saw the speaker in a better condition. Sure he was
that a scholar spoke a man who had been cultured, to the
better realities of life. For a moment he paused, for a mo-
ment he gazed at the old unsightly stove, and seemingly un-
conscious of the slow struggling fire within. He then, as if
in retrospect, quoted from Byron's Childe Harold:
I lave I not suffered things to be forgiven ?
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, life's life lied away'
And only not to desperation driven
Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I sway?
It was a sad sight. There was a man who deserved a bet-
ter fate. It was plain that he had seen better days, that he
had stood in the sunshine, that he had held up his head to
gaze at the stars in the heavens, and with a grasp of his intel-
lect had conceived what many of his fellows could not compre-
hend. "By what process have you reached a place like this?"
asks the rambler. There was a painful silence for a few mo-
Under the Gas-Light. 23
meats, and then the man responded: "It would take hours
to tell you, but may it be sufficient to say that the starting
point was when I began to abuse my manhood, and neglected
to cherish my opportunities. I might say that on many an
occasion man has passed by on the other side, and then I
might add that I was first harsh to myself, and gave man a
reason for "passing by on the other side."
This character is not the only one which the rambler comes
in contact with in this place. There are others here, and each
with a history. There sits a young man who appears not to
have reached his majority. His clothes are rent in many places,
and generally his appearance is uninviting. He wasn't com-
municative, but enough was obtained for the basis of a con-
clusion that he was a prodigal; and that he was feeding upon
the husks was plainly evident. He had ventured out to see
the world, to investigate its ways, and to find a better condi-
tion than he fancied he had previously enjoyed. It was clear
that he had found the ways of the world, and found them
rougher than he had anticipated, and that he had not reached
that better condition which he had hoped for. His inclina-
tion was to turn back and go to his father's house. A fatted
calf seemed to be his want. It was his need, and would claim
his attention more closely than would a disquisition on causes
and effects, or a sermon on the "Gospel plan of salvation."
To him "a prayer without some meat and corn" would be
as virtueless for good as would a morning vapor be powerless
24 Under the Gas-L,ight.
to float an ocean steamer. Upon the floor was observed a
few tracts, dropped by some good man possessed of a good
heart. It was the preparing of the way to the life to come
the indexes pointing "tramps" to a tramping along the golden
streets of the New Jerusalem. It is well for these men's at-
tention to be thus directed, but what concerns them most now
was about the earthly way, and how the most successfully to
tramp the muddy streets of the planet earth.
The rambler has been in the city's charity hall long enough.
He seeks a change and finds it. The contrast is wide. He
now sees a little three-year old girl dressed in white. It is
prettier than the brightest star that blazes in the heavens, be-
cause it is near the heart. It is as pretty as the prettiest an,gel
that ever moved through the atmosphere of immortal exist-
ence, because its ministrations reach living souls. It is the
beauty of childhood, of innocence, and of truth, and the heav-
ens can produce no better beauty.
Under the Gas-Light. 25
RAMBLE V .
'HlXPERIENCE tells every man that association tends to
make stronger and deeper our emotion for the beautiful.
There has just passed a man under the glare of the gas-
light, who, in his youth, ere he crossed the home threshold
to go out in the world, to be a straggler in its conflicts, gazed
upon a mother's miniature and thought it beautiful. He
passed out a wanderer; he battled and struggled for years; he
attained the strength of manhood, and combining his forces,
gained a victory. Pausing, he looks again upon the min-
iature. How emotions swell. That one who never wearied
in caring for him, and who never faltered in her ministry of
love and faith, now seems divinely beautiful. He drops a tear;
and while the gas-lights continue to blaze their light for the
feet of the passing throng, memory's gallery is open, and
through its avenues our wanderer moves, with throbbing
heart and softened tread, as he beholds the beautiful pictures
which are hung there, of mother and home, with their happy
light, guiding his footsteps down life's winding way. In this
man we see that which is noble, pleasing and beautiful.
26 Under the Gas-Light.
It is yet early in the evening. The streets are crowded
with a miscellaneous collection of the population. Standing
upon the corner one sees much that is beautiful, and much
that is repulsive. The tempters, who are passing to and fro,
would make a host if congregated. Here and there men
stand to make unseemly comments pertaining to their pres-
ence. Better than they are the frail sisters, but the world, in
its false vision, concedes it not. This city's best(?) society
pets many a viper, and, like a relentless fury, crowds into hell
their victims. This is not noble it is not beautiful. Christ
in his earthly mission would not tolerate a practice so wither-
ing so hurtful. He watered where watering was needed,
and calling for the golden of trust would not, by His will, per-
mit a single human soul to famish. It is sure He would not
drive a soiled existence quivering to the prey of the favorites
of a society that cherishes shoddy conditions, and exhibits a
coldness towards the unfortunates who are passing under the
rod. The Christly way is the way along which love's sooth-
ing dews are permitted to fall, to quicken to life the plants
upon which, in other days, had bloomed the fragrance and
innocence of beauty.
Did we but know the causes which have so many times
led virtue to sin, and made innocence a barren waste, we
would know more than we ever dreamed of knowing. Many
bright eys grow dim, and we know not the agency that rob-
bed them of their ligfht. Man v soft and rosy cheeks grow
Under the Gas- Light. 27
pale, and the wonder is from whence came the blight. In
the temples of humanity's best hopes comes a frailty, and
then a fading. Why it is, we are not permitted to know, and
maybe 'tis well. When the dove is wounded it clasps its
wings to hide its bleeding. The sighs that come from its
heart are breathed in solitude and silence. There is but little
upon which to base a judgment concerning the character of
the wound. However, conclusions are drawn, and they carry
with them, too often, the opposite of healing.
"Did you see them turn around the corner?" was a question
asked the rambler. "Yes," was the reply; and turning that
corner means the passing into a locality where hearts are fam-
ishing and souls perishing, and where is going to decay, tem-
ples of God's own building. Those who had just turned the
corner were young men the children of fortune. Under the
wings of the night the covers of many a sin and by the
blinding glare of the gas-light they had gone their way for a
revel, and for a dance, with those whose hearts had not been
nurtured as they had craved to be. These young men had, a
while before, been seen in the presence of beauty and of vir-
tue. They had courted respect, and had obtained it; they
wanted the smiles of virtue, and the benefit of the fragrance
that comes from hearts, that gather well and wisely, from the
gardens of God's own planting, and all these they had secur-
ed. They bowed themselves out, leaving the impression that
they were models of young manhood's glory, and that they
28 Under the Gas-light.
possessed as much virtue within as they exhibited without.
They were seen later, and with the tempter's coil wound
about them. The scene was a sad one. Good mothers, good
sisters, and good friends, dreamed not of their plight. "Where
ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," but the knowledge
will come by and by, and with it tears and sorrow, and a deso-
lation of the soul's sanctuary.
Under the Gas-Light. 29
RAMBLE VI.
JjE enter a dark way from under the gas-light; pass from
the localities of the rich and opulent. The surround-
ings tell of no heart song, and of no soul growing. A
feeble voice is heard, giving out a music that is tremulous, re-
minding the rambler of some ancient hai - p, which once breath-
ed a strong and clear melody, but whose loosened strings now
reveal only plaintive quiverings. There has faded away the
fair morning, with its rose-tinted hours, which bore upon
its bosom the dew and freshness of childhood. When most
real and most earnest was life there came a blight. When
heart beat highest and warmest the golden power of trust was
riven. High built plans and purposes fell. The faithful
strivings for self, for man and for God, fled. The power of
evil had done its work, and left a heart blasted with the poi-
son of impurity, alone in the gathering darkness, without an
earthly friend, shut out from the ministry of love, and barred
from the ways of redemption.
To the rambler she said : "I was never trusted, was always
placed in the attitude of one whose honor was in defence.
30 Under the Gas-Light.
My life took an early chill ; it was never led by songs of love ;
ill winds blew across my path; my father watched me as if I
was a being without a soul ; my heart wanted a feeding, but
it was never fed. Had I been trusted I might not have stray-
ed into the cruel, thorny path of sin. I was held by an
iron band away from my heart's best desires, and was, instead,
watched through summer bowers."
From this scene of evil blight, and of perishing, the rambler
passes to a more hopeful one. He enters a humble cottage
around which floods a light. It was not his first advent there.
The surroundings were not unfamiliar. It was a retreat
which he had sought on many a former occasion, and where
he had found a joy, a peace, and a faith he could find nowhere
else among the habitations of men. Evidence of a visitation
to that cottage was apparent a visitation from the skies, a
coming from the heart of the heavens from the paradise of
divinity, of love and trust. It is a freshling of creation, with
a soul, breathed from the' inward temble of the Infinite. To
the rambler's ears there comes an infant's voice, a voice not
heard before among the children of men. What tidings does
it bring, and upon what mission does it come? Those who
have developed into a mature ' and vitalized manhood would
love to know, but are not permitted. It was Charles Lamb
who rushed across a London street and grasped an infant,
held in a mother's arms, and shaking it, cried : "O ! little one,
tell me of heaven." At this moment there are those who
Under the Gas-Light. 31
would do likewise, would ask the infant about heaven, about
God, about the angels, and about the beauty and fragrance of
the flowers that bud and blossom along the golden streets of
that heaven, out from which it passed for a home on the
earth.
Out on the still, chill air is heard the solemn, thrilling notes
of the town clock, telling not of sorrow and neither of peace,
but of the ending of the night and the beginning of the morn-
ing, of rest receding and the duties of another day approach-
ing. When will rest cease to recede and the hours of toil
cease their coming? was a question suggested to the rambler
as he passed out under the moonlight. The answer came:
"not until the last battle is fought, and the last triumph gain-
ed, will rest cease to do its soothing work, and toil cease to be
toil." The only gas-light blazing now is at police headquarters.
Pausing here is to see much of human frailty, and to have
brought to one's attention much of human bleeding, caused
by the piercing thorns along the pathway of many a life. A
woman at the hour of one o'clock conies to tell the story of
man's inhumanity, of his viciousness, and of his transformation
into a devil. She had been compelled to abandon her home.
The husband, who, in a better period of his life, had vowed a
fealty, had upon this night whipped his wife. The very air
breathed invective, and seemed to invoke a visitation upon
that man of the vengeful scorpions of wrath. An officer
speaks: "O, its no use. As has been the case heretofore, she
32 Under the Gas-Light.
wont appear against him." When he was sober she couldn't,
and wouldn't stand before him in the attitude of a prosecutor.
There was a fidelity that would not break, a devotion that
failed not, and a hope that would not perish ; yet if that
woman had done the least fraction of what her husband had
done, she would have seen no fidelity, and no devotion like
unto her's, shown to call her back into life's peaceful ways.
She would have been driven out into the street, without a light,
without a guide. The crown of stars for womanhood would
have been for her turned into a crown of thorns. The man
the following day comes upon the street and is greeted by
friends, who say he is a good fellow, a clever man. Thus
day after day men are credited with qualities they possess not.
The qualities they do possess, the fiery viper in its liquid form
brings out when in the presence of the defenseless. In the
midst of strength and power their qualities are nursed into a
quietness. In fine they are a legion of cowards and never
take risks.
Under the Gas-Light. 33
RAMBLE VII.
JjORE and more, as the years go by upon their wings of
joy and sorrow, do we realize that from life's humblest
\j walks come the brightest rays of heart sunshine. In
the cottage there is not as many burnings as in the palace,
and not as much heart bleeding. In the one there glows into
beauty the gems of gratitude, but in the other selfishness
chokes gratitude to an untimely death. Just now a youth
strolls leisurely along with his companion. Their intellectual
trade marks indicate a mediocrity. The Jove-like signs of
mentality are not prominent. One says "O, it was very se-
lect." "Select of what?" was the question that naturally in-
truded. "A select thanksgiving party." Was God there?
Were there any soul windows, with a bright redeeming light,
streaming through, seen on either side? Or was the select
thanksgiving party a party returning its thanks over a few
cans of select oysters? Selections are to be desired if they
are good, and contain qualities that exist within as well as
without. A select company, selected from a brain and heart
-tand point, a company that can see a soul through the rough,
34 Under the Gas-Light.
and a brain whenever it develops, is a grand company, and
we are glad that in the city of the Emancipator such compa-
nies hold communion. But how true it is that with many of
these modern "selections," a grandly magnificent thought
would be a stranger. To entertain it, many belonging there-
to, would be compelled to have clipped their feeble wings of
surface drapery.
Lay down the proposition that mind acts from reason, and
matter from cause, and you would be presented with a multi-
plicity of confused expressions. Propound the question,
What is the proper business of the intellect? and there will
follow an incoherency. In the humble cottages grandly mag-
nificent thoughts are not always strangers. On the line of
mental vision those who are select are those who can give the
light, no matter how good or bad may be the clothes they
wear. The philosopher's lamp burned dimly in his chamber
while the select company danced in the presence of the king.
The philosopher threw into the worV a light that has illumi-
nated the centuries. The select company, who, in splendid
array, danced in the courtly presence, and felt themselves
honored, left no footprints as guides to the race; contributed
nothing toward showing the extent of intellectual develop-
ment in their period of life, and died as they had lived, with-
out an aim, and without a purpose. Standing at a distance,
there are many pictures seen that look well and please the eye.
A closer inspection reveals defects.
Under the Gas-J^ight. 35
"All that glitters is not gold;
Gilded tombs do worms unfold."
In many a circle of modern society is seen a brilliant glitter,
and behind it all are hearts as cold as a polar wave, and as
pulseless for humanity as the beaten rock beneath the ram-
bler's feet. They never reach out for a generous thought,
never reach down to lift up a prostrate form, and never ram-
ble upon missions of mercy, never discover that
"The gloomy outside, like a rusty chest,
Contains the shining treasure of a soul
Resolved and brave."
They never once seem to realize the truth that "the deep-
est ice that ever froze can only o'er the surface close." Be-
neath floats a current unchecked. Its force is a silent one,
and the world is fast coming to learn that these silent forces
are the forces that are moving . the nations. Therefore, it is
well to respect the surface conditions when it is known that
beneath exists the great propelling powers around which ai'e as-
pirations that grasp the heavens, and expectations that reach
the lines of eternal verities. Down a given street walks a
man quietly. Occasionly, as he passes within the gas-light,
he bows to a friend. He is a poor man and commonly clad.
He is not bothered with stocks, coupons and deeds, and is
never absorbed with the excitements incident to the rise and
fall of securities. Approaching, he hails the rambler and asks:
"My friend, isn't the sky beautiful to-night?" The question
suggested a looking away from amid the adverse gales of
36 Lnder the Gas-Light.
mortal existence. Though the moon was not full orbed, the
sky was beautiful; its face bore no trace of weariness, and let
fall no tears of sorrow.
Our friend had been in the chamber of grief, had seen tears
ebb and flow, and innocence pleading for comfort. There had
been a passage between the stars; an angel had led the way,
and coming to the temple of his affections had taken a treas-
ure and borne it above; and this is why he had raised his
head to look that way, and to admire the beauty of the heav-
ens. Could this man look up, and, surveying the starry re-
gions, feel surging through his soul a spirit of thankfulness, as
he remembered that during the year had been torn from his
life a budding fragrance that was making bright and happv
his existence? We simply wonder, if in his humanity he
could so triumph. We fancied that when he looked at the
sky and its glitter of stars, his thoughts dwelt more upon the
affectionate interest he had in the heavens than upon the ma-
jesty of that being who created them. And for this who
would chide him, when it is remembered that God made his
soul, and made it to throb with love.
Under the Gas-Light. 37
RAMBLE VIII.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women are merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances ;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
I I HE seven ages, or stages, are seen to-night, ranging from
' ?"" infancy to second childhood. On and on goes the play.
| fj The castes of character are varied. The streets are full of
life. There is music in the air, discordant though it may be.
There is a joy upon the road, but a shivering pain down the
by-way. On the highway is a bounding life, but aside a little
way is a cheerless condition. The windows glisten under the
sheen of the gas-light. We hear the sleigh-bells ring. The
north wind blows cold. The furs and robes are heaped about.
The midnight hour comes. The sleighs drop far apart. The
words of those within are soft and slow, and thus the game
of life goes on, either to lose or to win, to rise or to fall. To-
night, as we struggle to maintain our position upon the smooth
surface beneath our feet, much of sham, artifice, conceit and
hypocrisy are seen. Here and there is beheld that which is
natural, modest, frank and real. It is the outgrowth of a
38 Under the Gas-Light.
right conception of God; the fruit of a teaching that tells
man that his duty embraces that which is the opposite of
harshness, and that his conception of eternity should not be
such as to make him a coward and a hypocrite.
A cynic stands upon a corner watching the play. He has
reached the shady side of life. He is given to moods of ab-
straction, and at this time is caustic but philosophic. Says he :
"My friend, I believe I have some respectable principles; at
any rate I have never meddled in any marriage or scandal. I
have never recommended a cook or a physician, and conse-
quently have never attempted the life of any one." "Then,"
interposed the rambler, "it may be safe to say you never en-
gaged in journalism." "No, sir, never," was the quick reply.
"Have you any likes?" ventured the rambler. "Very few, I
assure you," was the response, and continuing, said : "My dis-
likes are in the majority. I have a dislike for sots, fops, and
intriguing women who make a game of virtue. I have a dis-
gust for affectation. I have a pity for made-up men and wo-
men. I have an aversion to rats, liquors, metaphysics, and
rhubarb, and this continual changing of school books, and
have always had a terror for modern justice and wild beasts."
The rambler thinks this is not bad. A little hating now
and then is a good thing, in fact it is essential. We are aware
that there is a class of people in the world who preach univer-
sal love for everybody and everything. All great reformers
have been more or less great haters. The hearty detestation of
Under the Gas-Light. 39
John Knox had a potential influence. In the infancy of this re-
public the bitter condemnations that found utterance, accom-
plished more for freedom and democracy, than all the graceful
ulogiums could have done in a thousand years. Walter Scott,
the genius of good nature, never could have aroused a nation
up to revolution. The seals of injustice cannot be broken by
gentle nursing. The Shylocks of the world, laugh at water
gruel and mock at man's splendid heroics. Men who would be
masters on the earth must steer from expediencies and cramp-
ing policies, must deal indignant blows against manifest evils.
The cynic to whom we allude accords with these views.
There is a sympathy so to speak, and he becomes still further
communicative. Says he: "I am like the French count. I
was taught all sorts of things, and learned all sorts of lan-
guage. By dint of impudence and quackery I sometimes pass-
ed for a savant. I await death without fear, and without impa-
tience. My life has been a bad melodrama on a grand stage,
and I have played the hero, the tyrant, the lover, the noble-
man, but never the valet."
That is to say he had been a man a proud man. He had
combined his soul forces, and had dropped into an incisive
analysis of men and things. He had looked through surfaces
into debths, and therefrom drawn deductions. He had no use
for a material and spiritual thinness; had no liking for mush,
and never had much time to spend with the striplings, who
lived only to be seen.
40 ' Under the Gas-Light.
This man possessed a strange yet forceful character. Upon
the world's stage he had appeared in many scenes, and mark-
ed and energetic in all. Soon the end will come, when he
will have put aside his armor to seek a repose where hypo-
crisy, cant and seeming will not comfront him, and where the
soul will not be hidden.
Under the Gas-Light. 41
RAMBLE IX.
I I HERE are many persons in the world of a cynicn 1 ,
' gloomy cast of mind, who are wont to groan over the
I U degeneracy of the age. Now it is confined to one thing
and at another time to something else. Standing in a public
place, where all the surroundings show a bounding activity,
we behold a monster of pungent characteristics. "That is a
prompting of selfishness," was a sample of his wording.
"My dear sir, do I address a pessimistic theorist?" interposed
a bystander. The reply was indirect. "Will you buy a tick-
et?" questioned a bright-eyed maiden. "It's for sweet char-
ity's sake," she continued. Our cynical theorist began at once
to criticise the character of these continuous appeals. The
fair pleader interjected a few words and was gone: "We will
know more about it later," was the utterance. This was a
reply that was very suggestive, and it met with no re-
tort. There seemed to be no bracing up against its influence.
The fact was plain that there was an increase of philanthropic
work in the world, which, with a resistless power,' was being
forced upon the mind and into the soul. Religious people
42 Under the Gas-Light.
may, if they will, imagine a lack of spirituality, and skepti-
cal scientists may tell us that Christianity is dying out, but
there never was a time in the history of the world when there
was more blessing flowing from as many unseen sources than
there is to-day. We look out upon the night and behold a
ministration, the like of which could not have been seen a
hundred years ago. It is the outflowing of a creed per-
meated with universal love, and based upon elements of a
broad Catholicy, and from under the gas-lights' glare the
rambler \: wont to say that never were there so many peo-
on the earth as now, who could be called "Blessed of the
Father and heirs of the kingdom of heaven."
From these reflections we pass.
The Capitol gas-lights were unusually brilliant. Beneath
them moved an anxious, enthusiastic concourse of people,
Among them were representative men, men of culture and
intellectual force, men who had done service in both civil and
turbulent fields. The caucus door was slightly ajar, and
through the opening it was uttered, "eighty to twenty-six".
A soldier boy, a member of the Tennessee legion, heard the an-
nouncement and yelled, "ANOTHER MARCH TO THE SEA!"
That shout called up the memory of the heroic days of the
republic, when courage was the proud trade-mark of man.
Presently there was a gathering under a medley of gas-lights.
The rambler hears a voice. It comes through a condition of
silence: "Time is the vindicator of man, and to-night I have
Under the Gas-Light. 43
been vindicated." In this world of cpnflict and battle, of
goodness and evil, and of thorns and flowers, it is pleasant to
realize a vindication, and a satisfaction to know that reverses
can be outlived. A pair of keen, black eyes flash with mar-
velous brilliancy; not as roused by an inward passion, but by
the promptings of a worthy pride. There was a time when
those eyes exhibited a blackness more piercing than they
ever exhibited before or since, and that was when the army
courier rode to his side in North Carolina and told him of the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln. At that hour he was
the strongest and most restless soldier in the Republic. Man
never saw blacker eyes and of such a vigorous flashing.
Said he to Sherman : "Say the word and I will wipe the
rebel army in our front, from the face of the earth in three
hours." The rambler passes to another scene. Strong men,
men of public station, of political action, and of political
calculation, are hurrying to and fro. In an upper parlor is a
little woman with a head covered with hair that is silver-tint-
ed. She has lived an active life. She has come in contact
with the best minds of the earth. She is strong-minded, but
not in the common-parlance sense, for in all these latter years
of the Republic's most marked and eventful history, she has
clung to a man in whom she has ever had the strongest faith.
In his conflicts she has stood by his side with a zeal that was
tireless, and with a confidence that was as firm as it was
beautiful. Her heart is as strong as is her mind, and as sue-
44 Under the Gas-Light.
cessful in producing results. She knows men, and compre-
hends their charactei'istics with a remarkable intelligence.
Disorganized forces she can organize, and discordant elements
she can readily mollify, and with an ease of grace that com-
mands respect. Under the parlor gas-lights these qualities
are seldom seen in a developed form. There are but few wo-
men who can meet a vigorous commanding manhood in the
arena of political conflict, without, at least, an apparent de-
traction from the lofty plane where woman is queen, and
where her influence is potent, in making grand the inner life,
from whence comes the inspiration that gives man his best
resources and most forceful power. The wife of John Adams
had such a power, and in the first American cabinets she con-
centrated an influence which the nation felt, and which was
crystalized into policies which propelled the republic onward
in the march of governmental civilization. Upon the night
referred to, the rambler beheld a little woman who possesses
a similar power. In advance of time she had been a vindica-
tor of the man in whom she had an abiding interest. True,
it was a selfish vindication, but none the less commendable.
"Eighty to twenty-six" was borne to her ears, and a happy
smile beamed upon a face modestly traced with the lines of
anxiety and care, and with a brightness that hid those lines
from the casual glance. The triumph of the black-eved citi-
zen soldier was her triumph, and his honor and glory was her
honor and glory, and all the strong men who ranged about
Under the Gas-Light.
45
under the gas-lights conceded it, and further that she was one
of the most remarkable women of the century.
46 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE X.
l| did n't think that he was so weak," was an utterance heard
' / in the midst of a happy throng. The man had said : "My
| (j children will read your names and say they are our fa-
ther's friends." And over his cheeks coursed big tears. He
could say no more. He may have been unnerved, but by no
law of human ethics could the conclusion be reached that he .
was unmanned. Neither was it an evidence of weakness. A
man may conquer his soul, and drive back the rising emotions
in his heart, and it may be said of him, he is a man of strength,
a man of power, and a man of nerve ; but in the world of
humanity it is a strength that fails to produce good results.
It is the exhibition of a nerve that is not responsive when
touched by the hand of need, and a power that is powerless
to supply when the soul is hungering and thirsting for a great
good, a sweet fragrance. The man whose eyes are never
moistened with tears may be termed a strong-minded man,
but the man who can swell from his heart under the gas-light,
in the midst of a brilliant throng, is a strong-hearted man
strong in all the elements that point to a crowning success.
"I am a man and will not shed a tear," is the language of
Under the Gas-Light. 47
weakness. It is to assail the glitter of the best charm of life.
It is to discourage the best impulses of the soul. It is to chill
the worthy aspirations of manhood and wreck the best con-
struction of heart and soul. "I did n't think he was so weak,"
was met with "I did n't think he was so strong." The one
speaker conceived the strength of mind to be the whole of
man's commanding force ; the other believed that the heart of
man in its best condition was the throne of an agency that was
paving better ways and grasping sweeter fruits. Not, how-
ever, independent of mind, but in conjunction therewith. The
force of the one falls short without the force of the other. A
tear in all its sentient elements, is the most forceful of human
agencies
A tear, following a reference to the idols of the heart, shows
that the heart is big, and he who possesses it is a strong man.
In the arena of human action he is a central power, a magnet-
ic influence, giving point and vigor to all the arteries of hu-
man progress. Lincoln dropped a tear at Gettysburg, which
moved the nation into a mastery of strength. Such examples
of impulsive power have thrown their light all along the
path of the ages. Such formations from the seat of the soul
have made statesmen strong in the forum and cabinet, and
soldiers powerful in campaign and battle. The affections
yield man his best resources, and drawing therefrom he makes
himself a controling power among men. He reaches out
and grasps conditions of disorganization to convert them into
48 Under the Gas- Light.
conditions of harmony. The scene was a pleasant one. The
swelling of the soul and the reference to the loves of the
heart were what made it pleasant. It was to remind those
who stood about the room that the tree had clinging to it
tendrils, and that about it were being nurtured "buds to flow-
ers."
The rambler passes out. The night wind chants a mourn-
ful dirge as if passing humanity was keeping step to a time
that was muffled. "For the sake of Sangamon county's hon-
or maintain a silence." It was the pleading of a man of
pride, the pleading of a man having a knowledge of a shaded
life and a crippled manhood. Having a respect for the honor -
that would be affected if silence is maintained, the curtains are
permitted to hang suspended with no fold ajar.
"He's worth a half million," is an utterance made by an
observer near by. The man referred to was recognized as
one who had made a few forward steps during the past fif-
teen years. He was remembered as a man who, years ago
came to the capital, but not as he comes to-day. Then he
was ranked with the common herd, to-day his presence is
courted by those who had no use for him then. Then he was
poor, now he is rich. He had no influence then that was
commanding, but with success and wealth, that has been add-
ed. Aforetime he was a mechanic, and therefore in a me-
chanical way, carved out his fortune. He stepped'from a me-
chanic to a legislator; from a common walk to the walk of a
Under the Gas-Light. 49
solon. It's an example of the fruit of a bounding democracy.
To-day one may be groping along, to-morrow he may be a
forceful power. To-day one may be mingling with inordin-
ate conditions; to-morrow he may be crowding the stars, and
wishing that he had better eyes with which to battle their
blinding glare. The Hon. John Mulligan has toiled faith-
fully. He observed closely passing things. He struck the
rising tide, and met friendly gales, which gave him nought
but a cheerful fanning. If he floated into rough waters and
among breakers, his powers were such, and sufficient to save
him from any serious disaster. When he first turned the
grindstone to sharpen dull tools, he did it well, and told his
fellows that his business was to turn the crank. There was
no terming it "a circular work." He contented himself with
waiting patiently for the time to come when more high-
sounding titles would be his right. He had proper sense and
using it to advantage, won in the battle.
50 -Under the Gas- Light.
RAMBLE XI.
a tear here and another sparkles there. Carry sun-
shine to a home on tenth street, and the while a home
5P-- on first street is being mantled with gloom. Plant a
flower on north grand avenue, \vatered well with the dews
of the inward fountain, and while it is growing into vigor and.
beauty, a thorn is peering to pierce and pain on south grand
avenue. But shall there be a cessation, a withholding of
ministrations, when around about us in palace and cottage,
cruel invasions are being made, and the hearts of the fairest
flowers are being pierced. "I am tired of this work" were ill
words to utter while beyond so many thresholds exists so
much of blight, so much of sorrow so much of that which is
perishing for want of love and a soul benediction. If there be
a withholding, maybe in the after dawn, the flowers that have
been pierced all along the way of life will cry out reproach-
fully: "Why are we permitted to suffer?" and then the re-
cord will be made, and the upper and nether stones will press
and grind harshly.
In a quiet retreat, in from the surrounding chill borne upon
Under the Gas-Light. ^ i
the moaning wind, the rambler comes in contact with a teach-
er and a child. The teaching is from the word of the living
God, teaching the right way of living, practical lessons of life;
pointing out the beautiful and the unseemly, the noble and the
ignoble conditions which light and shade the earth. It is the
noblest work upon which mind and heart was ever concen-
trated.
The rambler has been told that children cannot understand
grave questions of theology. No doubt there are complex
questions of Christian ethics upon which men prate and wran-
gle, and which moral philosophers and religious teachers have
for eighteen hundred years been unable to settle, which little
children cannot fathom, and 'tis well that they cannot; but
there are matters allied to theology and moral teaching which
they can and do understand. For instance: A little Sabbath
school girl was asked what faith was? Her answer was this:
"Doing what God says without asking any questions." The
rambler believes that there has never lived a docter of divini-
ty who could give a more lucid definition. True, this may
have been her mother's teaching; but it was a teaching that
was understood, and that was sufficient.
Nothing could have been more impressive than the little
girl's reply to the infidel, who had promised to reward her if she
would tell him where God was. "Sir, I will do better if you
will tell me where God is not."
Bishop Butler might have run off into a learned disquisition
52 Under the Gas-LigJit.
about the immensity of infinity, and entered the realms of na-
ture with a mind crowded with deductive thought. The poet
might have said:
"God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
And plants his footsteps in the sea,
. And rides upon the storm."
But the little girl beat all the philosophers, all the men of
learning and intellectual force, in her simple reply, "Tell me
where God is not."
A little girl stood by a flowery heath one summer day, gaz-
ing intently upon a cluster of roses. In the cluster was a
flower that had lived its time and was dying. Close by was"
an infant flower, just budding into life and beauty. The little
girl with her eyes beaming like brilliant stars, and with her
soul aflame w r ith enthusiasm, turned to her mother and said :
"Ma! oh, ma! just come and see this little baby flower, rais-
ing its head to kiss its mother before she dies." No poetical
fancy was ever more charming, and no conception more beau-
tifully clothed.
In the quiet retreats lit up by all kinds of light, the ram-
bler now and then finds those of slow understanding. He
would counsel a patience with them. It is a scene of unpleas-
antness to see one fret at the little child that fails to keep pace
with his or her thought.
The injunction is, "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here
a little and there a little," By and by there will be a raising,
Under the Gas-Light. -53
a bounding, an expansion, and down the years the world will
be enriched by the solution of unsolved problems. To-day
there is an untutored pleading for care and cultivation. It is
the voice of a spirit of free inquiry, which ever demands a
kindly and respectful attention. The endless questioning of
embryo man and womanhood is but the sequence of the soul's
expansiveness, and the struggling to enter upon the mission
of a vigorously developing immortality.
54 'Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XII.
"TjHE week past has been one of toil. The physical condi-
tion of the rambler, upon the night set apart for his gas-
light review, is one of weariness. Under the glare of the
jets he sees no attraction. Over a stretch of intervening
time he is moved to dwell upon a court scene, local in its char-
acter. The impressions made in connection therewith will
ever have a hold upon the inner spiritual penetralia. The
scene refered to, and which we propose to picture, tends to fix
as a fact, that it makes no difference how low we may get, or
how degraded we become, there will be found existing some-
where an affection for us in some shape or other.
A mother and her daughter, two women, who at one time
in their life were among the favored children of fortune, sur-
rounded by all that luxury could lavish, attracts the rambler's
attention. They are clothed in mourning. Death had enter-
ed the household and taken from the family their only sup-
port. One by one downward steps had been made, and
continued, until a level was reached from which that widowed
mother and affectionate daughter would have turned in dis-
(jnder the (jets-Light. 55
may earlier in life. They were poor and had come into court
to plead for one dear to them, the widow's son and sister's
brother the grown babe from the luxurious surroundings,
now clad in rags and in a condition of hunger. The most
painful feature was in the fact that this child of motherly and
sisterly affection, was on the record as a thief. He had stolen
some article, enough to constitute grand larceny, if he had
been old enough. The mother and sister had secured consent
of the attorney, and the court had ordered the recognizance
of the three to be taken. The Sheriff departed for the son and
brother the grown baby boy. The mother and daughter sit
together, the picture of dispair, waiting for the officer's return.
Close by was little dog Tray, the only pet of the kind left in
the family to remind its members of former and better days.
Tray looked as only a dog can look when instinctively he
discovers that "all is not well" in the home. The mother
seemed to be catechising God to know why it was thus with
her. The little black and tan presented a mournful look.
Just then there was a rustling noise. The officer and the boy
had appeared. Both of the females began to weep when
they beheld him with his liberty not his own, marched along
like a felon, and presenting a scene of distress. The mother
could scarcely stand. The inward fountain of grief had swell-
ed to an overflowing. Until now the little dog had betrayed
only the same brute instinct of a knowledge that something out
of the usual order was going on. As the boy approached, the
56 ' Under the Gas-Light.
dog who had not been near him for some time, because of his
imprisonment, gave a jump toward him, and in the wildest de-
monstration of gladness, huddled up, placing his head against
the boy's tattered pants and looking as if to say : "Your friend
still recognizes you." The action of the dog seemed to give
new courage to the hearts of mother and sister, and as the
trio of poor humanity walked forth from the court room, the
dog continued his exhibition of joy and gladness. He was
not afraid of the boy's rent and worn garments. He knew
him not as a thief. It was the boy he had loved and romped
with, and no courts of justice could shake his affection, no
matter what might be their decrees. The dog comprehended
no sin and no shame. These caused no detraction. His faith
was the same and his love and confidence as ever abiding.
Under the Gas-Light, 57
RAMBLE XIII
is now evening. The twilight hours have come. Night
with its sable wings is approaching. All is quiet within
and without. Life is but a dream. The years are fleet in
their going. Man aspires, climbs and reaches his end. He
moves and wields his power, then closes his eyes, and if he
has done well his part in the battle, a cenotaph is reared to tell
the place where he sleeps. Just in from under the gas-light.
On the corner the rambler met an aged pilgrim. "Nearing
the end, but still looking up," was his refrain. Life to him
has been one of ceaseless activity and he is now patiently
waiting for an era of rest, an era that will span the eternal
years. "Looking up;" there's a virtue in doing that. It sug-
gests a hope, a' great expectation. It is an evidence of confi-
dence. Looking up is to look toward better things. There
is more purity above the head of man than beneath his feet;
more light beaming from the stars than can be seen along the
bvways of mortal existence. In the spiritual sense, man st-1-
58 Under the Gas-Light.
clom falls when he is looking up. He finds himself braced
by an inspiration that flows from the Divine Heart.
What is life? a dream.
What is hope ? a beam .
Now a happy gleam.
Now a downward stream.
Yes, life is but a dream. The years roll on, the insatiate
archer comes and man leaves the stage. And this is life. We
look around us and behold monuments here and there that
will not perish. Mental abstractions, works of masters, fruits
of genius. Under the gas-light sheen, as move by the sover-
eign constituency of a republican commonwealth, we pause
to look at the picture of the martyred Lincoln. An unthink-
ing man standing by says: "Oh, he was only a man." The
words were spoken lightly as if to convey a rebuke to those
who, standing in such a presence, should indicate by their man-
ner a condition of hero-worship. In all the ages of human
history men have worshiped the divine principle ; have wor-
shiped lofty characters and the great throbbing and redeem-
ing elements of the human heart. God can be worshiped
in the human soul with as contrite a devotion as he can be
though he were alone in the heavens. Close by is "The Star
of Bethlehem," a picture of holiness, telling of the birth of a
great soul. There is "The Angel of Peace" a picture of
hope passing in midnight darkness over a deserted city with
an infant in its arms and a bunch of flowers in its hand.
Under the Gas-Light. 59
There is gloom behind but light before; below there are tears
above there is joy; beneath the feet there is pain; above the
head there is comfort and peace, and to that condition the
angel is passing, and through a halo of spiritual glory.
"I saw you then through political glasses, and the impres-
sions formed were not honestlv made," was the language
heard by the rambler after he had ceased his rambling. It
was in the days of the Union League that the impressions re-
ferred to had been formed. A stretch of years intervene since
then, and men have become more philosophic. In this era of
moderate conservatism political conviction is not taken as an
indication of character. The creed of party and the policies
outlined in platforms do not lower or raise character. "He is
an honest democrat, an honest republican, or an honest social-
ist" is not as good a thing to say as: "He is an honest man,"
for it hath been written "an honest man is the noblest work
of God," but nowhere that an honest democrat, an honest re-
publican, or an honest socialist was "the noblest work of
God." Had this been known in the days to which allusion is
made, the knowledge would have been helpful in many ways.
There would not have been so many faulty deductions from
unwarranted premises. Human hearts would not have en-
gendered so much of bitterness to be sweetened in the after
years of life. "Those days have passed, and the events which
were crowded into them have gone to history, and I am glad
of it," was an utterance which was interjected. They were
60 ' Under the Gas-Light.
stormy days days of a fully developed vigor, and which
tried men's souls, bringing them to their best force. 'Tis well
that men's souls are tried. They need trying now and then.
Periodical soul testing is essential for a happy and successful
life. There are a number being tested in Springfield to-day,
tested, as it were, in an ordeal of fire.
Under the Gas-Light. 61
RAMBLE XIV.
IHE wheathercook, and sea wave, and the capricious vapors
of the mountains, we must all confess, are no more vari-
able than man and his moods. So delicately are some
nerves strung that a damp day, or the east wind, or a few
eddying hours of snow or rain, will make to them all the dif-
ference between heaven and some dread inquisitorial hall.
Some look out upon winter and grow pale and shiver, not for
lack of the fireside and luxury, but because the leafless spec-
tacle suggests cold hearthstones and cries of agony, and frosted
hopes and thoughts that take the hue of the dull, gray dome
of the sky that hangs now over us all. Others are so in love
with the sleighbells and moonlight that even the first snow-
flake that blossoms and falls they will greet with a kiss. But
with the up-springing grass, and bloom, and bird song of
spring-time, we will all bud, and laugh, and sing again, save
those whose months have become bleak Decembers, made so
by misfortune, age, or the world's wrong.
While the thermometer gauges the physical temperature,
it can als/> be made to measure the soul's mental and moral
seasons from the point of xero all the way up to fever heat.
62 Under the Gas-Light.
All the influences that captivate us, whether they draw us up
and on in the shape of a book, an art, a poem, or a great per-
sonage, will, for the time being, at least, lift us into the state
of a beautiful frenzy. We turn whichever way the wind of
inspiration happens to blow the strongest. Perhaps we hear
Wendell Phillips, and as long as the enthusiasm lasts we will
try to win the charm of the silver tongue, or we hear Miss
Kellogg, and for a while we have a passion to breed and train
up in our throats a nest full of larks and nightingales. Some-
times a circumstance, light as a feather, will determine the
direction of thoughts and feelings, and give to a moment all
the dramatic effect of a great turn-point in life. The sight of
a beautiful face or a bit of heroic action would decide whether
the production be a piece of music, a cartoon, or an exquisite
portrait ; so the rambler, fresh from the gilded court room or
the halls of legislation, as he stepped on the grand stairwav
of the capital under the glare of gas-lights, was led to gaze
upon the graceful pillows of the portico, and to think of
Zeno's porch of philosophy, and the garden of Epicurus, and
the groves of the academy. Then it came to pass that his
thoughts took somewhat of a philosophic turn from the sight
of fluted columns and grand proportions. Glancing over the
city's mansions and cottages, and beyond where in summer
wave the golden grain, and hang the soft white blossoms or
God's own planting, and where live men of strong and sturdv
mould, we asked ourselves what were the subtle physical in-
Under the Gas-Light. 63
fluences that are at work in shaping the destiny of our peo-
ple? It is not hard for the statesman and thinker to trace in
a (lawless atmosphere, the mystic dreams of Egypt, or to see
the Greek passion for intellect and beauty in the grand lines
of sea coast and in the azure overhead.
If it be true that mists, and snowy winds, and marshes, and
thunderstorms, and good soil cultivate in men endurance and
thrift, and noble endeavor, then can we see how the early
pioneer with his log hut and strip of clearing has become the
man of wealth and culture, with a garden and a palace home.
But after all, there is an ideal religion stepping along in our
midst, and leading us out of the narrow little vSchools of sect
into the grand concert hall of Christianty, where all the
instruments play together on the all embracing theme of the
Cross. If the gospel chimes break into silvery peals every
time a sinner repents, then for the three weeks past on some
nights the belfries of heaven shook out among the stars
and angels a storm of jubilant bells. The grand spectacle of
the masses streaming into one church of union service, and
commingling all creeds into harmony, like the notes of a beau-
tiful chord, or the seven colors of the prism blending into one,
is enough to relieve the old sneer of the skeptic about the lack
of Christian brotherhood. By slow degrees we are getting
the intellectual power, and more insight into what is really
great and what is really small. We see the mockery of the
anise and begin to cling to mercy, justice, and truth. The
64 Under the Gas-Light.
divine Jesus passing by in stately indifference, is coming along
with arms of affection outstretched to all the race, and so we
see fetters breaking, and the rage of persecution giving place
to brotherly love, and the fear of hell changing into unfalter-
ing attachment to the infinite Father, and .the intoxication of
the senses flowing before spiritual pleasures, and as the theme
in the symphony of a Beethoven, guides and melts into har-
mony all the parts, so will the loving Master bring into sub-
lime control all sects and states, and symbols of power, until
home, and school, and temple, and throne, shall acknowledge
every woman a possible queen, and shall see in every child a
member of the invincible kingdom.
Not a bit of light that we let shine out into the dark is ever
lost, and God is surely as kind as nature in her conservation
of forces. We are all aware that we are pretty correct in say-
ing that every gas-light that gleams out into the mystery of
night is a ten or hundred thousand year old spark of the sun,
which the gigantic tree ferns of long ago, secretly laid away
in the coal beds for our use. All the dealings of Providence
teach us that we are in the tender hand of the Father, and
we may safely throw into the future an unmeasurable trust
and hope. All over blasted orange blossoms, and black
plumes, and the thorny paths of life, like the starry heavens,
bending in smiles over fields of carnage, bends down upon us,
with the sure promise that God will keep his word and will
lead us into a brighter and holier future.
Under the Gas-Light. 65
RAMBLE XV.
I IjWO weeks have passed since the rambler rambled, arcl
" V for him, in this period of time, has come much of sorrow.
! !j The soul has been convulsed, and through its chambers
has rushed a flood of tears.'! Round about its seat has settled
B
a deep shadow, blinding the weakness of human vision, and
disturbing the convictions of human reason. When last the
rambler rambled and closed his chapter, ere the sorrow came,
with its ministry of tears, he used these words: "All the
dealings of Providence teach us that we are in the tender hand
of the Father, and we may safely throw into the future unmeas-
urable trust and hope. All over blasted orange blossoms, and
black plumes, and the thorny paths of life, like the starry heav-
ens, hanging in smiles over fields of carnage, bend down up-
on us all, with the sure promise that God will keep his word,
and will lead us into a brighter and holier future." When
these words were written the rambler little dreamed that over
his soul would droop an orange blossom, and that around his
head would flutter a black plume. There was a wounding to
cure, a fading away to bloom in a brighter glory and a falling
66 Under the Gas-Light.
to rise in a spiritual reign. Under the gleam of a light that
never faltered, the rambler paused to see a soul spring from
its mortal existence to its heritage in the skies. Blooming
Eden may wither from our sight; but through the air there
comes a voice telling earth's weary souls that there the King
of Terror is the Prince of Peace.
"I)e;ith lies on her like an untimely frost
Vpon th'i sweetest flower of all the field,"
was the language that came to the rambler's heart through
the shadow of its gloom. It was in the early morning, when
the angels passed out from their heavenly home, and entered
the chamber of the rambler's best life, and where in the pres-
ence of God, was ebbing away the object of his most ardent
hope. Through an open window came light from distant
stars, as if to guide the way for the messengers out from Par-
adise. The soul, which for weary hours had been fluttering
for freedom from its mortal palace, had sweetly whispered :
"Lo! peace is here." "Safe in the arms of Jesus" was the
melody that floated back. It was the sweetest song the ram-
bler ever heard, a song that will crowd its notes out through
the windows of heaven as long as flowers bloom, to express the
language of the heart's love and affection. Safe in the arms
of the crucified one is the best and happiest end of life. The
soul breathed the song, and the rambler through the gather-
ing gloom, when the gas-lights were low, and the stars in the
Under the Gas-Light. 67
heavens were bright, fancied he saw the gates placed ajar by
one who held in his hand a crown of immortal life.
There comes another scene : The parting. Flowers of
God's own planting, arranged by God's own children, came
to breathe a wealth of affection. The rambler pauses to con-
template them in their fragrance, but beyond on the further
bank of the river, he sees a flower, which God loved, and
wanted, and carried away. Can we say that God did well,
that he did right, when we look near about and see the inno-
cent tendrils that were clinging to that flower for protection,
for love, and for sympathy a mother's sympathy? The
mortal stands still in a maze of reflection. He is surrounded
with mystery. He is met with presentments he does not
understand. A flower is made to fade in its early bloomingi
and is not permitted to reach its full maturity. Mortality fails
to understand it. Philosophy, in its mystery, fails to give any
light. The rambler is told that hence in the future life all
will be made clear, and that he will then know why this and
that flower were wanted so early for the garden of God.
However, there is a shadow which the philosophies of life
cannot dispel, but through it comes a light, a soul light, telling
the story of redemption and of a glorified life, where the in-
stincts, and hopes, and loves of the soul are as sure to be met
as the need for life is met. Standing alongside these shadowy-
curtains the rambler looks away to whither has gone the light
of a life. When he tries to realize how he shall live in the
68 Under the Gas-Light.
life to come, the future is hidden by impenetrable walls,
but when he tries to realize that he shall live, it is radiant
with immortal light; and when he advances from that point
to particulars, he is inclined to keep in the track of this assur-
ance. Love, truth, and goodness are not transient things.
They are eternal because God is. Alone under the gas light
the rambler thinks of nothing but the loves which he has
found his soul cleaving to. As he looks at the stars he prays
that these loves may be given him again, and about him falls
a sweet suggestive silence. It is a silence which he would
trust, in that it rests in the honor of God. It was Jean Paul
who wrote : "Our life departs not from the soul, but into the
soul." That is to say, it lays the scepter of its organism
down and dismisses the world that has served it, that God
may satisfy its hunger and thirst after the bread and water of
eternal life.
Under the Gas-Light. 69
RAMBLE XVI.
IjOW many inner existences there are wrapped up in them-
selves with histories written upon a scroll not permitted
to be unrolled. There is a passing up a stairway, and
looking above, a light is seen through a third story win-
dow. A reader of books, and a skimmer of surface present-
ments, imparted the information that in that retreat had been
instituted "an arena of risks." It being ascertained who its
patrons were, a conclusion was reached that they came from
that class of humanity possessed of more money than brains.
Candidates for political preferment will operate " under the
gas-light." With them exists a desire to interview all shades
and conditions of the population.
" My friend," asks a sovereign of the commonwealth, " how
do you stand with the workingmen ?" " Well," said the
friend, " I have been out to ascertain as to that."
A man of a reflective bent of mind, standing near by wants
to know what is meant by "workingmen." The sovereign,
with a mind somewhat narrow, and a conception of limited
extension, replied :
70 Under the Gas-Light,
" Those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow."
" And who are they ?"
"Those who labor in the field, in the factory, and in the.
shop."
"And these are the workingmen, these the brow-sweating
toilers?"
The man with the reflective mind, philosophic and con-
ceptive, paused a moment, and then to the sovei'eign said :
"My friend, you have a wrong conception. Your classifi-
cation is faulty. There are men in this city who toil when
you are asleep, and cease not when you are awake, whom*
you imagine are idlers in the vineyard. The theory of repub-
lican government is that all men are workingmen, and those
who fail to conform to the theory generally land in the jails
and penitentiaries."
At this moment there passes a man hurriedly. He is re-
spectably clad. For the past twelve hours he is known to
have been toiling. He has been through the state house,
the United States building, the court house, the hotels.
Where he is going now we know not. It may be to north
grand avenue. Ten hours is counted a "workingman's" dav
of toil, but this man in addition to his twelve hours of labor
already performed has three or four more to add before he
can seek his rest, and then, after all, come the shriveled-souled
ones refusing to classify him as a workingman.
Here comes a sister of charity, and unattended. It is a
Under the Gas-Light. -ji
late hour for a female to be upon the street, but her appear-
ance suggests no impropriety. Her relationship attaches to
an ideally that outranks faith and hope, for it hath been writ-
ten : "And now, abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but
the greatest of these is charity," and to the "greatest of these"
this woman is a sister. Under the gas-lights she passes, heed-
ing not their glitter and glare. It would be all the same to
her should these lights cease to perform their functions, for
beyond these earthly conditions she looks to a light flashing
out from an eternal existence. "Chanty suffereth long, and
is kind," and "charity never faileth," were words uttered in
the redemption period, and through all the ages these truths
have been seen and felt. Vile men turn aside to let her pass,
and they turn not about to see whither she goes. They con-
cede her path to be the path of purity, and her mission to be
one of charity. From their lips come no inuendoes. The
signs were the Cross and the Graces, and these suggested no
unseemly stain. Her guiding directed to realizations above
and beyond earthly frailties and earthly passions. Her min-
istrations were nourished by inspirations flowing from the
heart of the heavens, and therefore along her pathway arc
seen buds of blessing blooming into flowers of reward, and
at her feet jewels of gratitude, to appeal in crownc of rejoic-
ing where scourge and pestilence come not to blast and
wither.
Into a by-way we now enter. The gas-lights are left be-
72 Under the Gas-Light.
hind. The surroundings are cheerless. Gloom walks about
as if it knew no master. Here a ray of sunlight would have
trembled and the voice of humanity faltered unattended by
an angel of charity. From a lowly bed draped with the
shreds of poverty conies a voice weak in expression. The
story told is the old, old one, and then comes in a sadly pa-
thetic tone, the words : "I want to go home." The heart
with such a desire is not lost. Though it throbs wildly in its
beatings, there liveth a hope when home is remembered.
Such remembrance tells of a soul longing for rest, of a life
that would pray to be caressed.
At home is the best place under the sun, especially for a
woman. There is her realm of undisputed supremacy; there
she can be queen without a rival. There she can educate, and
govern, and thereby do grander work than he who writes
epics, discovers planets, or holds in his hand a scepter. And
why upon a given night, in a byway in this city, and within
a shadow of gloom should be heard a voice: "I want to go
home," and from one seemingly not knowing how to get there
is a mystery to which the passing moments bring no solution,
and charity, which is kind, institutes and presses no investi-
gation.
Under the Gas-Light. 73
RAMBLE XVII
There came sweet music through the air;
\Ve looked up and saw that there
In mirth and spirit was human wart- .
In a maze of intemperate life
With a mixture of bitter strife,
Chilling the heart like a pointed knife.
The human soul had lost its place.
From mental work to gilded grace
Xo work of thought was there a trace.
The town clock tolled the midnight hour,
Tolled thi d-'cay of some bright flower,
Losing- its bloom, losing its power.
Out walked a youth all alone
Away from mother, out from home:
Losing his vigor, losing his tone.
"Only wild oats," and that is all.
But an aged one who paced the hall,
Shook his head as he heard the call.
The past was fresh had told its tale
How youth from there had met the gale
Full of wrath and of sweeping hail.
How orphans cried when shadows fell,
How they cried when they heard the ball,
How they cried when they heard the knell .
"Wild oats" when sown never came
From seed to life, a golden grain:
Its fruit is tears, to heart a pain.
74 Under the Gas-Light.
The company is a mixed one, containing many elements.
It shows a representation of the low and high ranks of life.
It is a traveling assembly. One night it is on north fifth
street, one night on east Washington street, and another
night it is hid away beyond the open glare of the gas-lights.
This "wild oats" is not only being sown, but it is growing. By
and by the grain will show itself. In fact it is showing itself
to-night. A woman drunk is a sight painful to dwell upon.
Man never looked upon a sadder scene, especially when can
be traced the marks of a faded beauty, and the battered points
of an intelligence. There are those seen to-night behind
these particular screens to which we refer, who would not
wish "to be known in the case." They are objects of an un-
usual affection, the apples of love-lit eyes, and the scions of
good houses. They give it out that they are just there to be-
hold; and what do they behold? Not anything beautiful, for
that is not there save in a faded condition. Not anything ele-
vating in virtue, for that has been smothered. Not anything
musical, for the surroundings have turned the music into an
inharmonious discord. They see naught but a vivid intoxi-
cation.
There is a rap upon the door. "Who's there?" came the
question from an inward recess. "It's me!" "And who is
me?" It was a trifle; it all happened in an instant, but it
haunted the rambler for an hour or more. "It's me," and
who is me? The pride of a heart's life, no doubt; the tree a
Under the Gas-Light. 75
vine was clinging to. Defender of the faithful, in the best
sense of the word. Many there be abroad to-night wh o
would give their hearts and all there is in them for one such
recognition. It is the recognition of faith, the music cf love,
and the well measured poetry of an inner life. Out upon the
street, on change, in the marts of trade, in the assembly and
in the lobby, it is simply Mr. B., but at this hour, within the
silence of the night, and under the gleam of the stars, it is
plain " It's me;" and there is one who knows who "me" is.
Others might not know, and many do not know, but this decs
not matter, for at this hour, the hour when the rambler ram-
bles there is but one who has any right to know who " me"
is; and such a recognition as that just given, is of the kind
that makes men masters and giants in the world.
We enter a room in a locality of respectable surroundings.
The conversation going on suggests to the rambler that he is
in the midst of school men. They, too, have been ranging
under the gas-light, but we attribute nothing to them damag-
ing since they assume to be looking after the youth of the
commonwealth. But what a wonderful amount of theory do
we find here. All seem to be theoretical and deductive phil-
osophers. However, one who has been silent all the while,
but a close listener, speaks, without being asked, saying:
"Give us something practical." With him it was of but lit-
tle consequence whether or not He/ekiah was King of Israel.
He did n't deem it of much moment to know how long to
76 Under the Gas-Light.
a foot the river Jordan was, or the exact geographical posi-
tion of Ephesus. He did consider it of great importance in
all teaching to emphasize that which tells of the right way of
living, and which points out the beautiful and the unseemly,
the noble and the ignoble. His inclination was to ask for a
teaching that was practical ; that would move the heart and
brain to essentials, and which, from a moral stand-point, would
cause a lifting up of the soul ; a teaching the heeding of which
will bring man nearer the goodness of life; that will hold
back the young from quick-sandy places, and point them to a
condition, and to a realization above and beyond the heartless
vanities of life.
The rambler passes, and as he does so everybody whom he
meets honored with his acquaintance, informs him that the
weather is cold. With so much testimony he could have no
doubt about it. A dog howls as if in pain. A gentleman
had stepped upon one of his feet. The dog pauses and looks
up, as if to say : "A little sympathy, if you please, sir." The
dog won. Calling him, the gentleman stepped into a butcher
shop near by and bought for him a pound of meat. The dog
took it and eating looked up as if to say : "The injury has
received a healing balm, we are friends." There may be
some who think this incident of no moment, but the rambler
notes it as worthy of contemplation and of remembrance. It
was the indication of a soul that had an unbounded compass.
The cry of the dog reached his heart and called for a sympa-
Under the Gas-Light. 77
thy that was readily given. It was the exhibition of a trait
of character redeeming in all essential ways. Other men
would have passed on and let the dog howl, but this man did
not. It was sufficient for him to know that there was a pain,
and that he was the cause thereof. Had it been a man with
a mind possessing immortal attributes an apology would have
sufficed, but the dog had no mind stored with a responsive
intelligence, and no soul filled with a conception of duty. His
powers were instinctive, and therefore, for his solace, a pound
of flesh was required, and it was kindly given. With that
man this act was the result of a conception of a duty. It was
the dropping of a ray of saving light from the effulgence of
his heart which made himself and the dog feel better and hap-
pier. This man was no Shylock; no grinding usurer. He
despised contraction and hated narrow grooves. He had no
love for a strength that would oppress the weak, and would not
be drawn to a heart that could not be moved to a ministration
of mercy, even to the lowest of animal life.
78 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XVIII.
I EAR love-lit eyes may seem extinguished in the sleep of
death, but still do we somehow know that they are yet
beaming upon us with the same tender look. All the
pall-bearers do is but to carry out of the home the shattered
chrysalis shell out of which has fled the bright immortal spirit
to the pearly gate. Soon we shall have woven in our hair
the frost of the silver years, and we'll gladly join the great
caravan. A few more aches, and tears, and heartbreaks,
and then the long dark nights will be over-past, and the gas-
lights will be turned down, and the golden splendor of
Heaven will kindle over the precious dust of our graves, and
the dead winter of life will break into the eternal spring of
the new Eden.
To-night, as we move under the familiar gas-lights, we are,
as ever, impressed that still "the earth moves;" at least we
may not torture ourselves into the belief that the age is at a
standstill, nor that it is going backward. The fresh, startling
facts of to-day are sounding loud and clear in our ear that
the world is moving on and making immense strides of pro-
Under the Gas-Light. 70,
gress. Already we can analyze the sun-ftame millions of
leagues away, and inspect the craters and valleys of the moon,
and catch in the spectrum the rings of Saturn, and whisper
across continents and seas electric words, and perform in con-
cert to an audience a hundred miles distant, and read and
know all the great facts of yesterday in this morning's news-
paper; but all these creative energies and products of inven-
tion are small compared to the colossal hunger the race is
feeling for a new freedom and power. The old regime of
kings and epueens, and glittering wardrobes, is slowly dying
out, and the unescutcheoned many are stepping into the fore-
ground, so that now we are having written histories of the
people instead of the chronicles of court and crown.
Two representatives of the people pass by. Says one :
" Who would have thought, twenty, yea, ten years ago, that
a committee in an Illinois legislative body would have re-
ported favorably upon a proposition to grant an elective voice
to women in this state upon a question of vital interest ?" Says
the other: " The committee could n't resist the pressure."
"Just so," uttered the rambler as he went his way. We
are getting to see things and events in their real perspective
and proportions, and equal rights are rapidly being accorded
to all who are deemed worthy. Merit always wins its full
share of recognition, for the slow but sure justice of the years
never fails to weave for the noble brow the wreath of laurel
it deserves; and so the Greek slave poetess, Sappho, and a
So Under the Gas-Light.
Mrs. Browning, or an authoress in the shape of a queen, have
all had their works take an honored place amid the aristoc-
racy of letters.
Long made the plaything ^of the"palace, or^the drudge of
field and^kitchen/pr^the^slave of the 3 barbarian,' ; woman,^per-
ceiving more and more clearly that fashion^ and beauty are
mere baubles, as over against intellect, and virtue, and far-
seeing moral aims, now steps to>'the front and thrills, like an
inspiration, the^tender nerves of all by her lyrical tones.~~"If
she had rushed into the halls of legislation in a hiirricane and
clamored for rights with a brazen tongue she would have
seen her cause doomed to a forlorn hope ; but she comes to
the law makers with the inspiration of prayer and with a tear-
stirring voice, and as she points above the glare of the chan-
deliers to the graceful festoonry on the fretted ceiling, of over
one hundred thousand names, she simply pleads for the right
of protecting her darling boys, and who can resist the charms
of an oratory upon such a theme? Every word beats with
the fervent pulses of the heart. We must all admit her to be
a vast and increasing force in art and literature, in public
charities and education, and it is no longer a misty problem
that her intellectual and moral persistence in the good, true
and beautiful will carve out for her a great future as a factor
in popular government. The plea of these women is : Give
us the power by an elective voice to protect our darling boys,
Under the Gas-Light. 81
and the result will be seen upon the statesmanship of the fu-
ture, and upon the legislation of ages to come.
After all there is not as much protection in the ministry of
law as in the ministry of love. A mother's prayer is a greater
shield for her darling hoy than all the votes of a common-
wealth can afford. A long time ago the idea cropped out
in the civili/ation of the centuries that law was not man's
redeemer; in fact it was an idea that obtained with the divine
council, and the story of the manger, of Bethlehem, and of
Calvary followed. The principle that love was the crowning
force essential for^he protection of all the darling boys of the
race, early gleamed and flashed forth. The boys met under
the street gas-light by the rambler are not the ones who have
been blessed to its full inspiration with a mother's love, else
they would be held away from the presence of temptation.
82 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XIX.
JOURS a-o the book of clav was bound and closed by the
O J v
golden clasp of sundown. The hot fever-pulses of busi-
ness are cooling under the balmy hand of sleep. The
roar of wheels is hushed. Merchant prince, and pauper
alike are sunk into forgetfulness of crown and rags. "Old
and yet ever new is the night," muses the rambler, as he
glances up and down the long glimmering files of street
lamps, and looks overhead into the pomp and silence of the
spangled heavens. Every gas-light is a bit of primeval sun-
shine kindled out of the coal urn, and awakened from the
slumber of a million years which carries us back of weird
periods of antiquity, and to times which left on the face of
stone the delicate footprints of wind and rain, and of creatures
long extinct before ever the race of man came on the theatre
of action. If God so carefully preserved the ripple marks of
long vanished seas, and made so indellibly a record of rock,
and fossil, and shell, and stores away so richly for man's use
and comfort immense coal fields, surely, as we sit by the cosy
fireside, or meditate beneath the gas-light, \ve cannot help
Under the Gas-Light. 83
lint believe that He will regard most kindly the aspirations of
the soul tor heaven and immortality, and will never forget to
provide for the ideal hunger and the ideal Eden. But whilst
a gas jet may be quite suggestive, the twinkling of amethys-
tine ether is so immeasurably grand that the mind falls short
in its effort to survey and to span. We cannot look up and
study the illuminated scroll without feeling more or less the
mystic chain woven about the stars by classic legend and
mythological fable; and many of us fancy we see beyond a
soul light that beamed with such controlling power along our
earthly pathways. There was a fluttering at a window of
paradise, and through was handed a crown of stars. To-night
those stars in that crown are seen through the agency of a
spiritual vision. From their setting comes a ministration to
bless and to cheer.
"Angels attend thee! May their wings
Fun every shadow from thy brow
For only bright and lovely thing's
Should wait on one so good as thou."
The rambler wanders away from the city's limit; seeks
communion with the spirits that are in the air, and listens to
the voices that come from the formations of art and nature.
"Hide not thy tears: weep boldly, and be proud,"
wrote Shirley long years ago, and to-night from shrub, and
leaf, and flower, and grave comes the same voice. The ram-
bler thinks of the beautiful drama of Ion, in which the in-
stinct of immortality, so eloquently uttered by the dcath-de-
84 Under the Gas-Light.
voted Greek, finds a deep response in every human soul. It
is nature's prophecy of the life to come. When about to
yield his young existence as a sacrifice . o fate, his betrothed'
Clemanthe asks if they shall ever meet again, to which he
replies: "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills
that look eternal; of the flowing streams that flow forever;
of the stars among whose fields my .mind-spirit hath walked
in glory. All were dumb. But while I gaze upon thy living
face I feel there's something in thy love which mantles
through its beauty that cannot wholly perish. We shall meet
again, Clemanthe.''''
Nature was silent. The stars whispered nothing. The
eternal hills imparted no information, and the music of the
streams that flowed therefrom did not settle the question. It
remained for a human soul in its throbbings, in its swellings
and in its flowings, to tell what would be beyond the years of
earthly life; to tell that the soul on earth is but an immortal
guest, a spark which nature's force is pressing upward. As
the rambler in his abstractions to-night contemplates the soul,
he concludes that it is a pilgrim panting for the rest to come,
and in its sentient existence an exile on the shores of time,
anxiously waiting to be borne away to its native home.
The church had been full. Those who had occupied the
. pews had heard words about the religion of love, of brother-
hood, and of charity. Passing from the sanctuary, an aged
one, on the side of life nearest heaven, takes the rambler by
Under the Gas-Light. 85
the hand and assures him that this life is but a span reaching
from mortality to immortality, from fountains that fail to foun-
tains that ever flow , and from flowers that fade to flowers
that bloom always. Said she: "I have given the earth my
tears; I have passed through the shadows; I have felt the
weight of weariness; I have seen my jewels pass from me; I
have looked at the heavens when the clouds seemed unyield-
ing, and when songs of rejoicing had no charms for me; but
as these latter years have gone by, with their record of sow-
ing and reaping, I have come to look beyond this life with a
greater interest. In the ever-blooming Eden I sec more than
I saw in my earlier years. Time has brought with it lessons
which I have learned well, and they tell me that hope does
not perish when the flowers of life fade from mortal vision.
Tramp, tramp, go the hurrying feet. The choir music has-
been hushed, and the rambler goes his way to contemplate
the developing realizations of life. Here and there are har-
monies never before beheld; here and there are gleams of
heart sunshine never before felt.
86 Under the Gas-L,ight.
RAMBLE XX.
llHE glare of the gas-light; viewing the horrors of a pent
up city, full of strifes and crimes; of heated wretchedness
and feverish pauperism ; of woes of wine and women,
and whisky-wrought wrecks, with the destruction consequent
upon vice, had wearied- the rambler, and he concluded to steal
a\\ a v from the city and recuperate in the bree/es of the purer
atmosphere outside, on a bright morning of a new born day;
to refresh his tired nature and throw off for the time his sad-
dened reflections. But like the ghost of the departed Dane,
"Doomed fora certain time to walk the niylit.
And for the day confined to fast in fire."
The rambler had not selected for his rambles, fields which
were to prove unfruitful of "food for thought."
June never looked more beautiful. She had just risen from
her rose-clad couch on the morn of the twelfth diurnal re-
turn of her birth. The God of day smiled sweetly upon this
first-born of summer, had kissed the dews from her brow*
perfumed her floral wardrobe with the fragrant odors of the
buttercup and tulip, of the magnolia and tuberose, of the
wealth-laden shrub and the beautiful lilac. All nature joined
Under the Gas-Liglit. 87
in the smile, and glad hands, reaching from the great unseen,
seemed to weave into the lovely month's garments of green,
thrown over her handsome form, all the new-born beauties
gathered from her garden. The rambler experienced the
joys of a new life, as he stood and listened to the chorus
of welcome which greeted lovely June as she stepped
forth to sing anthems of gladness to her surroundings,
and found himself, Hervy-like, in the "city of the silent," and
in reverie among the highest monitors denoting the last
mile stone reached by the resting ones in their travels on the
highway of life.
Here he had gone to "meditate among the tombs," to read
the indented history of loved ones, graven in the pure emblem
of constancy. Here he had gone to see the resting place of
many whom he had painted in other chapters of his rambles,
when they were struggling with the realities of earth, full of
life, of faith, and of hopes; some of increasing pleasures, and
others of pleasures which had been denied.
Wearied by the gas-light, the sun-light of such a morn as
we have described was a delightful change. It had brought
in its train, thoughts of the "sweet bye and bye," thoughts of
the "home over there," and the air seemed ladened. with the
sweet accents of song, wafted in upon the bosom of the
breexe, assuring the rambler that
There is a land that is fairer than day."
and a rest remaining for life's weary ones, when the earthen
88 Under the Gas-Light.
caskets have pillowed their heads beneath the mounds, and
the echoing sounds of the clods of the valley have died away.
Thoughts like these had possessed the rambler and wrapt
him in a re very, making him oblivious to the unexpected hu-
man form which wakened him to a realization of the fact,
that even at that early hour, surrounded as he was by only
the emblems of departed loves, with the air bearing upon the
gentle zephers, the bird songs and mingling odors of a balmy
sweetness, gathered from the thousand rose-tinted tributes,
planted by the hand of affection on the tomb of buried links
of loveliness once joined to human hearts on earth. While
thus engaged, the rambler was reminded that there was
another human being who, like himself, had chosen a mission
of mingled pain and pleasure. But,
"What do we sec before us:''
It was one who seemed to have a strange history, and who
happened to be only intent on the discovery of the something
which, no doubt, had contributed largely in bending his form
and matting the hair, hanging in a strange disheveled order
over features still retaining the stamp of the God-like. His
face had been moulded in one of nature's handsomest forms.
"The front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten anil command;
A station like the herald Mercury
Xew-lig-hted on a heaven-kissing hill:
A combination and a form, indeed,
\Vhcre every (iod did set his seal,
To jfivc the world assurance of a man."
Under the Gas-Light. 89
The nimbler sauntered on after the bent form and watched
the wild-eyed intruder. With that anxious gaze resting on
a row of little graves, and lifting the fallen locks from before
the eye of wrinkled and decrepit age, this old man sat down
at the root of a tree. As we passed, his eyes moistened with
sorrow, turned to those of the rambler. "How," said
the rambler, "are these little mounds related to thine own
history ?" Ah, friend !" said the old man, in a husky and
tremulous voice, "this is a pilgrimage just ended, which I fear
will never be repeated by me. There is a historic volume in
those few chapters you see spread out before us, the narration
of which would fill other and larger books than either of us
will ever live to peruse, and I scarce have time to index, al-
though familiar, :-adly familiar, with every page."
There was a sad something stealing over the rambler, ex-
acting a deep interest to know the history of the old man's-
blighted life. How the rambler induced him to give it in
brief he will never divulge, but here it is, in a nutshell.
These little mounds had been made by the demands of
death upon the domestic hearth. When the loved forms they
contain had been laid there, crazed with grief, after the hopes
built in their future had been shattered and scattered, he
sought ease to a troubled mind and worn body in the glass.
It was not a grievous departure from the path of rectitude,
but it served as a text for repeated upbraidings instead of per-
suadings; of taunts instead of tenderness; of a driving ofV
90 Under the Gas-Light.
instead of a drawing towards the erring one. Like the wear
of the constant drop on the stone, it wore away the stout
heart and made inroads on its affections, until the little cloud
of domestic trouhle grew large and overhung the household
in a grief greater than that made through death. Bickerings
had been buoyed to the harbor of a home by busy tongues,
until distrust had displaced constancy. The motives of a
kindly nature had been impugned and blackened by the finger-
marks of envy ; and the purest emotions of universal brother-
hood toward the distressed had been poisoned in the imagina-
tion of her who should have been the last to believe the
breathings of distrust. What a sad lesson of life to learn by
the rambler in a grave yard.
"On him, on him! look \ou
How pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined,
Preaching to stones,
Would make them capable."
Under the Gas- Light. 91
RAMBLE XXI.
"Why is it that the sweetest songs
Must ever have a mournful strain,
And music's tones to touch the heart
Must echo with a sad refrain?
Why is it when our loved ones go
Reluctant, to a world unseen,
Xo message comes to us who wait,
This side the grave that lies between?
Why do we ask? The Gods are dumb;
And in our lives such mysteries lie,
That blindly stumble through the vears,
We wondering live and wondering die."
I I|HROUGH the air comes a sad refrain. The tones of a
' ? spiritual music touch the heart. They issue from a
| [l throne of love, and fall amid a group of shadows. 'Tis
midnight's holy hour, and round about hovers a pulseless
silence. The rambler gazes upon a bud of the morning that
has been struggling to bloom. In this bud is a fragrance of
boundless scope, but it will not tarry amid the thorns that
have existence here and there alongside the rocks and oaks of
earth. Its perfume is too gentle, too delicately sweet to attain
to a force amid the storms of life. There is a love for that
bud and a desire in a human heart to see it open into vigor
and beautv, to see its progress extend and permeate through
92 Under the Gas-Light.
the avenues of the affections, but those desires are not to be
attained. The Court of the skies, whose wisdom is as bound-
less as the universe, whispers along the path of perishing 'life:
"It is not well that every bud should open to bloom." From
the inward temple there was a brief looking-out. The win-
dows of the soul threw forth a light but for a brief period'
The hand of an eternal ministry beckoned, and along the path-
way of the stars there came an angel and gathered it up and
carried it away.
"May be these earthly loves are too fervent; that they too
much divert the heart from the Eternal majesty," were the
words that fell upon the rambler's ears as he stood ga/ing into
distance and vacancy. "No, that cannot be." The rambler
had been taught by the masters of the world's most profound
philosophy that the affections of the human heart could not
be too strong. Man loves a flower, but it does not fade be-
cause of that love. The power of affection rests upon a ten"
dril, and avoids the rugged conditions of creation, and for
this God does not become angry. Moral teaching points to
God as a God of love, and profound philosophy would sav
that God was best adored when the teachings of his creative
hand were followed dy a deep devotion.
"Where ;ire now the flowers we 'tended:
Withered, broken, branch and stem."
These loves are robed in everlasting beauty, and have gath-
ered about them a light that will never warn-.
Under the Gas-Light. 9
YVhnt mean those tears? No answer conies. In looking
on the autumn fields of life tears rise in the heart, thinking of
the days that are no more, and through these are traced a
smooth ascent from earth to heaven. Tears are the commas
of the soul. They beautify its language and make powerful
the expression. Analyze them and you have a poem ; a
beam ; a flower.
N. P. Willis said of Tom. Moore, "the light that surrounds
him is all from within." Such light is the best in the world.
It has in it the radiance of immortality, the gleam of a soul
that will not die. Through an open window the rambler
beheld such a light a while ago. It wasn't the light that
flashes from a mind of genius, or that rises from the incense
of philosophy, but the light of a soul, full of worship for jus-
tice, full of adoration for mercy, and full of love for love.
Music and song came through and filled the evening breexes
with a harmony, and told the rambler that the best condition
of human life was when the soul could throw a stream of
light from within, and could appear as a flower bathed in a
sunbeam, and with the freshness of a lilv watered with
morning dew.
"My son, let your sympathies always go out to the man or
bov who is down. Help the weak against the strong." The
words were full of the soul of humanity. It was the express-
ion of a nourished goodness, the outflowing of the best re-
ligion known to human thought and affection. " Pitv the lit-
94 Under the Gas-Light.
tie birds that flutter in distress, and waste not your affections
on the eagle who sweeps in his royal power above moun-
tain cliff; and be tender to the vines and flowers twining and
blooming along the pathways of nature's garden ; and trouble
not about the oak that can defy the storm and the elemental fu-
ries." These were the admonitions, and then the heart swell-
ed into a melody :
"Oh child, sweet child, how happy I'll he
If the good God let thec stay with me,
Till later on in life's evening- hour
Thy strength shall by mv strength and tower."
Here was an expression of solicitude; a mature life longing
for the growth and clevelopement of "a twig in infant rig" to
a strength and power. It was the breathing of a soul upon a
plant and flower of life and light. The scene was that of a
happy home. It was the shelter of infancy, the playground
of childhood, the dwelling-place of manhood, the abode of
pleasure, the temple of peace, and the nursery and -stronghold
of virtue. Here was the inspiration of courage, the swelling
of a heart that possessed power and comprehension.
"Let every fellow look out for himself!" is an expression
the sound of which falls upon the rambler's ears. Reflecting,
the conclusion is reached that these were harsh words. Look-
ing out for oneself, rugged paths are found. A long time ago
when the race was but in its infancv this question was asked :
"Am I mv brother's keeper?" From that morning of human
existence down across the aircs the answer has been jriven :
Under the Gas-LigJit. 0,5
'"You arc your brother's keeper." Deep clown in the soul's
sanctuary man rinds the answer, and as a result many a gloom
has been dispelled, and many a shadow driven away. The
consciousness man has that he is his brother's keeper, is
the inspiration of a divine impulse, and the outgrowth of an
immortal principle. In it is centered the blossom of hope
and the spring of charity. Negative the question, and the
world would become a wilderness, peopled with a selfish bar-
barism.
"Its none of vour business what course I pursue," says a
voimg man, and then hurries on his way. He had not grasp-
ed and comprehended the philosophies of life: had not an-
alyzed its warp and woof. How few reach the solution of the
problem. Man courts the ministries of a large humanity and
yet forgets that he is a dependent being. Sympathy is a solace
when distress comes, and a song of redeeming love is a healing
benediction when the inward affections are in tumult, and yet
man continues to say : "Let every fellow take care of him-
self," and to ask the question: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
96 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XXII
" What is time'"
I ask of an aj^ed man with hoary hairs.
Wrinkled and curved with worldly cares:
"Time is the warp of life," said he. "(). tell
The young, the fair the gay, to weave it well."
I asked the ancient, venerable dead,
Sajjes who wrote, and warriors who bled :
From the cold grave :i hollow murmur flowed.
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode."
I I|HE rambler, through shadow and glare, since last he was
" ? under the gaslight, has seen much of the weaving of the
| fj warp of life some with care, and some with indiffer-
ence. Golden threads gilded with the tears from an inward
altar have been utilized, and time in its passing has gathered
the incense, bearing it away to the heaven of eternal love.
It was on the night before decoration day. The rambler,
under the power of an invisible influence, entered the location
from where go up the fragrance of flowers; where beam the
soul's best light, and from where emanates the heart's best
ministry of love. There was witnessed a gathering of the
testimonials of affection to be strewn upon the graves of the
men who sacrificed their lives that a nation might live; who
Under the Gas-Light. 97
poured out their life-blood, all warm from the heart, that de-
mocracy might be established as the governmental philoso-
phy of modern civilization, and who, as they went down,
preached each in his death :
"My angel his name is Freedom.
Choose him to be your king ;
I le shall cut pathways East and West,
And fend you with his wing "
and who, profiting by the past condition of the race, said in
their sacrifice :
"We will have never a noble,
Xo lineag-e counted great :
Fishers, and choppers, and ploughmen,
Shall constitute a State."
Maidens with flowers, when associated in the mind with
heroes and heroic memories, form a worthy picture. Fifteen,
sixteen and seventeen years ago the men whom they would
honor passed from human presence. Those who to-night
are arranging the flowers to carry as offerings to their graves,
many of them God breathed into the world since that period.
They comprehend not the magnitude of that struggle, nor
the vitalized issues involved; yet they know that these men
acted a grandly heroic part in their time of life, and that their
spirits left their bodies in a brilliant blaze of glory.
An old soldier approaches a maiden fair, and as she stoops
over a bed of May flowers, he says: " Bright face, when you
\\ as a baby girl (I remember it well) your father was a sol-
98 Under the Gas-Liglit .
dier in the Tennessee legion. The battle came, and then he
marched and fought, and bravely died."
"Yes; and I'll kneel at his grave to-morrow, and offer a
flowery incense to his name and to his memory, mingled with
the tears of love and affection."
How happy the reflection that memory does not grow old,
and that tears do not cease their flowing when linked with
the heroic periods of human life. Valor is not forgotten. It
is the essence of our civilization, our Christianity and our de-
mocracy.
Had these men faltered, the republic would have declined,
and the flag emblem of political unity would have been
rent to extinction. They were brave. Their fibres were of
Anglo-Saxon quality, and their blood the most royal of the
earth, and up went civilization up went Christianity. Those
who handle flowers are at the farthest extreme from barbar-
ism. They possess the soul of deity. Select a jury from
them, and mercy and salvation will characterize their verdict.
The hand that guards and cares for them will never be raised
in malice against either friend or foe. The offices of flowers
are the most graceful in the economy of nature. They go
with us from the cradle to the grave. They crown the mar-
riage altar and adorn its feasts. Thev bloom around the si-
lent tomb, and smile upon the angels out from Heaven. Their
"reath is of a magical perfume, and recalls, in the hours
of weariness, long past memories. A withered rose, a
Under the Gas-Light. 99
pressed hud, or leaf of a lily saved from a casket, is a connect-'
ing link which makes life more beautiful, recalling the "ten-
der grace of a day that is dead," and of a memory that will
not perish, and these are the golden threads in the warp of
life.
A churl a cold-blooded exhibition of creation passing by
wants to know what good those flowers will do? He fails
to comprehend their tender agency. If he had been called to
see a baby flower kiss its mother ere she died he would have
laughed derisively. To him the thought would not have
suggested a poetical gem, but, on the other hand, a cold ma-
terialism. His warp of life is taking in threads that yield no
harmony. The combination is composed of rigidly abstract
elements. He reads no language on the leaves of the lily,
and recognizes no soul in nature. To him it is a blank, devoid
of a mission and without a ministry. Over him tears have no
influence, and the power of love fails to obtain in his life a
jurisdiction. These are comprehended as elements of weak-
ness.
When the little child of fragile form watched the dew
drops on a cluster of roses, and asked from whence they came,
it was told that they came from heaven, and then the ques-
tion was: "Will they ever die?" Even then these dew
drops from the fountains of paradise were being lost in the
vitali/ation of the flowers. Ere the answer was "riven, the
loo Under the Gas- Light,
spirit of the child was in heaven. The churl would say here
was a false education and perverted imagination the spirit-
ual lingering of the child to dwell upon dew drops and flow-
ers; but the student of the world's best philosophy will bear
evidence that this child's warp of life was golden-threaded,
and happily commenced in the weaving.
Under the Gas-Light. ioi
RAMBLE XXIII.
" Only waiting till the shadows
Are a little longer grown,
Only waiting- till the glimmer
Of the day's last beam is flown.
Till the night of earth is faded
From the heart once full of day,
Till the stars of heaven :ye breaking
Through the twilight soft and gray.
Then from out the gathered darkness,
Holy, deathless stars shall rise,
Hv whose light mv soul shall gladly
Tread its pathway to the skies."
|NLY waiting," were the words that fell upon the ram-
bler's ear as the evening shadows were falling. It was
the utterance of an aged pilgrim on the decline side of
life. He was looking away to see if he could catch a glimpse
of the reapers coming to reap the last ripe fruits of his heart.
The summer time of his life had faded, and round about him
were blowing the soul's autumn winds. He seemed eager to
hear the rustle of wings, and to commune with spiritual min-
istries. He had fought his fight, had struggled his struggle,
had acted his act, and played his play. " The yesterdays of
life seem now to have passed rapidly," observed the aged
IO2 Under the Gas-Light.
pilgrim. " The to-morrows will be hut few." " The after-
dawn will soon he reached, and then the yesterdays and the
to-morrows will never more he considered.' 1 '' The morning,
the noon, and the evening will he a blended unity. The day
will he an endless scroll, encircling an eternity of years filled
with an eternity of stars. Old age! the evening of life, the
setting of the sun* over a plain that has been traversed, the
gleaming of the stars over the twilight of a mortal existence
causes the rambler to pause and contemplate the scene. Four
score years of life are rare in these latter days. Along
the line of the generations such a span of time rests upon
marked characters. One would scarcely look under the
gleam of the gas-light, at the midnight hour, for an existence
of physical and mental power that had struggled and con-
tended with opposing forces for eighty years. The rambler
rinds such an one, and 'tis he who under the eternal empire
of the stars breathes the language :
" Only waiting till the shadows
A iv a little longer jri cm n."
" then I will enter the eternal morning amid the music of
larks and the perfume of flowers/ 1
" Why are you out upon the streets at such an hour as
this?" was asked this landmark of the century. "I love to
roam amid silence. I love to commune where I can hear
nothing but the flutter of a leaf," yvas his reply. He was a
man who had heard the great noises of two 'enerations.
Under the Gas-Light. 103
The hum of a nation's civilization had been parallel with his
life. The roar of battle from the fields of three wars had
fallen upon his cars. When he was born thunderbolts played in
the heavens uncontrolled. He had seen them snatched from
the skies and tamed. He had seen them converted into an
agency reaching forth to gather up the scattered records of
the world's civilization. He lived when philosophy was
chained, and has lived to see it unfettered. He lived when
man was confined to restricted lines, and has lived to see him
leap across them. He lived when the defenders of creeds
said to brain and genius, u curb thyself," and has lived to see
brain and genius looking into the vast future to tell the mo-
tion of the heavenly bodies for' a thousand years, and to enter
a drop of water to behold a myriad of created things with a
throbbing life. He has lived to see this same brain-power
penetrate the invisible and mysterious to reveal more of God,
more of His majesty, goodness ;uul mercy than independent
ironclad theology has revealed since time began. He had
lived when defenders of creeds, backed by an imperial power,
said to man, "think as we think,' 1 '' and lias lived to hear imperial
man say, "I will think as I please." He had heard the creed
worshippers say, "bow beneath this iron rod," and has lived
to see those same iron rods superseded by the cords of love
and brotherhood; lias seen them taken awav, and round
about them twine the ivy of affection and grace, and over
them bloom the Mowers of love and peace. The veteran of
1 04 Under the Gas-Light.
many years and the victor of many a royal battle, from his
position under the awning, gazes quietly upward through the
overhanging branches of a shade tree. The tramp of feet
along the walk makes him restless. His wish is to be alone.
To the rambler he said : " My friend, there is a memory that
is not dead. I behold with a sentient power a picture that is
beautiful. It was for years as fresh and bright as a morning
rose bathed in morning dew. Then one dreary morning the
picture faded. It had a spirit which passed away, a soul
which went to God. The memory of that beauty has, since
that morning, been regal in its dominion. The influence of
that spirit, so sweet, so gentle, so strong, has been felt
through all the passing years. The soul of that beauty had
a wondrous scope." It knew no creed, no lines of demarka-
tion, and no class; it reckoned no nobility save the nobility of
virtue, no prince save the prince of manhood, and no queen
save the queen of womanhood. It was a fountain of inspira-
tion, a well-spring of love, ever flowing, bearing cheer and
benediction. Looking at a distant star, he seemed to say :
u This memory long past comes crowding over my aged
brain." Though many years had flown with their lights and
shadows, the recollection of that heart, which had, in the
early spring time of young life, been called to assume a con-
dition of immortality, still haunted him, but like some glad
melody. His memory, as a tomb-searcher, swept through
the avenues of the past, and lifted here and there a shroud
Under the Gas-Light. 105
which had been thrown over buried hopes. Into the vases
where the roses of life and love had been distilled, he pene-
trated to find that there still lingered a fragrance.
Let fate do her worst, there are moments of joy,
Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy ;
Which come in the night time of sorrow and care,
And bring hack the features that joy used to wear."
And now he was only waiting for the shadows to become
a little longer grown, that he might bid them adieu and fol-
low that star and go to that picture, that beauty, that heart,
that soul, that love- -that inspiration of his summer years.
106 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XXIV.
jIGHT has far advanced. The noise coming from the
tramp of feet has receded, and yet the gas-light gleams
and glitters. In an out-of-the-way retreat, far removed
from the presence of faith, and hope, and charity, the rambler
finds his way. Looking up from the dismal scene he be-
holds the light from distant stars flowing that way as freely
as along the path that leads to the center of thought, of
wealth, and of power. It is a place out of the range of cas-
ual observation. Round about appear ruins, ruins of decayed
life, blasted hopes, and troubled and restless spirits. The
social philosopher could not enter here without finding prob-
lems for solution. The Christian would contemplate with
dismay, and faith be put into a condition of trembling, and the
call would be made for labor and for prayer. The sinner
would stand in dread and look out and wonder in his soul
where linger the forces of salvation, the followers of the Re-
deemer. Want is regal in its sway, and the spirit of desper-
ation the permeating influence, That there may be freedom
from care and the responsibilities of life, deliverance from
Under the Gas-Light. 107
thought and the monitions of an inward agency, drunkenness,
debauch and revelry, are made to sweep, with a relentless
fury through the shattered frames of mortality. Here, for
the intoxication of the sentient powers, man gives the body
of his wife and child for defilement. And this in a Christian
community. While these things go on, " in tasseled pulpits
gay and fine," men combat the growing developments of
modern rationalism. While in yonder haunt is being accumu-
lated dead matter from bones that have become -powerless
for action, the doctors of divinity charge forth into the realm
of the great philosophies, where the fountains of tears do not
flow for the lowly ones who are famishing, and passing
away under the shadow of blight, and whose hopes and ex-
pectations have been wrecked into lifelessness. The rambler
beholds a scene of impurity, riot, comfortless shelter, and evil
in its lowest and most degraded form. Here comes no joyous
day of labor, or night of peaceful rest, and no expectations of a
better time. Here move in the deadness of reality those who
have been pushed to the wall by the pomp and pride of the
rich, who have been tempted to ruin by the splendors of folly,
and who have been seared and maimed by the wheel of
the idol's car, beneath which they had fallen under the
weight, maybe, of the imperious and cruel hand of power.
Gazing at life they grew desperate, and settled into a cold,
cheerless infidelity, around which no flowers bloom and no
mercies of the soul shine. It is a sad fate a bitter expcri-
loS Under the Gas-Light.
ence. Thoughts of God, of Heaven, of home and its best
and purest realities of its buds, and blooms, and stars, have
gone out into the rayless and cheerless shadows of oblivion.
Here were being enacted tragedies in which life was fading,
and love, with all its holy offices, was perishing. Violations
were seen on every hand, closely followed by penalties severe
and dire. The ruling king was want and woe, and life un-
der the ban of such a power, with love crucified upon the al-
tar of sin, beneath which slumber the fires of a consuming
wrath, must be short and desperate to the terrible end. Such
battles and such crucifixions are not confined alone to the ob-
scure retreats, but in the localities where gleam the gas-light,
is as much perishing. The music is more harmonious and
the presentments more gilded, but beneath exists a cruelly
relentless fury. There is here no blooming of the soul, no
visible heart jewels. There is no child .presence. The buds
and flowers of affection have been blasted. The names of
mother and wife are not uttered. These, the sweetest words
of the heart and tongue, are eminently Christian, and gladly
do we note, are not profaned in ungodly temples. Their ut-
terance suggests a condition of elevation, and a surrounding
not composed of the fiery weapons of destruction. Turning
away, the rambler concluded that here should be elevated the
cross, and the gospel of redemption preached. Passing from
the dismal, heartless presentment, the gas-light region is
reached. Though the midnight hour has far passed, silence
Under the Gas-Light. 109
is not maintained. Slumber has not embraced all of life.
Behind a curtain ajar there burns a light. Near by are
seen two sleepless eyes. There is a soul in them that has be-
come wearv not dead, but only weary.
\\~L- purt no matter how we p;irt.
There are some thoughts we utter not:
Deep treasured in our inmost heart,
Xever revealed and ne'er forsjot."
It contained a volume, and may be of soul tragedy. Deep
do the philosophies of life carry us all if we but follow them.
Lest we become bewildered we will pass to a place of security.
Two little faces meet the rambler's gaze, and the influence
that comes from them causes him to forget the rocks upon
which men perish, and to throw aside the infidelities which
rise to trouble and darken the soul, and to dwell alone upon
the faiths and hopes, as seen in the couch of nestling inno-
cence. Here is no wreck and ruin. Round about this pres-
ence lingers no consuming fire, no devouring force, nothing
but radiant hope and comfort.
no Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XXV
P I|HE daughter was struggling in the battle of life. For
1 |> some time she had been contending with adverse winds.
( fl Along her pathway had seemed to be more rough places
than smooth ones. From the skies, above where she had
been walking, there appeared to fall less star-light than at
other places of human activity. Her language seemed to be
" I will bear it with all the tender sufferance of a friend,
As calmly as the wounded patient bears
The artist's hand that ininisters his cares."
It did not make her cold a& a cathedral tower upon a Jan-
uary night. Her heart was a flame of love and filial affection,
breathing, as became a child, the incense of duty. In her
young life there appeared before her one whose name she
bore saying with Milton :
"O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon :
Irrevocably dark! total eclipse.
Without all hope of day,"
But while he could not see a light she made him feel that
there was one near about him. While he could not behold
the Mowers of the garden and field she made him know that
Under the Gas-Light. 1 1 1
near at hand was ever breathing a flowery fragrance, and
until he passed over the river into that realm where no eyes
are ever covered with a cloud, she made his pathway smooth
by the friction of her heart against his as he passed along,
bound for the country where all eyes see the flowers, behold
the rustle of the leaves, and can view the birds fluttering
their wings in the midst of their concerts of song. When
this duty was ended, w r hen she had clone what she could,
prompted by a child's affection, she continued in the battle of
life, where she is an actor to-day. By her energy she suc-
ceeded in gaining a title to an earthly portion. Through the
force of circumstances she had to borrow two hundred and
fifty dollars to meet a claim. To secure this money she un-
fortunately came in contact with a Shylock, a beast in human
form, a grasping, soulless ghoul one who sneered at the vir-
tue of charity, and was utterly powerless to comprehend any-
thing redeeming in heroic struggle. A being fluttering in
distress was unable to awaken in his breast a feeling of sym-
pathy. The chirp of a bird with wounded wing could not
attract his attention could not touch a heart string. Tears
to him were material only, and in them he was utterly inca-
pable of beholding a soul. In fact, he knew nothing about a
soul. Possessing a credit that was false, and sailing under
colors not his right, he said to the child of struggle: "Give
me twenty -five dollars and " I will secure vou a loan of two
hundred and fifty dollars at ten per cent." The demand was
1 1 2 Under the Gas-LigJit.
complied with, and the loan, defended by a cut-throat mort-
gage, was secured. Time went on, and the man'from whom
the money had been obtained expressed a willingness to let
the loan continue as long as desired. By and by there came
to the half-orphaned .girl a notice that Mr. A. wanted his
money by such a time. Then followed distress. A hard
place in the battle of life had bean reached; but, undaunted,
the ill-blowing tempest was faced. The " cut-throat " must
be mastered, w T as the decision. The " earthly portion," with
its shelter and defense, must be retained, no matter how se-
vere was the tempest surging round about it. Out into the
street, in the midst of business action and commercial con-
flict, our heroine passes. Presently the man who had given
the loan leanis of the girl's effort to raise the money. He
meets her and asks her what it means. She replies : " I
have been notified that you want the money." The money-
lender, exhibiting a surprise, says: "It is not so. 1 do not
want the money. You can [have it as long as you desire."
The hellishness was seen at a glance. The Shylock, the
heartless grinder of defenselessness, with the brazen front of a
fiend, had sought to distress the girl in the expectation that
he might wring from the fruit of her struggle another'twen-
ty-five dollars for the securing of another loan, and had, un-
authorized, sent her the notice. Away from the light fof
heaven, under the gas-light, this scheme was devised, and! the
devisor was extending his fangs of ruthlessness to prey upon
Under the Gas-Light. \\\
what had been gathered through heroic struggle, and by a
girl who had been true to every duty, who had dropped her
tears of womanhood where tears of womanhood were need-
ed ; who had planted flowers where flowers were needed,
and who had breathed fragrance where fragrance was needed.
Pausing to contemplate the incident, as it came to us under
the gas-light, we concluded that the exercise of a scorpion
lash upon such fiends would be healthful. They should have
no right to the chambers of mercy, and no permission to beds
of rest. A being who would see an orphan girl in this world
of sin fight her battle and win her right to a crown of stars
for virtue and for womanhood, and then assume the character
of a thief, to crowd her into a condition of despair, by at-
tempting to make her his victim, deserves piercing with the
prongs of vengeful wrath. He should be driven from the
localities where flowers bloom into the localities where
naught but thorns and thistles grow. Where the song of
birds swell into a heavenly music, he should not be allowed
to walk, but instead, be driven into a path along which only
harsh, grating noises are heard. He should not be permitted
to come where the souls of virtue and innocence emit the best
of life, lest he chill and paralyze them with his presence.
1 4 Under the Gas-Light .
RAMBLE XXVI.
" I'll be at the window :is he goes by.
As he goes by
He'll lift his head to look at the sky.
The western sky.
To see if the sun has set for fair
And suddenly there
Against the sky in the golden air
He'll see a pair
Of familiar eyes." * * * *
4
l\ SCENE Jike these lines foretold has long since passed.
||? It was in the early evening, ere the vigils of the night
^^' threw their watchful light upon the race peopling this
planet. He did lift his head and look at the skv the beauti-
ful sky, inlaid with crimson and gpold. He saw the sun set
for fair, and in the golden air he saw the familiar eves. That
\vus all. What was within was as a sealed scroll, and no spir-
itual agency was there to reveal. The evening shadows
soon came on apace, bringing with them a sweet ministry.
In these shadows were heard the voices that once were the
music of morning hours. Then came the whisper, " They
have flown, not died, and in fairer climes, and with nobler
voices they wait your coining, singing the song that shall
Under the Gas- Light. 115
have no ending." What a comprehension! Only they are
alive that are dead. Only they are fairly ours that are im-
mortal. And this we learn within these shadows. The
leaves go; the grasses wither; the birds fly upward and are
out of sight; and the years are soon covered and gone in na-
ture. But there sweeps into the soul the hope which is faith,
that beyond the realm of stars, and the golden crimson of the
horizon of life, is an eternal existence, full of song and bloom-
ing. Did not this feeling spring up there would settle round
about man an undefined condition.
There passes a woman a mother, bearing a heavy bur-
den, not upon her shoulders, but upon her heart. It is eleven
o'clock. She wheels, in a little carriage, an infant, and by her
side walks a six-year-old boy. Before every screened door
she pauses and says to the little boy, " Go in here and see."
The sentence failed of being completed. The boy under-
stood the want, and bounded quietly away "to see." It was not
difficult for the rambler to conclude what the desire was to
see. There was a mother out with her children upon the
street visiting the saloons. It was strongly suggestive that
somewhere in the city was a home wherein gloom had
crowded where hope had been wounded, where tears of joy
had been turned to tears of weariness, and \vhere the hand of
fate had pressed heavily. What was once a strength and
n6 Under the Gas- Light,
tower in that home was now a shattered column an exhibi-
tion of weakness. Yet there existed a love for him a long-
ing to bring him back. Around that tower, once so strong,
still twined the ivy of affection, as if to repair and strengthen
its riven and broken condition. Woman's faith and woman's
love is here presented in its full force and power. Where
man would falter, woman is an armv with banners; where
man would let go, woman would hold with a mountain-mov-
ing faith; where man would curse, woman would pray with
an assurance of victory; where man would desert, woman
would plant a rose and bathe it with her tears. The mother
and wife said to her child, " Go in here and see;" but it was
not that he might be censured. The prompting was to call
him back under the dominion of a faith that was abiding, and
into the atmosphere of a love that was ever holding its fra-
grance. Man would not have paused before these screened
doors and said, " Go in here and see ;" nor would he have gone
in to see. His faith and his love would have broken ere he
reached such a point; and yet how r often man frowns upon
and rejects the faith that he beholds swelling up to his breast
and around the throne of his intelligence. He should not do
it, for by and by, as the stars shine, and as the angels sing,
that faith will be transferred to other fields, and then its
graspings and clinging* will not affect the mortal life save in
a spiritual sense.
Under the Gas-Light. \ \ -j
"Isn't that an outrage upon decency?" was a question
asked with much feeling, and prompted by seeing a man who
had reached the noon of life a sovereign of a family, the
head of a household and the father of children riding boldly
along a public street with a blighted life, an ill-fated star, a
forced amiability and a false devotion.
" That man," said an observer, " once asked the people for
political confidence. He has since forgotten that modern so-
ciety claims to be a society of decency. He has lost sight of
the fact that dirt does not harmonize with the component
parts of our civilization. It is plain that his brain is gone
has been paralyzed to an extinction."
It i- a sad contemplation. Should he be stopped now, and
be shown a picture of innocent virtue, he would leer at it and
call it a fraud. The viper-life, possessed of a power that
poisons, and infatuates his being. Man is a beast when he lets
himself down. He profanes everything holy and curses every
virtue found about and in the temple of the soul. He would
feast on corruption, and ignore a garden of productive nour-
ishment. He would jump into an abyss while round about
were the paths of safety inviting his footsteps. The abyss
may be one of sin, and the paths of safety those of virtue;
but where sin is he loves the best to go, and like an unbridled
force he rushes forward. The fragrance of home virtue he
tramples under his feet, but, having lost his brain functions,
and being barren of intelligent conception, he knows it not.
1 1 8 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XXVII.
|O you see those loafers on yonder corner?" questioned
one who for some time had been sitting within the shad-
ow of a Court Square tree, and continuing, said : " For
the last hour I have been watching them." The rambler was
inclined to know what opinions had been made by the observ-
er, and what the reflections of his mind. "I believe," said
he, " that no lady has passed by since I have been sitting here,
who has not been followed by leering eyes, and been the sub-
ject of some unseemly speech." That band of loafers on yon-
der hotel corner seem to have no admiration for virtue. In
the breast of none does there sw r ell an emotion of love for ele-
vated character. Their range of vision is upon the lowest
level. Upon the plane of lofty conceptions they will
not feast. To them nothing responsive comes from that
higher elevation. In its soil grows nothing which they would
care to pluck, because for the fruit thereof the}' have no long-
ing. Like vandals, they trod it all beneath their feet. "Who
is this, and isn't she gay?" falls upon the ear, followed by
wicked surmisings. The yery air in this locality is tilled with
Under the Gas-Light. 119
poison. There is not from this congregation of vileness anv
looking into fair faces to study the graces of the heauty of a
divine creation; no looking into eyes to conceive them as
windows to souls whose mission it is to carry light where
light is the need. Their gaze causes virtue to quiver and in-
nocence to hasten its steps. Were a sweet ministry to pause
here to sing a sweet song of love, of home and heaven, it
would receive no approbation. It would be compelled to go
away, and may be to weep over wounds received in the
heart; and going, who would follow to sav
" May Ihc snowy wings of innocence and love protect tlu-e! "
Not one from this corner of depraved life. Vipers are in-
capable of invoking love to enter upon a mission of protec-
tion. Love to them does not appear as an agency of con-
trolling power. Animal perfection is the scope of their men-
tal dominion. They comprehend no harmonies of life. They
would delight most in wreck and ruin. Blasted hopes woidd
bring to them contentment. Bleeding heart strings would
afford them satisfaction. Shattered home temples would be
their glory. Severed unions would bring food for their am-
bition. Now and then one pours his intellectual animalism
over a Police Gazette or a dime novel. These contain the
acme of their ambition. Beyond such presentments their
brain force has never been trained to reach. In physical base-
ness their contents are digested. Did thev contain a thought
here and there, grand in its heauty, suggesting an eternity ot
I2O Under the Gas- Light.
depth and an immortality of existence, they would he
dropped, to he pronounced vague matter. Anything treat-
ing upon powers of intellectual development and philosophic
force would, by them, be discarded. Ask them questions con-
cerning elucidations in scientific fields, and they would stare
at you like idiots. Mention a fact as expounded by Draper
and Tame and Huxley, and with the imbecility of a louse
they will ask: "What kind of taffy are you giving us?"
Vulgarity is their creed and animal baseness their ethics. In
the presence of a masterpiece of art they would exhibit
coarseness. The voice of music in the air would prompt in
them no lofty sentiment. They would turn their eyes from
the matchless grace of a rainbow to look at a dog-fight, and
would flee from a temple of virtue to revel among blunted
sensibilities and deadened souls. The sister of a man of char-
acter, refinement and heart-wealth goes by and through that
atmosphere. An insinuation falls, base and ugly. "Do you
know of whom you speak?" is a question quickly interposed.
Then follows a trembling. Depravity is a coward, and the
reply is confused. " That woman is the light of a home, the
object of a large affection, and the pride of a devoted circle,"
spoke the first speaker. The coward hung his head and
walked away. An eulogy upon virtuous character was a pun-
ishment for him to hear. The brother of this woman, pass-
ing, heard a few words and came to a pause. He heard them
repeated, which roused him up to an angry passion. While
Under the Gas-Light. 1 2 i
the gentle evening brec/es were playing through the leaves
of the overhanging trees, and while the stars gleamed purity
from the heavens, there came a torrent of invective. A pain-
ful silence intervened, when he said, " Cursed be the city upon
the streets of which a woman of virtue, of grace and affec-
tion, cannot walk in a twilight hour without being an object
of hurtful criticism, and the subject of a defiled speech."
Must it be that when the evening shadows fall, when the
heavens beam with light and glory, and when the air is full'
of spiritual life, the queens of our earthly temples must cloister
themselves must veil their faces to avoid a vulgar street in-
spection? Are there no scorpion lashes that could be used
upon the backs of these vulgar animals? no brands of infaim
to press upon their debased frontlets, that they may be avoid-
ed where virtue is worshipped and where innocence is cher-
ished as a cardinal grace?
Poison in the air does not tarry. It meets with no barrier.
Temple walls fail to hold it in check. Beyond them it reach-
es to perform its withering work. Plaintive cries of inno-
cence are passed unheeded. It hushes the voice of song and
pales the flush of health and beauty. A surmising of laxity
and weakness, expressed, is baneful poison, and as quick to go
as a flash of flame, and it goes to ruin cherished hopes and
open up a flood of tears where before was all cheer and joy
and sunshine.
122 Under the Gas-Light.
RAMBLE XXVIII.
"All! brandy! brandy! bane of life,
Spring of tumult, source of strife,
Could I but half thy curses tell,
The wise would wish thee safe in hell."
||O wrote a poet years ago, prompted by observation and
experience under the gas-light of the period. The rani-
bier of to-day, passing within the shades of night, is
prompted by his observation to give utterance to a similar ex-
pression. Down a by-way is heard a tumult a strife. The
cause thereof is easily defined. The vile bane of life has
been at work, and as a result humanity has been transformed
into a condition of beastliness. In the confusion is heard an
incoherent speech, suggesting forcibly that a brain had been
diverted from its legitimate function. Cruelty follows the
strife. It had been forecast as its sure sequence and it came.
Then there was crying. Innocence had been trodden upon
and wounded. The vases that in a happier hour contained
the flowers of a sweet existence lay shattered upon the floor.
The vine that had twined about the window lav prostrate,
having been bereft of life and nourishment. From this scene
the rambler passes. The thoroughfare is crowded. The
Under the Gas -Light. 123
men of fortune and power are passing. The gleam of a gas-
light reveals the face of one whose name is on a church hook
one who professes to adhere to the Christ doctrine,- the
Christ grace and the Christ charity; but, tracing him to his
place of business, the rambler finds that he is a wholesale
dealer, and that within his house is in store the
" Sprinjj of tumult, source of strife."
Is his the Christianity that is redeeming? Is it the kind
that flows from the heart of the heavens? Is it the kind that
takes a bee-line from earthly vales to the eternal throne? The
rambler will not pause for an answer. Hark ! He prays :
" Bless suffering humanity. Alleviate the distesses of the
widows and orphans." Good prayer very good prayer, but
how about that
" Spring of tumult, source of strife.' "
Pressing for information, the rambler's faith in what he
had looked upon as the personification of Christian grace and
force is weakened. In his rambles he has seen what the
spring of tumult was, and what the source of strife. It was
a spring around which there could be no growing but that of
thorns, a source from which could be developed naught but
vileness, bitterness and tears. How a reputed child of God
can nurture such " spring " and " source " is not clear, and the
inability to make it clear is causing much unrest and much
distrust where should exist tranquility and faith.
"There goes mv teacher!" utters a bounding youth. " Let's
124 Under the Gas- Light.
see where he goes." These words prompted a flood of sug-
gestions. There was a seeking of precedent from which to
argue, and an example to follow. The seeking was done In
those of a young and active life, with habits yet unformed.
The teacher passed hurriedly along under the gleam of the
gas-light. Now he drops into a hook-store to scan the latest
issues of current thought and make a selection. This being
done, he pursues his journey, with the young hunters for prec-
edent and example following closely behind him. Now he
ascends a stairway and enters a brilliantly lighted room. It
was not a club room, nor a gambling hell, for in the com-
pany, seated in earnest, thoughtful silence, were ladies.
Ranged about upon the walls were the treasured voices of the
past historic voices voices of philosophy-, of speculation,
and of religious truth. Looking at one localitv was to fancy
the hearing of the voices of song; at another, the hearing of
noise coming from conditions disturbed by innovation ; and at
another, the hearing of the thrill of genius along the line of the
world's developing civilization; and at another, the hearing
of a voice proclaiming the fitness of the human soul to be
the unit and measure of all institutions the epitome and micro-
cosm of the universe ; and at another, " Hear ye the gospel "
a voice teaching that God moves in the highway, not upon
a palace carpet; goes with the multitude, not with self-elect-
ed experts; runs amid-channel, not in the eddy teaching
that the world forces, the world faiths, and the great relig-
Under the Gas-Light. \ 25
ions are not private, select up this man's lane and down that
man's spinal cord. But the rambler is truly rambling. He
must not lose sight of the teacher and those who are look-
ing for precedent and example. The conclusion is that they
have found enough. Will they profit by it? Possibly they
are disappointed. Had the teacher entered doubtful localities;
had he entered this and that way, which lead to. where souls
are being wrecked, the example might have been more satis-
factory to our young friends, and, as experience teaches, would
have been followed more readily. But the example was
good. Where he went were places of safety. The young
man can go there always and never suffer. Under the gas-
lights that gleam in those localities are found no pitfalls, no
lurking, devouring evil, and no poison to wither the vital en-
ergies. Among the flood of suggestions referred to was one
pointing to the teacher. The thought was: "What a re-
sponsibility is his!" A walk here and a walk there; passing
under this gas-light or under that one; entering this door or
that door, may cause a thorny path to be made for a score:
may cast down brilliant brains, and hedge the ways of the
forces of genius that otherwise might expand into agencies of
mastering power.
Bvron expressed the correct idea in these lines:
" Tis thus the spirit of ;i sing-le mind
Makes that of multitudes take one direction.
As roll the waters to the breathing wind,
Or roam the herd beneath the Chief's protection. 1 '
126 Under the Gas-Light.
The teacher is taken as an ideal character. His deeds arc
mirrors unto the young. This was Goldsmith's conception
when he wrote of the village schoolmaster:
" Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited g-li-i:
At all his jokes, for many :i joke had he."
Had the teacher in question so elected he could have set an
example pointing to scenes and conditions of moral disaster,
lie might have led from light to darkness, and from flowers
to thorns. But through the ministry of some treasured ex-
perience, and from the planting of seed that attained to
growth and development, the example was redeeming, and
the leading was from light to light, from flowers to flowers
and from good to good.
Under the Gas- Light. 127
RAMBLE XXIX.
NE thing can be truthfully said, uncl that is this, that our
American life is an active life. This industry every-
where visible from the cries in front of a side-show to
the management of a great agricultural and mechanical ex-
hibition indicates that there is a struggle to better conditions.
The rambler, though weary from the duties that had been
his to perform in preceding hours, nerves himself to the con-
clusions that industry is the only safe agrarian law of society;
that it is ever elevating the laboring classes and reducing the
idle; that it is a universal duty, in that it fosters health, con-
tentment, virtue and happiness, as well as competence and af-
fluence. The mind desiring a condition free from the neces-
sity of labor is deceived.
"A want of occupation is not rest;
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed."
The man who does not labor, and who does not walk in
the royal paths of industry, is an incubus and a burden. It is
surprising to see so much false aristocracy extant. This mo-
ment there brushes by a man expressing a dissatisfaction over
128 Under the Gas-Light.
the fact that so many toilers are in his way. His hrain is too
limited to comprehend the simplest economic principle. He-
forgets that without a base there could he no tower. These
men are the foundation rocks of the state, of society, and of
the world's civilization. Paralyze the functions of these l>asc
rocks, and soon tower and crown would lay in the dust.
A prelate, an assumed priestly dignitary of the church of
England, was surprised to see Dr. Johnson, one of the grant!
royal princes of English literature, speak to Rohert Burns, a
man dressed in coarse attire, and to the doctor expressed his
surprise. Dr. Johnson replied: "I spoke not to the boots,
but to the man who stands in them." That prelate's name
has long since been forgotten, but the name of Robert Burns
will be remembered as long as there is any civilization in the
world. Dr. Johnson did justice to the great soul of Burns
ere Burns became immortal, and thereby convinced the brain-
less forces of his time and the soft shells of the English church
that he (Dr. Johnson) had the courage to revere divinity in
humanity, and the ability to comprehend a great brain, a
great soul and a great heart.
'A man's ;i man for a' that"
was a gospel never excelled by any titled prelate of the En-
glish church. It touched the great heart of humanity, and
clinging to it through a natural adhesiveness, has been re-
membered by succeeding generations, while down went titled
conditions and princely powers.
Under the Gas-Light. 129
In another place and under other circumstances, the ram-
bler hears a man say : " I conceive it to be my duty to pay
the most attention to that part of humanity which has in it
the most soul." The speaker wa* a man who occupies a high
position. He had come in contact with all conditions of life.
He had been in the cottage and in the palace, in the valley
and upon the mountain-top. Around him had fluttered but-
terflies and eagles. In his presence had stood plumed
knights with brains and plumed knights without brains, but
over them all he was disposed to look, and to pay attention to
that part of the race which developed the most heart, and as
a consequence he looked most into the faces of the best forces
of civilization, and paid most attention to those who were the
bed-rocks of home, of church and of state. From under the
gas-light there emerged a princess. She entered a cottage
with a royal tread. She was angry, for in her family the line
of royal caste had been, in one instance, disregarded. There
was an interchange, fierce and fiery, and when the climax was
reached it was rounded off in this wise: " Remember that I
am a lady!"
"And I a mother!" was the retort.
It was the retort of a heart that had been wounded, the
outflow of a soul cherishing the broad divinity found in the
nobility of man and womanhood. Before it the cham-
pions of a cold philosophy could not stand. "And I a
mother" was a voice that lingered in the air. It tarried amid
130 Under the Gas-Light.
the vines and flowers, and then rolled up against spangled
walls and exalted towers. "And I a mother " was a music
that commanded incense and obtained it. It had meaning,
and hence the force to carry inspiration where inspiration
was needed to the cottage or to " Estwick Hall;" to the val-
ley or to the mountain -crest; to the chambers of poverty or
to the chambers of plenty. It was the breath of a soul tem-
pest, and knew no fear. It was the announcement of a con-
dition and a position titled by the edict of the eternal majesty,
and therefore above all conditions and positions. The dream
of the poet was :
" Sweet is the image ot" the brooding dove;
Holy as heaven a mother's tender love :
The love of many prayers, and many tears,
Which change not with dim declining ye'irs,
The only love, which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for passion's wayward birth."
Truly the rambler rambles. It is now past the midnight
hour. "Watchman, what of the night?" goes over the tele-
phone. "All is well," comes back; voice to voice, each far
away. Triumph of genius, of brain, and of industry. Look-
ing at the stars that gleam in the heavens, over nation, and
city, and gas-light, the rambler calls along the path of future-
development : " What will be added to the civilization of the
next decade?" No responsive echo comes back over the
track of the years. All is silent all is sealed; but we know
that what will be given will be given by the royal sons of toil
God's nobility.
Under the Gas-Light. 131
RAMBLE XXX.
jERE and there a gas-light gleamed on South Second
street, and under them the rambler passed unconscious of
BIJ how life was being lived there. The State House pre-
sented a dark picture, with here and there a light streaming
through the windows, revealing the fact that while others
slept somebody was toiling. From leaf to leaf and from
branch to branch, as the corners are passed, comes a 'silent
voice. Here a melody, and there a plaintive fluttering.
Shadows are passing, which are now and then traced with
beams of light. Here a song is sung, and there a petition of-
fered. Under a benediction one home rears around man a
defense, and under a cime another scatters thorns. South
Second street is very beautiful under the power of refine-
ment. Its sides are fringed with attractive habitations,
in which are budding and blooming flowers of intelligent
conception. All about can be seen ornamentation, evidences
of Christian culture and the better civilization. The paths
that wind beneath overhanging branches are covered with
withered leaves, reminding the rambler of the changes in na-
ture as the years go b\ .
I
132 Under the Gas-Light.
Out through a brilliantly lighted hall comes a strain of
music. The notes are sweet. They create a spell before
which language is powerless. It is a music sweetly sooth-
ing. It betrays no faith- -no trust. There is harmony with
the dying night breezes harping through the seared leaves,
trembling upon limb and bush. The soul, commingling with
the melody, reaches forth to muse with the sentient ministries
in the air. The man who would pause here would soon be
made unfit for " treason, stratagem and spoils," else he would
be speedily rated " an ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fel-
low." The rambler paused and admired. He saw the dark-
ness melt as before a ray, and the half veiled face of heaven
throw a stream of light, with a beam of comfort to direct his
way. It was evident that beyond that threshold had never
passed a viper to sting and poison. Virtue stood full crowned,
and round about, in battle array, ranged the angels of defense.
Their presence has been courted, their service cherished,
therefore the breath of divinity breathed in the music, and in
the rustling leaves, which the rambler caught that autumn
evening.
Life has its contrasts its lights and shadows. The ram-
bler passes from the one into the other.
"Do you see yonder cottage, out from which comes but a
faint light?" asked a resident of the street.
The rambler paused, saying: "I do now since you hu\r
directed my attention thither."
Under the Gas-Light. 133
From our friend we gathered substantially these facts:
Beneath that roof exists a viper a female viper. She is a
mother. Her life to-day is black with sin. A few years ago,
when she was purer, God gave to her two baby girls
" Two fair little creatures, with shining eyes,
That seemed to have taken their radiant litfht
From the fairest hue of the summer skies.''
Ei'c they grew into young maidenhood their mother
strayed into a thorny path she, who for their sake, should
have clung to the sheet anchor of virtue and besought defense
"from the beautiful city with gates of pearl," and have-
prayed the angels, with " sounding harps and gleaming
crowns," to woo her girls into the paths of purity. By and
by there came two human fiends seeking prey two high-
stepping young men of the town. They bid for these two
voting girls, and the mother, in her abandonment, sold them
permitted them to be sacrificed upon the altar of a terrible
fatality. She bid them follow the path which she had chosen
to follow, ami to feel the thorns which she, in her vileness,
was being made to feel. The rambler looked awav to
behold the stars that gleamed through the drifting clouds,
and to wonder why there was so much mercy in the heavens.
Here were two girls not long from babyhood being deliber-
ately educated to a deadly vice, having been heartlessly sold
by a heartless mother to the merchants of hell. It is passing
strange that mercy should continue to be mercy when such a
134 Under the Gas-Light.
crime is being enacted. The being that would be instrumen-
tal in blasting an innocent life, in turning purity to impurity,
in chilling a flower just blooming, and in directing a guileless
heart into guile, should have no peace and joy in the midst of
a Christian and civilized life. Through the air should come
vengeful arrows of wrath to such an one. But these mur-
derers of maiden life, these poisoners of purity, these blasters
of childhood's fragrance, are permitted to hold up their heads
within the light of the city's best homes, and in the presence
of virtue that has received a cherishing fervent and strong.
The defenseless may only know that in the afterdawn it will
not be all mercy, but with it will be seen the flashings of jus-
tice for the beings who outraged buds and blossoms, and inno-
cent hearts, when there was no defense no one to smite
down the beasts as they preyed like vampires upon the all of
life its virtue, its glorv and its crown.
Under the Gas-Light. 135
RAMBLE XXXI.
jlN a quiet and humble retreat, removed from the gas-light's
glitter and glare, lives a widowed mother, and with her
two little boys yet in the spring of life. How and why
they had been left alone to struggle for existence was not re-
vealed, and lest a sanctuary of sacred silence should be invad-
ed, no intelligence was sought in that direction. Little Joe,
the eldest, during the past few months, had sold flowers and
button-hole bouquets. When the seared leaves began to fall
and north winds to blow flowers were less in demand. An
office-holder, and occupant of one of the state-rooms of the
Capitol, had not been too much engaged to observe his com-
ing and going, and, being attracted by the boy's manner, had
on many a summer day purchased from him a cluster of
flowers. One day when he came, his friend, realizing that
" leaves have their time to fall, and flowers to fade," suggest-
ed the selling of matches. Little Joe, having confidence,
concluded to follow his suggestion. His good friend ad-
vanced him the money with which to purchase a stock.
When the matches were obtained he was given this advice :
136 Under the Gas-Light.
" You go south on Second street, and then back on Fourth
street. Little Joe looked up in astonishment, and to exclaim :
" What! go among those big houses? I can't sell anything
there. The people who live in those houses look so cross
and mad at me. I would sooner go among the little houses.
The people who live in them appear more friendly. I al-
ways sell more to them."
His exclamation and reply opened up a train of reflection.
It was an experience revealing a contrast between two con-
ditions of life. Little Joe was confronted in the one locality
with comfortless shadows, and in the other with the gleams
of sunshine. His recollection of the one condition will be
the recollection of hours which had in them more of coldness
than of warmth, and of the other condition the recollection of
hours which had in them more of warmth than of coldness.
Upon the night when the rambler was abroad the mother
was passing under the rod of affliction, and it was plain to be
seen that but a little while would she be permitted to remain
upon the earth. Little Joe had just come in from his wan-
derings. He had sold his last paper of matches. The meet-
ing of mother and son revealed a warm affection a fervent
love. Some how or other the little fellow realized that in a-
short time the best and truest friend he ever knew would
leave him for a journey through the valley, and that then he
would be alone in the world alone to struggle alone to
achieve. "Mother," said he, "I will do all I can for you.""
Under the Gas-Light. 137
The expression came up from a great soul, though possessed
by a little boy. Little by little he had saved his money. He
thought of no one but his mother; he knew no one but her,
and cared for no one but her. Her pain was his pain, her
sorrow his sorrow, and her joy his joy. At last the angel of
death came and took from the boy his mother. He looked
into her gentle face, traced by the weight of care, and with
his little hand moistened with his tears he closed her eyes
eyes that had followed his footsteps many a weary day, and
had watched his coming when the evening shadows were
creeping over cottage and palace.
The scene here depicted was presented a week or more
ago. To-night night upon which the rambler rambles
little Joe is found alone in the world alone, an orphan child.
Engaging him in conversation, he says, presenting a pic-
ture of manly pride: "I have buried my mother;" and then
his eyes sparkled with soul dew. " How could you do such
a thing when so young so small." Answering, he revealed
the fact that he had gone to the man who makes coffins, and
told him that his mother had died, and that he wanted one in
which to bury her. The undertaker, judging from his ap-
pearance that he could not pay for a finished coffin, gave di-
rections in regard to a box. The boy looked up, and asked :
" Can I not have a nice coffin in which to put my mother?
I will pay for it. I have some money now, and will sell
more matches and pay for it." Satisfied that the boy was
138 Under the Gas-Light.
honest and would do what he said he would, the undertaker
directed that a nice coffin be furnished. "Then you will
want a wagon?" asked the undertaker. Looking into the
man's face, with his eyes full, as was his heart, he asked :
" Cannot my mother be taken to the grave in the hearse ?
She is as good as any other boy's mother. I will pay for it
all. I promised my mother when she died that I would do
it, and I will do it." It was not hard to detect in the boy a
purpose that was earnest, and it was easy to conclude that in
this matter, and in fact in all other matters, he would be true.
All he desired was furnished, and he went to his lonely
home feeling glad that he was able to fulfill the promise he
had made his mother ere her spirit left its mortal home for a
home in the skies. The boy knew that his mother was a
good mother, and in his soul he felt the impress of her char-
acter; and happy was he to know that from care and toil he
could see her conveyed to a quiet rest in a way that would re-
flect honor upon his name. While yet a boy his manhood
developed. In the spring-time of his life the autumn wealth
showed itself. He determined that the beauty and taste inci-
dent to Christian civilization should surround her in the pas-
sage to the tomb. Over her grave will bloom flowers, and it
is sure that through the years they will be well watered by
little Joe.
When the grave was closed and the little boys found their
way to the city, a couple of ladies met them at their dreary
Under the Gas-Light. 139
and desolate habitation. Looking at the younger of the two,
it was suggested that he be sent to the Home of the Friend-
less. Little Joe turned his head, and soon his eyes were filled
with tears. Said he to the ladies: "I don't want my little
brother sent to the Home, for if he goes there somebody will
take him away, and I will never see him again." Looking
up into the face of one of the ladies, he continued : " Won't
you take him? If you do I will pay for his board and cloth-
ing." The plea was the eloquence of child-faith, and could
not be resisted.
Standing in this little man's presence, the rambler was
wont to say : Here we see a great force a combination of
heroic elements, in the midst of which is a soul-fountain
containing everything that is sweet and beautiful. Little
Joe loved his mother loved her living and loved her dead,
and in the boy swelled and sprung forth a manhood that
would not say less than this when her spirit went home to
God: "Here lies the best woman, in my judgment, I ever
knew she was my mother, and she shall be buried and laid
away to rest." From a chamber of poverty the boy walked
forth, and in the manhood which he developed showed that
he bore as proud a name as was borne anywhere among the
race. In the street he had been crowded to one side because
of the clothes he wore and the work he did, and by those
who would have been slow to believe that in the domain of
the affections, and round the sanctuary of the best conditions
140 Under the Gas- Light.
of life, he was gathering a royal strength. It is the strength
that makes manhood grand and powerful in the mastery of
contending forces. Little Joe gave all he had that his mother
might be honored, and the act and the knowledge thereof
will serve him well all along his journey of life.
In this little boy the rambler beholds all the elements for a
crowning success. A diamond that gleams to-day gleams
to-morrow and will glow with beauty always. The soul
that expands largely in the morning of life will show its full-
ness when the twilight, creeping about, tells that the evening
has come. A memory that is cherished in the summer years
will never grow old, and will form a vivid picture when the
frosts of autumn and the winter winds come. How refresh-
ing these soul-lights, which are led now and then to scatter
their effulgence. We see one to-day, and know not what is
beneath; to-morrow it may be touched to a development, and
to an agency that will rear an altar for the sublimest devo-
tion. If this light flashes from a youthful life it will reveal
the cast of manhood, and down the years will point to victory
and glory. .
Under the Gas-Light. 141
TRUST.
Lines suggested to the mind and heart of the Rambler by
a ramble made at an earlier period of his life:
" Trust me," so said a little girl,
While toving with a g-olden curl.
"/ will, my bird," for there was truth
In the two orbs the eyes of Ruth.
In youthful trust she stood a queen
In beauty, hope and graceful mien.
Her heart was glad, a joy was there,
Her way was bright, the future fair .
You trusted me, I trusted you.
And sin was hid from mortal view.
I sat within the sunset-gold,
And knew your heart was warm, not cold."
Thus spoke the maiden in her joy,
In words that came without alloy:
"You gave me scope in fields of lore:
And as I thirsted gave me more.
You trusted me I did not stray
Along a rough and thorny way.
You trusted me I did not fall
From light and hope beyond your call.
You trusted me upon my word,
And called me your little bird;
You pointed me where angels stood,
With crowns of stars for womanhood.
142 Under the Gas-Light.
I left my home, was gone for aye,
But visions of a golden day,
Like rays of light fell by my side,
While clinging to my trusted guide.
Had you lost faith in me, your child.
I might have left the angel guild :
I might have gone a gloomy way.
The path of sin without a ray.
I might have rode a phantom barque,
And lost ray anchor in the dsrk,
And cried for help- a friendly oar.
To row me back safe to the shore.
I might have gone without a chart,
In gloom been cast with weary heart
I might have stood without a star
To light to golden gates ajar.
You said to me the world was cold :
That every glitter was not gold ;
And bid me go and take a look
Through nature's wide unwritten book."
I looked and saw a pilgrim pale,
Who faced a strong contending gale,
Without a guide, without a light
It was a wild a fearful night,
I saw a wreck, a stranded life,
Who might have been a happy wite.
Had she been loved and not been sold
For lands and checks, coupons and gold ,
She might have been a central light
For God, for truth the cause of right,
Had she received a gentle hand
Not been held by an iron band,
She might have stood with men of thought:
The soul and mind she might have taught,
Had she been nursed like buds to flowers,
And not been watched thro' summer bowers.
Under the Gas- Light. 143
A guide, a light, a strength, a tower
Man's rest and joy, a lonely hour,
Had she been led by songs of love,
Had she been called a little dove.
But ill-winds blew across her path
Blew with an angry, fearful wrath.
The bud had taken an early chill,
And to a flower did not fill.
It fell, it died in fertile soil,
To bloom and grace it could not toil
It drooped and died it cried the heart
For soothing dew to make it start.
" Oh! that my father would trust trie:
And why he won't I cannot see.
My honor, woxild not that suffice,
With volumes of his good advice?"
These were the words she often said !
They told of a heart poorly fed
Told of a soul that wanted rest .
Of love that cried to be caressed.
" I cannot trust you from the hearth,"
Were words that brought a fatal dearth
To heart and soul a hungry thirst
To cry " why should I thus be cursed ? "
The night was cold the heart had cried.
In angry storm it had been tried.
There came a hush ; the soul had fled,
And he who was stern bowed his head.
And said, "Oh God! forgive the sin,
For with more love it had not been
As seen to-night by those with tears
As seen to-night by those of years.
Why did I chill the lovely flower
As cold as some cathedral tower ?
Why did I drive my child away
Away from my heart. Oh! fatal day.
144 Under the Gas-Light.
Why was I so cold and stern
That I would not her trust return.
For which she sought for which she plead.
That hee hungry soul might be fed?"
1 turned, I saw a happy home;
From keys from heart a gentle tone.
" Had we ne'er met " was not the song:
That told to me oi inward wrong.
Here love doth dwell ; I knew it well,
That this was not a household hell.
The words of love, the gold of trust
Had saved a flower from the dust.
For she was loved in early years,
And told to stay her falling tears-
Was told to wander on the main,
Was told to ramble down the lane.
Her heart was full, devoid of gloom;
A joy had come a happy boon ;
A manly strength, a manly voice,
'Twas all to her, the heart's own choice.
A little one, a bind, a twig,
Of love of trust, in infant rig,
As love had taught began to say,
" Ma, please, may I go out to play ? "
My life, my light, my hope and pride,
More beautiful than when a bride.
"It came through trust,'" was what was said.
As the tired boy was put to bed.
