The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Sinful women, at whom, since Christ is dead in the souls of men,
all may cast stones. For them there is but little help or hope in a
righteous world.
Those who, by hallowed memories of purer scenes, have been kept from
evil.
Those who, though fallen and fouled, still guard, fair and apart,
pictures that fill their eyes with tears and their hearts with
yearnings--visions of morning stepping down the cliffs into valleys
where they dwelt; of sunsets in mountain countries; tropical lands
planted with palms that incline exile-ward; snowy regions where
blazing hearths and true hearts keep the place of the wanderer warm.
Home dwells pictured in their soul. It is an unpainted road-side
house. Sweet-pinks, marigolds, and holly-hocks grow in the
front-yard; morning-glories creep up the clap-boards, festoon
the windows, and peep into the wren's nest under the eve-trough.
In the maple by the doorstep a pair of robins have made their
habitation, and amid the green of the elm that roofs the spring and
wash-block--the stump of a former mighty tree--is seen the glint of a
fire-bird's wing.
Or a farm-house, with gardens and rows of hives, and barns with
their swallows, fields of corn and stubble, and upland pasture
where cattle are feeding. In "the new piece," between the pasture
and higher woodland, buckwheat blossoms for the bees, as it climbs
perseveringly up the ridge to overtake the poke, that, bending to
its weight of berries, mingles dawning crimson with changing hues of
blackberry-vines which hide the rocks. Along stone fences, golden-rod
and wild-aster still mingle their blooms untouched, though autumn
has reached stained fingers forth to trifle with the leaves of his
favorite sumach. In the swamp below, the scarlet lobelia burns amid
clumps of green and brown sedge. Beyond the swamp and meadow, and
wind-whitened willows by the creek, hills rise and bound the view.
Or it is a homestead, with venerable trees shading a lawn that slopes
to a lake in which house and trees lie mirrored. They are playing
with their brothers on the lawn, while their mother watches them
from her window; or gliding on the lake with companions and loves of
youth, steering their boat for a distant headland.
These are living pictures. Their woods sing Eolian measures; their
brooks talk of childhood and innocence; their clouds and seasons are
always changing; their swallows ever flying homeward, whither the
trees beckon. Miraculous pictures! their sun always shines on our
brides; their skies rain constant tears on our dead. Yea, in them the
dead are risen, and eyes long sealed look down on us with love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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