A Pathetic Story.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1839, 19 April 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

A Pathetic Story.

"M4ajMA," said a three-year-old Trojan, arising from his knees after saying his evening prayer, " God doesn't do what I tell him to. I say ' God bless me and make me a good boy,' but he lets Satan come around and make me a naughty, boy sometimes," and having shifted responsibility for his childish iniquities, he tumbled into dreamland. It wasn't a very severe charge of omnipotent reraissness that the little fellow made, and the experience of the Detroit boy, pathetically told by the Post, will doubtless satisfy him that God does sometimes do what baby lips « tell " him to do. But something stayed his feet ; there was a fire in the grate withirj-Jor the night was chill-r-a,nd it lit up the little parlor and brought out in startling effects the pictures

on the wall. But these were as nothing to the picture on the hearth. There, by the soft glow of the firelight, knelt his little child at her mother's feet, its small hands clasped in prayer, its fair head bowed, and as its rosy lips uttered each word with childish distinctness, the father listened spellbound to the spot: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord^ny soul to take, Sweet innocence. The man himself, who stood there with bearded lip 3 shut tightly together, had said that prayer once at his mother's knee. Where was that mother now ? The sunset gates had long ago unbarrod to let her pass through. But the child had not finished; he heard her: " God bless papa, mamma, and myself." There was a pause, and she lifted troubled blue eyes to her mother's face. " God bless papa," prompted the mother, softly. " God bless papa," lisped the little one. " And —please bring him home sober." He could not hear the mother as she said this, but the child followed in a clear, inspired tone: " God—bless —papa —and please —send him—-homo—sober. Amen." Mother and child sprang to their feet in alarm when the door opened suddenly, but they were not afraid when they saw who it was returned so soon, But that night when little Mamie was being tucked up in bed after such a romp with papa, she said, in the sleepiest and most contented of voices: " Mamma, God answers most as quick as the telephone, doesn't he ? " —Troy Times.

A PUFF. *This *is a type *of my old =• * pipe. I fill it with toba'co then light the stuff, now (puff, puff, puff), of comfort there's no la ck, O!(puff) 'tis, indeed, a friend in need that (puff) drives away trouble. Like (puff) a wife, it cheers our life and (puff) makes pleasures double. One who is sad it (puff) makes glad & (puff) makes life worth living. All Btrife it heals and friendships seals & (puff) makes hearts forgiving). When I'm "dead broke" my pipe I smoke nor care a continental, for (puff) my woes soon (puff) transpose to splendours oriental. I watch ascend the rings- which blend with atmosphere so hazy, and (puff) I dream of blis3 supreme, (puff, puff) though old [and lazy. No cabbage leaf brings me to grief, nor cigarette so nasty. My pipe so sweet, though not so neat, gives (puff) a joy more vasty. My pipe's my yoke. It's fragrant smoke in solitude I'm snuffling. Tho' I decry all else, yet my dear pipe I'm ever puffing. —G. 11, Dodge.

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch says of the Hon. Samuel S. Cox, who was in 1853-54 an editorial writer for the Columbus Statesman : "It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was just dipping below the horizon. Suddenly Cox rushed into the room. 'Boys,' he said, ' did you- see that sunset ? It is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.' And, seizing some paper from the proof-press and leaning over the imposing-stone, he wrote the famous pen-picture that gave him the life-long soubriquet of ' Sunset ' Cox. The article was taken by the compositors and put in type piece by piece, and it appeared in that evening's number of the paper."