a

ness,

was.

pense. “And a room for her near by,” he ing boughs seemed to quiver with happiadded. "Everything for them! Every- Her eyes wandered farther down to thing! Everything!"

the row of the houses at the foot of the

park. She could see the dreadful spot on So there he was now, the lad, or what the street, the horrible spot. She could there was left of him, this quiet Sunday, see her shattered window-panes up above. in a pleasant room opposite the cathedral. The points of broken glass still seemed to The air was like early summer. The win- slit the flesh of her hands within their dows were open. He lay on his back, not bandages. seeing anything. The skin of his fore- She shrank back, and walked to the end head had been torn entirely off; there was of the transverse hall. Across the road a bandage over his eyes. And there were was the cathedral. The morning service bruises on his body and on his face, which was just over. People were pouring out was horribly disfigured. The lips were through the temporary side doors and the swollen two or three thicknesses; it was temporary front doors so placidly, so conagony to speak. When he realized what tentedly! Some were evidently strangers; had happened, after the operation, his first as they reached the outside they turned mumbled words to her were:

and studied the cathedral curiously as “They will never have me now.” those who had never before seen it. Others

About the middle of the forenoon of turned and looked at it familiarly, with this still Sunday morning, when the doc- pride in its progress. Some stopped and tor left, she followed him into the hall as looked down at the young grass, stroking usual, and questioned him once more with it with their toes; they were saying how her eyes. He encouraged her, and encour- fresh and green it was.

Some looked up aged himself:

at the sky; they were saying how blue it “I elieve he is going to get well. H

Some looked at one another keenly; has the will to get well, he has the bravery they were discussing some agreeable matto get well. He is brave about it; he is ter. Not one looked across at the hosas brave as he can be."

pital. Not a soul of them seemed to be “Of course he is brave,” she said stol- even aware of its existence. Not a soul idly. “Of course he is brave."

of them. "The love of such a mother would call Particularly her eyes became riveted him back to life," the doctor added, and upon two middle-aged ladies in black who he laid one of his hands on her head for a came out through a side door of the cathemoment.

dral --slow-paced women, bereft, full of "Don't do that,” she said. “I shall pity. As they crossed the yard, a gray break down."

squirrel came jumping along in front of Everybody had said he was brave, the them on its way to the park. One stooped head nurse, the day nurse, the night nurse, and coaxed it and tried to pet it: it bethe woman who brought in the meals, the came a vital matter with both of them to woman who scrubbed the floor. Each day pour out upon the little creature which as she wiped the floor around the bed she had no need of them their pent-up, unkept muttering to herself, “What a gratified affection. With not a glance shame!" All this gave her something to across to the window where she stood, live on. If anybody paid any kind of trib- with her mortal need of them, her need ute to him, realized in any way what he of all mothers, of everybody — her mortal was, she lived on that.

need of everybody! Why were they not After the doctor left, as the nurse was there at his bedside? Why had they not with him, she walked up and down the heard? Why had not all of them heard? halls, too restless to be quiet.

Why had anything else been talked of that At the end of one hall she could look day? Why were they not all massed down on the fragrant, leafy park. Yes, around the hospital doors, clamoring their summer was nigh. Where a little while sympathies? How could they hold serbefore had been only white blossoms, there vices in the cathedral-ordinary services? were fewer white now, more pink, and Why was it not crowded to the doors some red, and many to match the yellow with the clergy of all faiths and the layof the sun.

The whole hillside of sway- men of every blood, lifting one outcry

he was.

against such destruction? Why did they ing his head a little toward her under his not stop building temples to God, to the bandaged eyes, and feeling much mystified God of life, to the God who gave little about her, but saying nothing. She kept children, until they had stopped the mur- out of his reach, but leaned over in reder of children, His children!

sponse, and talked ever to him, barely Everybody had been kind. Even his lit- stroking him with the tips of her stiffened tle rivals who had fought with him over fingers. the sale of papers had given some of their The afternoon was so still that by and pennies and had bought flowers for him, by through the opened windows a deep and one of them had brought their gift note sent a thrill into the room- the to the great hospital entrance. Every awakened soul of the organ. And as the day a shy group of them had gathered on two heard it in silence, soon there foated the street while one came to inquire how over to them the voices of the choir as the

Kindness had rained on her; it line moved slowly down the aisle, the could not keep from raining, for there blended voices of the chosen band, his was that in the sight of her that unsealed school-fellows of the altar. By the bedkindness in every heart that was not stone. side she suddenly rocked to and fro, and

She had been too nearly crazed to know then she bent over and said with a smile all this. Her bitterness and anguish broke in her tone: through the near cordon of sympathy, and “Do you hear? Do you hear them?” went out against the whole brutal and He made a motion with his lips, but careless world that did not care- to legis- they hurt him. So he nodded: he heard latures that did not care, to magistrates them. that did not care, to juries that did not A moment later he tugged at the bancare, to officials that did not care, to driv- dage over his eyes. ers that did not care, to the whole world She saw it, and sprang toward him. that did not care save only those who “O my precious one, you must not tear mourned for the maimed and the dead. the bandage off your eyes !"

Through the doors of the cathedral the “I want to see you!” he said. “It has people streamed out unconcerned. Be- been so long since I saw you !" neath her, along the street, young couples passed, Aushed with their climb of the park hillside, and Alushed with young love, young health. Sometimes they held each The class had been engaged with another other's hands; they mocked her agony in model. Their work was forced and listtheir careless joy.

less. As days passed without her return, One last figure issued from the side their thought and their talk dwelt more door of the cathedral hurriedly, and looked and more upon her disappearance. Why eagerly across at the hospital - looked had she not come back? What had bestraight at her, and came straight toward fallen her ? What did it all mean? her, the choir-master. She had not sent Would they never know? word to him or to any one; but he, when One day after their luncheon-hour, as his new pupil had failed to report as prom- they were about to resume work, the ised, had come down to find out why teacher of the class entered. There was And he, like all the others, had been kind; a shock in his eyes; his look shocked them; and he was coming now to inquire. an instant sympathy ran through them.

He spoke quietly, with some effort: The bright, serene hours of the day “She has come back. She is downpassed one by one in nature's carelessness. stairs. Something has befallen her inIt was afternoon and near the hour for deed. She told me as briefly as possible, the choral even-song across the way at the and I tell you all I know. Her son, a litcathedral, the temporary

windows of tle fellow who had just been chosen for which were open.

the cathedral choir school was run over. She had relieved the nurse, and was A mention of it-the usual story-was in alone with him. Often during these days

Often during these days the papers, but who of us reads such things he had put out one of his hands and in the papers? They bore us; they are groped about with it to touch her, turn- not even

VI

Luke's, and she has been at St. Luke's, angles, he went behind the easeis, passing and the end came at St. Luke's, and all from one to another. As he returned, the time we have been here a few yards with the thought of giving her pleasure, distant and have known nothing of it. he brought along with him one of the stuSuch is New York! It was for his musi- dents' sketches of herself, and held it out cal education that she first came to us, she before her. said. And it was the news that he had “Do you recognize it?" he asked. been chosen for the choir school that ac- At first she refused to look. Then with counts for the new happiness which we indifference she glanced at it, arousing saw brighten her day by day. Now she herself. But when she beheld there what comes again for the same small wage, with she had never seen, how great had been other need, no doubt; the expenses of it her love of him; when she beheld the light all, a rose-bush for his breast. She told now gone out and the end of happy days, me this as calmly as though it caused her quickly she shut her eyes, and jerked her no grief. It was not my privilege, not our head to one side with a motion for him to privilege, to share her tragedy; she does take the picture away,

take the picture away. But brought too not impose it upon us.

close to her bereavement and to the fount “She has asked to go on with the sit- of self-pity, suddenly over her hands she tings. I have told her to come to-mor

bent like a broken reed, and the storm of row. But she does not realize all that her anguish came upon her. this involves. You will have to bring They started up. They fought one annew canvases,

will have to be a new other to get to her. They crowded around portrait. She is in mourning. Her hands the platform, and tried to hide her from will have to be left out, for she has hurt one another's eyes, and knelt down, and them; they are bandaged. The new por- wound their arms about her, and sobbed trait will be of the head and face only. beside her; and then they lifted her and But the chief reason is the change of ex- guided her behind the screens. pression. The light that was in her face, “Now, if you will allow them,” he which you have partly caught upon your said, when she came out with them, “some canvases, has died out; it was brutally put of these young friends will go home with out. The look is gone. It is gone, and you. And whenever you wish, whenever will never come back-the tender, brood- you feel like it, come back to us.

We ing, reverent happiness and peace of moth- shall be ready. We shall be waiting. We erhood with the child at her knee-that shall all be glad.” great carthly beacon-light of humanity in women of ages past. It was brutally put On the heights the cathedral rises out, but it did not leave darkness behind slowly, as the great houses of its faith it. As it died, there came in its place an- have always risen. other light, another ancient beacon-light Years have dritted by as silently as the on the faces of women of old -- the look of winds since the first rock was riven where faith in immortal things. Now she is not its foundations were to be laid, and still the mother with the tenderness of this all day on the clean air sounds the lonely earth, but the mother with the expectation clink of drill and chisel as the blasting of eternity. Her eyes have followed some and the shaping of the stone goes on. The one who has left her arms and gone into snows of winters have sifted deep above a distance. Ever she follows him into that its rough beginnings; the suns of many a distance."

spring have melted them. Well nigh a

generation of human lives has already WHEN she entered the room next morn- crumbled about its corner-stones. Faring, at the sight of her in mourning, so brought, many-tongued toilers, toiling on changed, with one impulse of respect they the rising walls, have dropped their work all rose to her. She took no notice,-per- and stretched themselves for their sleep; haps it would have been unendurable to others have climbed to their places; the notice, but she advanced, and climbed to work goes on.

Upon the shoulders of the the platform without faltering, and he images of the Apostles, which stand about posed her for the head and shoulders. the chancel, generations of pigeons, the Then, to study the effect from different doves of the temple whose nests are in the niches- upon the shoulders of the Apos- to stand finished! Crowning a city of tles generations of pigeons, having been new people, let it be hoped of better laws. born in the niches and having learned to Finished and standing on its rock for the fly, have descended out of the azure with order of the streets, for the order of the the benediction of shimmering wings. land, for order in the secret places of the Generations of the wind-borne seeds of soul, and order throughout the world. wild flowers have lodged in low crevices Majestical rebuker of the waste of lives, and have sprouted and blossomed, and as rebuker of a country which invites all seeds again have been blown on, harbin- lives into it, and cuts down lives most gers of vines and mosses on their venera- ruthlessly - lives which it stands there to

ble way.

save.

near.

A mighty shape begins to answer back So it speaks to the distant through to the cathedrals of other lands and ages, space and time; but it speaks also to the bespeaking for itself admittance into the league of the world's august sanctuaries. Although not half risen out of the It begins to send its annunciation onward earth, encumbering it rough and shapeless, into ages yet to be, so remote, so strange, already it draws into its service many that we know not in what sense the men who dwell around. These seek to cast of it will even be our human brothers save their weaknesses on its strength, to join as they are children of the same Father. their brief day to its innumerable years,

Between this past and this future, the to fall into the spiritual splendor of it as one of which cannot answer because it is out in space small darkened wanderers too late, and the other of which cannot drop into the orbit of a sun. Anguished answer because it is too soon-between memories begin to bequeath their jewels this past and this future the cathedral to its shrine; dimmed eyes will their tears stands in a present that answers back to to its eyes, to its windows. Old age with it more and more. For a world of living one foot in the grave drags' the other men and women see kindled there the peacefully about its crypt. In its choir same ancient flame that has been the light sound the voices of children herded in of all earlier stations on that solitary road from the green hillside of life's April. of faith which runs for a little space between the two eternities-a road strewn Rachel TRUESDALE's life became one of with the dust of countless wayfarers bear these near-by lives which it blesses, a darking each a different cross, but with eyes ened wanderer caught into the splendor of turned toward the same cross.

a spiritual sun. It gathered her into its As on some mountain-top a tall pine- service; it found useful work for her to tree casts its lengthened shadow upon the do; and in this new life of hers it drew valleys far below, round and round with out of her nature the last thing that is the circuit of the sun, so the cathedral ever born of the mother-faith that she is Aings hither and thither athwart the whole separated a little while from her children land its spiritual shaft of light. A vast, only because they have received the gift unnumbered throng begin to hear of it, of eternal youth. begin to look toward it, begin to grow Many a proud, happy, jealous thought familiar with its emerging form. In im- became hers as time went on. She had agination they see its chapels bathed in the had her share in its glory, for it had glories of the morning sun; they remem- needed him whom she had brought into ber its unfinished dome gilded at the hush the world. It had called upon him to of sunsets. Between the roar of the east- help give breath to its message and build ern and of the western ocean its organ that ever-falling rainbow of sound over tones utter peace above the storm. Pils which Hope walks into the eternal. grims from afar off, known only to them- Always as the line of white-clad chorselves as pilgrims, being pilgrim-hearted, isters passed down the aisle, among them but not pilgrim-clad, reach at its gates the was one who brushed tenderly against her borders of Gethsemane. Bowed as peni- as he walked by, whom no one else saw. tents, they hail its lily of forgiveness and Rising above the actual voices, and heard the resurrection.

by her alone, up to the dome soared a Slowly it rises, in what unknown years voice sweeter than the rest.

a

Often she was at her window, watch- him. In Elysium she saw him playing in ing the workmen at their toil as they an eternal April. When autumn returned, brought out more and more a great shape and leaves drifted and dropped, thinking on the heights. Often she stood there of herself. looking across at the park hillside oppo- Sometimes standing beside his piano. site. Whenever spring came back, and Always in her face the look of the imthe slope lived again with young leaves mortal. and white blossoms, always she thought of The cathedral there on its rock for ages.

AN ENGLISHMAN'S REVIEW OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S FIRST YEAR

BY A. MAURICE LOW
For many years Washington Correspondent of the London “ Morning Post.”

Author of “ The American People: A Study in National Psychology”.

HIRTY-FIVE days after Mr. Wil- held the Presidential office by the ridicule

many of their messages excited. And thus United States he appeared in the House thinking, as perhaps he did, one can very of Representatives and addressed Congress well see that Mr. Wilson would conclude assembled in joint session, thus reverting that the respect demanded of the Presito the practice of the first President. It dency required that when the President was a startling and almost bold thing to spoke he should be listened to with attendo. Many persons doubted its wisdom. tion not merely by the few hundreds of To a people fond of novelty, as the Amer- Congress, but by the many millions of the ican people is, it made its appeal.

country; and to command his audience, In itself this departure from custom the President must not make himself cheap was less important than interesting, but it by frequent talk, or weary by excessive helps amazingly to understand the Presi- length, or disgust by the trivial. dent's character and his purposes, and to Wisdom, says Carlyle, is intrinsically gain an insight into a complicated and, in of silent nature. Of such silent nature is some respects, conflicting nature. As his- Woodrow Wilson, whose reticence would torian and student of the machinery of have delighted Carlyle, scornful of talk government, Mr. Wilson knew that "The and intolerant of words with no meaning. President's Message" had forfeited its But reticence is not a quality to attract high estate and become almost contemptu- in a day when mankind is vocal and a man

Droned out by a clerk to empty escape listening only by talking. benches, it was read by nobody. Intended When Mr. Wilson came to the Presioriginally as a means to convey informa- dency a year ago he was so little known tion to Congress “of the state of the that virtually he was unknown, the first Union,” it had degenerated into a rehash American President of whom that can be of the reports of the heads of the depart- said. He has done nothing to dispel that ments or platitudinous observations that ignorance. An enigma then, an enigma he Congress and the country treated with the remains. respect they deserved.

Nearly every public man in America has An institution that becomes ridiculous a dual personality. There is the characsoon falls into decay. Mr. Wilson may ter, largely mythical, fashioned by the have asked himself whether his predeces- country out of its own imagination; there sors, as the guardians of the high dignity is the man he really is as Washington, of the Presidency, had not been guilty of sometimes unjust, but more often fairly lessening the esteem in which the public accurate, in its judgment, knows him from

Ous.

can