N. JUSTINE MC CARTHY PREACHES A SERMON

THE text of Reverend N.J. McCarthy's sermon to be delivered on Mothers' Day, was one of the most inexhaustible. Most of his sermons he did not prepare. But because this was one of the greatest days in the annual of the church, he spent a half a day in the preparation thereof. The title he selected for it suited him fully, and he called it: "The Claim of the Wicked."

Into it he put all the emotion that was in him. He drew a picture in illustrious words, of the wicked, the vicious man, and the weak, the undefended woman, and made many in his dark congregation burst into emotional discordance thereby. He ridiculed the vain; he denounced, scathingly, the hypocrite; he made scores in his audience turn with perspiration at the end of their noses with conscious guilt. Oh, never before in the years since he had mounted to the pulpit and begun what he chose to call, "an effort for the salvation of souls," had he preached such a soul stirring sermon.

"Live right, live right, I say!" he screamed at the top of his voice. "How many of you are there as you sit here before me, that have done evil unto thy neighbor; have made some one unhappy; have cast a soul into grief and eternal anguish? Think of it! Think of what it means before God to do evil, spite; vent your rotten deceit upon others! I stand before you in God's glory to beseech you to desist; to pray with you to live according to your consciences; to dispense with that evil spirit that in the end you may face your God in peace! Go forth hereafter in this world of sin; go to those whom you have wronged and made thereby to suffer, and ask forgiveness; ask there and repent forthwith! Oh, I'll tell you it is a glorious feeling to know you have lived right," and he turned his eyes dramatically heavenward, and affected his audience by the aspect. "To feel that unto others you have been just; that you have been kind; that you have not caused them to suffer, but to feel happy! Think of the thrill, the sensation such must give you, and then let your conscience be henceforth your guide in all things!"

When the services were over, and he had shaken hands with all the sisters, and bowed to the brothers, a boy, the son of the lady where he stayed, approached and handed him a letter. He looked at it with his spectacles pinched upon his nose, and then read it. It was from Ethel, and we know the contents.

"So," he said easily as he read it. "The evil seeks to influence my household in subtle matters, eh! Oh, that man has the brain of a CÆsar, but the purpose of Satan! Drat him, and his infernal scheming! Ever since the day I first knew him in the country four miles from this town, he has been wont to annoy, to aggravate me—and after all my daughter, my poor daughter, and myself have done for him!"

He began preparation to go to Chicago at the earliest convenience. As his work was so urgent, he wrote Ethel in reply that same day:

"My dear daughter:

"I am in receipt of your letter and make haste to reply. To begin with, I am not surprised to hear what you wrote[Pg 327] in your letter. I am not surprised to hear anything these days. Ever since your mother committed the unpardonable blunder of letting my poor child go straggling off into the West, that wild West, where only the rough and the uncivilized live, I have not been surprised with what each day might bring. It is certainly to be regretted that when one has sacrificed as much as I have to raise two of the nicest girls that ever saw the light of day, a fortune hunter should come along and bring misery into a peaceful home as that man has done. God be merciful! But it is to be hoped that we will see fit to adjust rightly the evil that we are threatened with.

"I cannot come to Chicago until a week from next Thursday or Friday. I am so behind with God's work, caused by the trip we made to that land of wilderness last spring, that I am almost compelled to be at Cairo next Sunday. But should anything transpire that will necessitate my presence before that time, wire or write me right quick and I will be there.

"From yours in Christ,

"N. Justine McCarthy."

In the West Jean Baptiste got ready for the homecoming of his wife. The small grain crop was gone. While the drought was now burning the corn to bits, his large crop of flax, which had been the most hopeful possible a few days before, was showing the effect of the drought now as well.

But with Jean Baptiste, he could almost forego anything and be happy with the prospects. In his mind this became so much so, until he looked forward to the day he had set for her coming as if all the world must become righted when she was once again near him.

Now during these months he had only his grandmother for company, and her he wanted to send home. But she would not leave him, always willing to wait until Orlean came back. During these long lonesome days he found a strange solace in talking to his horses. There, for instance, was John and Humpy, the mules that Orlean had driven her father out to their home with when he had come on his first visit. He told them that she was coming back now, and to him they appeared to answer. They had become round and plump since work had closed, and having fully shed their winter's hair, and not yet become sunburned their dapple gray coating made them very attractive.

He rearranged the house, bought a few pieces of much needed furniture, and made elaborate preparations for the homecoming. At last the day arrived.

It was Saturday morning. The wind had died down, and gave threats of rain for the first time in six long, hot dry weeks. He hitched John and Humpy to the spring wagon, and with a touch of his old enthusiasm, left his grandmother cheerfully—but for reasons of his own, did not tell her that he was going for Orlean. Perhaps he wished to surprise her, at least he did not tell her.

He drove to Winner more filled with hope than he had been for months.

The town was filled that day, and because there was an appearance of rain in the air, which could yet save much of the corn, there was an air of hope and cheer abroad. Jean thought to board a train and ride a few miles, and return on the evening train on which she would be. Then he decided he would wait for her and be ready to drive directly home. As the train was due shortly after nine p.m., he estimated that he could drive the distance in two hours; thereby getting to her claim before midnight and they could spend Sunday together celebrating their happy reunion.

He had longed to talk with her—and grieve with her over their loss in the fine little boy who never knew his parents. He thought of all this and of the happy days they had spent together the summer before. He felt the love and the devotion she had given him then. He wondered sometimes whether he had ever loved her as he had dreamed he would love his wife; but this thought had ever been replaced by his sense of duty. Marriage was sacred; it was the institution of good; he always disliked to see people part. He felt then, as he had ever felt before, that nothing but infidelity could ever make him leave a woman that he had married. He was still an enemy of divorce. He recalled how they had gone to the Catholic church once in Gregory, and had heard a learned priest discourse on divorce and its attendant evils. Never before had anything so impressed him. How plain the priest had made his audience understand why the church did not tolerate divorce. How decidedly he had shown that divorce could and would be avoided if the people could be raised to feel that "until death do us part." And Baptiste and the woman he had married had discussed it afterward. They had found books and stories in the magazines to which they subscribed, and had read deeper into it, and had been united in their opinion on the subject. Divorce was bad; it was evil; it was avoidable in almost every case. Then why should it be?

They had agreed that duty toward each other was the first essential toward combating it; that selfishness was a thing that so often precipitated it. In all its phases he had discussed it with her, and in the end, she had agreed with him. And down in their hearts they had felt that such would never be necessitated in the union they had formed.

So he lived again through the life that had been his, he did not allow his mind to dwell on the evil that had come into and made his life unhappy; made his days and nights and very existence a misery. He did not, as he lingered on the platform of that little western station, think or dwell on the things that were best forgotten. For a time he became Jean Baptiste of old. Return to him then did all that old buoyancy, all that vigor and great hope, all that was his when he had longed for the love that should be every man's.

And she had been away on a visit, to recover from the illness that the delivery had given her. He was sorry for their loss, and he would talk with her this night as they drove along the trail. They would talk of that and all they had lost, and they would talk of that which was to come. Oh, it would be beautiful! Just to have a wife, the wife that gives all her love and thought to making her husband happy. And he would try to give her all that was in him. And his wife would soon be with him—in his arms, and they would be happy as they had once been!

There it was! From down the track the train whistled. It was coming, and his wait was to an end. Near he saw John and Humpy whom she had been delighted to drive. They were groomed for the occasion, and were anxious to go home. Tonight they would haul her and hear her voice. He rose suddenly to his feet when at last the light fell upon the rails and he could see the engine. The roar of the small locomotive was approaching. Around him were others whose wives had been away. They, too, were come to meet their loved ones. Some were alone while around the others were children—all waiting to meet those dear to their hearts.

The train came to a stop at last, and the people emerged from the coaches. There was the usual caressing as loved ones greeted loved ones. Little cries of "mama" and "papa" were heard, and for a moment there was quite a hubbub of exclamations. "Oh, John," and "Jim" with the attendant kiss. In the meantime he looked expectantly down the line to where the car doors opened, and not seeing the one for whom he was looking, he presently jumped aboard the first car, and passed through it. It was empty and he estimated that she would be in the rear car. It was the chair car, and the one in which he naturally would expect her to ride. He passed into it bravely, with his lips ready to greet her. The last of the passengers were filing out. The car was empty, and his wife had not come.

Slowly he passed out of the car as the brakeman rushed in to change his apparel for the street. Across the street was the team waiting. They seemed to know him before he came in sight and they greeted him as though they thought that she had come, too.

He got slowly into the wagon, and soon they were hurrying homeward.