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on a wild and stormy night, 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
. THE BACKWARD LOOK. 
BY KATE RESTIEAUX. 
It was on Sunday afternoon of Jan- 
uary 19 that I attended a religious 
service in one of Boston’s most beau- 
-tiful temples. 
While much impressed 
by the solemnity and grandeur of it 
all, I yet carried away with me a 
feeling of sadness and an inward assur- 
ance of something unsatisfying and un- 
Christlike which I could in no way 
define. But the return to my daily 
avocations and the practicals of our 
country town life had, in a few days, 
almost effaced the impression, when, 
after 
sleeping soundly for ‘some hours, I 
seemed to wake. I do not know if it 
was dream or vision, but there came 
to my mind a curious train of thought 
that bore very nearly on my Sabbath 
experience, and which I deemed worthy 
of preservation. 
It seemed to me that the world — 
the whole world —was dead; as if 
some vile miasma, some noxious gas, 
had suddenly enveloped the Earth, 
stifling out all life from all things. 
Then, amid the utter silence of a 
deserted world, there appeared to be 
a Personality, a Presence, as of another 
realm. This Presence seemed to 
hover above and around the still cities 
and empty houses, like an angel of 
judgment come to weigh the fruits of 
our immortal life. 
Then the scene changed and I 
seemed to see the stranger, returned 
to his natural sphere to bear witness 
of what this silent World had revealed 
to him. And I will try to, give as 
nearly as possible, his words, — the 
words of my dream. 
“© great and wise people, my 
people, I as your representative have 
visited the Eartu the abode of a race 
extinct and have wondrous things to 
report of her people. It was most 
truly a world of work, and wonderful 
are the results of it labors. 
‘Great cities were wrought in wood 
and stone, and the bridges that span 
Earth’s streams with the palaces of 
her great ones, beggar description. 
But I passed over their luxuries to 
learn, if possible, something of the 
thought of this unfortunate people. 
“T soon found that their wisdom 
was compiled in books, and there were 
beautiful buildings, in which these 
treasures were stored; but while there 
were some localities in which this book 
lore seemed lacking, there were few 
_ in which I did not find a structure to 
which I could not, at first, give aname. 
In the large cities these buildings were 
numerous and must have been raised 
up at great cost to Earth’s people. I 
found that they were used neither as 
dwellings, nor storehouses, nor yet as 
places of shelter, or for dispensing of 
necessities, for no mark of use was on 
their velvet carpets or carven door- 
ways. They seemed formed for the 
eye alone and as if to overawe, perhaps 
to intimidate the people. How else 
came they to be raised up in such 
numbers. Truly it passeth all compre- 
hension and is difficult of understand- 
ing. 
“I spent much time in one of the 
grandest of these structures amid the 
ornaments of gold, the silver chancel, 
great organ and hangings of priceless 
worth. At last, I understood, they 
had been raised as temporary abiding . 
places, in which the people might wor- 
ship their Gods.at stated intervals. I 
found no two of these temples whose 
devotees professed quite the same 
belief, but a general resemblance ran 
through all. In very many, I found 
the Bible a great book, telling the 
religious history of the ages, and most 
sweetly of all, the story of one Christ, 
a Nazarene who lived in the latter 
part of the age of Man. Wherever 
the Bible had gone, there I found 
greater stores of learning and marks 
of progress. Every where, in song 
and story, was repeated the life of the 
pure hearted loving man, Jesus Christ. 
Though many were the opinions held 
of him, there was always the same 
uniform deference paid to his goodness 
and truth and to the wisdom of his 
teachings. 
“But my surprise may be imagined 
when I say that in all Earth’s cities 
and towns, I found unmistable signs 
of poverty and misery. In the books 
I read of little children, fatherless and 
motherless, cold and half-starved, ex- 
isting everywhere. Motbers, worn 
and broken-backed, bent over tasks of 
hardest labor. 
“These things were admitted and 
in many cases but slightly noticed. 
And, wherefore, asked I, come the 
erand temples to the God they wor- 
ship and to the man; Jesus Christ, 
while such abundance of sorrow and 
poverty are tolerated. 
“Jn truth, I can find no way in 
which to associate all this grandeur 
with the life of the Christ as I read of 
him, and the fact that he walked bare- 
foot and suffering through his native 
land in the hope of showingto others 
the sympathy that fellow suffering 
alone can show. That these grand 
temples should have been built to carry 
on or exemplify the teachings of this 
11 
meek and lowly man, and that the 
men and women who professed to be 
his followers should have taken this 
means while claiming to be reasonable 
beings, passes comprehension. But I 
must not indulge in speculation and 
will relate further of what I have 
learned. 
“The records of art and storehouse 
showed, beyond a doubt, that millions 
of these people toiled in an almost 
hopeless condition, having few com- 
forts above the beasts of the fields, 
and near to the great temples this 
degradation was often most apparent. 
“ That their Christ had failed of his 
mission, that time would not change 
the condition of things for these 
temple-building idolators, did not seem 
to occur to many of their writers, so 
the hope that from so wrongful a 
course, at last some good would come, 
had sustained the people. ° 
‘‘T have yet to search through the 
archives of this dead world for what 
may throw more of light, and another 
time may reveal what I have failed to 
learn ; but alas ! for the Christians who 
know not Christ, and Alas! for the 
victims of an old delusion. 
* * * 
““T awoke or ceased my dreaming 
for it was a waking dream. I had 
found a reason for the feeling that had 
stolen into my mind as I sat in the 
great temple in Boston, the light from 
the stained glass windows falling over 
me and over the great congregation 
sitting stiff and unreal in the rank and 
file of the gloomy pews. 
‘“‘ Nowhere did I get a glimpse of the 
Christ, not even in the music of the 
intoned prayer, from which all trace of 
naturalness had been carefully elimi- 
nated. I thought of Scotland’s poet, 
and the brave words of his psalm. 
“Compared to this how poor religion’s pride, 
In all the pomp of method and of art, 
Where men display to congregations wide, 
Devotion’s every gift, except the heart.” 
“T could have answered my own 
question, now. It was not Christlike, 
not what the teacher of Nazareth 
would recognize, could he visit our 
city today. It wasall forced, all wrong, 
all overlaid with form and ritualism, 
and I gladly turned in thought to my 
little home church where at least a 
trace of the old idea remained.”’ 
“Clasp, angel of the backward look, 
The leather covers of thy book. 
Life broadens in these latter days, 
The century’s aloe flowers today.” 
| JOB PRINTING 
OF EVERY DESCRIPTION 
North Shore BREEZE | 
PULSIFER’S BLOCK 
Manchester, Mass. 
