Life, Death, and Love.

A man whose greatness had brought him fame and wealth lay on his death-bed. A woman clasped his hands, and with her kisses, and words of love, strove to soothe his dying agonies.

Many years ago this man and this woman were made husband and wife, and side by side they started upon life’s journey. Youth, love, and hope gave them strength. No other possessions had they, yet the future was full of promise.

The man gloried in his majestic manliness. Health made him a marvel of noble beauty. His frame was of iron, his muscles were of steel, and his brain was clean and vigorous as the sturdy heart that throbbed in his rugged breast. Success—which is another term for wealth and fame—came to him as certainly as it always does to the brave and strong. Who was there that did not admire the manliness of his art?

But in the years that followed this success, the man neglected the woman, his wife. Dazzled by the glory of his triumphs, his eyes were blind to the beauty, the loyalty, and the sweetness of her love. Perhaps he thought the woman whom the sturdy, unknown youth had taken to his heart was unworthy to share the fruits of the great and honored man’s conquests. But he put her away: in all charity let it be said the wrong came not from 223an evil heart, but from the false glitter by which an unparalleled prosperity blinded his eyes, and turned his head.

To this wrong succeeded a greater. Women who knew not the sweetness and sacredness of purity, openly and wantonly gloried in his unholy homage. And into this popular idol’s life, there crept a shame that meant inevitable and irretrievable ruin.

Who counted the tears, who heard the agonized prayers, of the heart-broken wife in all the years of this proud, strong man’s exaltation? That divine, almighty Power that has written in every human bosom this eternal truth,—that he who puts a stain upon his hearthstone, and violates a wifely love, shall pay a sure and dreadful penalty.

So it came to pass that at the very height of his glory, and in the full possession of his powers, an awful retribution came upon the great, strong man. The shame of his splendid life had planted its poisons thick and deep, and the ruin was complete. A cloud fell upon the strong man’s reason, and his majestic frame crumbled and withered with disease. Where, then, were his flatterers, and where the comely sirens that with their false charms had allured him from his hearthstone? At the first warning of impending ruin they disappeared, like sunbeams before the advance of a thunder-cloud. Where was his fame now? where his greatness, the world’s homage, the power of 224riches? All gone, all dissipated, or, at least, as futile against the hand of divine retribution as the winds that play around the tops of the everlasting hills.

From a living dream whose horrors we may never know, the shattered, enfeebled man awakened one day. The cloud was lifted from his brain; and, ere he went to his last judgment, his eyes looked once more for a short moment upon the woman he had so grievously wronged. She, woman that she was! came with forgiveness on her lips, and love in her broken heart, to minister to him in his last moments; to bear him back to the hearthstone he had abandoned. He felt her arms about his neck, and the death-damp on his brow was warmed by her caresses.

Then, at last, we may suppose, this mighty wreck—this shattered fabric of human idolatry—saw and felt the incomparable sweetness and grandeur of wifely love. At least, we are told he stretched out his hands to her as though he pleaded for forgiveness. His lips moved; but from them there came no sound, as if inexorable retribution decreed he should not tell that gentle, noble wife how sweetly her love soothed him. But we are told his eyes were fixed steadily upon hers, and we know—yes, we know it well—they spoke tenderly and reverently to her, and pleaded, oh, so earnestly! for her love and compassion. We know, too, that all the love and compassion the dying great man craved 225was given freely—ay, even before his trembling hands and pleading eyes reached out for it.

Such is thy charity, O godlike womanhood! and in its sweetness and tenderness and purity, God grant we all may live and die!