African Camp Fires | Page 4

by pursuit; that is only a
cheating counterfeit, in guilt and tinsel, which dazzles our eyes in the
ever receding future. No; happiness is a state of life; and it comes only
to those who do each day's work peaceful self-forgetfulness, and a calm
trust in the Giver of all good for the blessing that lies stored for each
one prepared to receive it in every hour of the coming time."
"Who so does each day's work in a peaceful self-forgetfulness and
patient trust in God?" I said, turning my eyes away from the now
tranquil face of Mrs. Mayflower.
"Few, if any, I fear," she answered; "and few, if any, are happy. The
common duties and common things of our to-days look so plain and
homely in their ungilded actualities, that we turn our thought and
interest away from them, and create ideal forms of use and beauty, into
which we can never enter with conscious life. We are always losing the
happiness of our to-days; and our to-morrows never come."
I sighed my response, and sat for a long time silent. When the tea bell
interrupted me from my reverie, Arty lay fast asleep on my bosom. As I
kissed him on his way to his mother's arms, I said,--
"Dear baby! may it be your first and last pursuit of a shadow."
"No--no! Not yet, my sweet one!" answered Mrs. Mayflower, hugging
him to her heart. "Not yet. We cannot spare you from our world of
shadows."

II.

IN THE WAY OF TEMPTATION.

MARTIN GREEN was a young man of good habits and a good conceit
of himself. He had listened, often and again, with as much patience as
he could assume, to warning and suggestion touching the dangers that
beset the feet of those who go out into this wicked world, and become
subject to its legion of temptations. All these warnings and suggestions
he considered as so many words wasted when offered to himself.
"I'm in no danger," he would sometimes answer to relative or friend,
who ventured a remonstrance against certain associations, or cautioned
him about visiting certain places.
"If I wish to play a game of billiards, I will go to a billiard saloon," was
the firm position he assumed. "Is there any harm in billiards? I can't
help it if bad men play at billiards, and congregate in billiard saloons.
Bad men may be found anywhere and everywhere; on the street, in
stores, at all public places, even in church. Shall I stay away from
church because bad men are there?"
This last argument Martin Green considered unanswerable. Then he
would say,--
"If I want a plate of oysters, I'll go to a refectory, and I'll take a glass of
ale with my oysters, if it so pleases me. What harm, I would like to
know? Danger of getting into bad company, you say? Hum-m!
Complimentary to your humble servant! But I'm not the kind to which
dirt sticks."
So, confident of his own power to stand safely in the midst of
temptation, and ignorant of its thousand insidious approaches, Martin
Green, at the age of twenty-one, came and went as he pleased, mingling
with the evil and the good, and seeing life under circumstances of great
danger to the pure and innocent. But he felt strong and safe, confident
of neither stumbling nor falling. All around him he saw young men
yielding to the pressure of temptation and stepping aside into evil ways;
but they were weak and vicious, while he stood firm-footed on the rock
of virtue!
It happened, very naturally, as Green was a bright, social young man,
that he made acquaintances with other young men, who were frequently
met in billiard saloons, theatre lobbies, and eating houses. Some of
these he did not understand quite as well as he imagined. The vicious,

who have ends to gain, know how to cloak themselves, and easily
deceive persons of Green's character. Among, these acquaintances was
a handsome, gentlemanly, affable young man, named Bland, who
gradually intruded himself into his confidence. Bland never drank to
excess, and never seemed inclined to sensual indulgences. He had,
moreover, a way of moralizing that completely veiled his true quality
from the not very penetrating Martin Green, whose shrewdness and
knowledge of character were far less acute than he, in his self-conceit,
imagined.
One evening, instead of going with his sister to the house of a friend,
where a select company of highly-intelligent ladies and gentleman were
to meet, and pass an evening together, Martin excused himself under
the pretence of an engagement, and lounged away to an eating and
drinking saloon, there to spend an hour in smoking, reading the
newspapers, and enjoying a glass of ale, the desire for which was fast
growing